As a competitive dancer, we often get the question “is competitive dance anything like Dance Moms?” and the answer is…not quite.
“Dance Moms” is a reality TV show, and despite the name it is known to be heavily manufactured to produce a certain result that can make someone look like they were in the wrong in an argument they did not start. The producers of “Dance Moms” need certain conflicts to occur in each episode for the show to remain entertaining.
In real life, dancers do not have reality TV show producers telling us to argue with the person standing to our right. While we cannot control the fights our moms have, we attempt to resolve conflict to the best of our ability.
An aspect the producers of “Dance Moms” seem to believe is non-existent would be levels of skill. Novice dancers have little to no experience, and are expected to have basic concepts of technique in dance. Intermediate dancers have more than a few years of experience but tumbling is also allowed in this category. Advanced dancers are expected to have close to professional level routines that include but are not limited to multiple turn sequences and complex tumbling tricks.
I’m pretty convinced that the producers of Dance Moms do not know the difference between category winners and overall winners. The difference between category winners and overall winners is that category winners are determined by the style of dance that is being performed. For example if I competed in an advanced jazz small group and won category winner, I would be competing against the other jazz group dances in the division. If I was an overall winner, I would be competing against the other group dances in the advanced division. Since the show makes no effort to distinguish between the two, it results in simplifying the nature of competitive dance.
“Dance Moms” combining overall winners and category winners into one thing paints the competition world as more simplistic than it actually is. Which can cause confusion for young girls who want to join competitive dance from watching the show.
No matter how impactful “Dance Moms” has been on the competitive dance world, it does significantly simplify many aspects about competitions and creates a large divide between reality and television.
