Growing up as a tiny tot who trained pre-professionally in the dance studio and attended dozens of dance competitions every year, Dance Moms was the formative show of my youth. If you were a dancer in the 2010s, you were also a Dance Moms expert, keeping up to date on the Abby Lee Dance Company fights each week. The dramatic Lifetime show has birthed several iconic internet memes and global stars that influence modern pop culture on the daily (*cough* Jojo Siwa). I was even lucky enough to compete against the original team during Season 2, Episode 17 and wrangle Maddie Ziegler, the it-girl of the dance scene, into taking a photo with me- which was my biggest bragging right as a comp kid. Now the beloved series has gained so much popularity that the network issued a reboot with a brand new team of ambitious kids, a demanding teacher, and a successful dance studio.
Dance Moms: A New Era just aired on August 7th, 2024 on Hulu, featuring seven young girls and their attached mothers on a Junior Elite competition team. Studio Bleu, a northern Virginia dance studio that once battled with the prior Abby Lee team, is taking the reality tv stage as the current leads of the comp world. Since my native state is also Virginia, I have personally witnessed the powerhouses of Studio Bleu performing and have remembered their studio as tough to beat. Due to my unique connection to the cast of the show, as I have seen both coach Glo Hampton and her ballerina daughter Kaeli irl, I was very excited to watch what creative dances she choreographs along with the drama that follows her. As a retired dancer (college life and whatnot) with 11 years of competition experience and 17 whole years of training expertise under my belt, here is my honest review of the show.
the moms are cray!
One thing about “Dance Moms” is that the producers love to find misbehaving, overbearing mothers to spotlight, hence the name is dance MOMS instead of dance kids. We have the whole variety of personalities on this panel: enabler mothers who pardon their children for their sour attitude, overconfident momma bears who flaunt their kid’s abilities, and those who are simply trying to survive within the chaos. They are a hot mess, in the utter best way, as that precise mayhem is what creates juicy reality tv! One episode I will loathe the same character that I cheered for in the prior one, and vice versa. In the beginning, I was skeptical that the new batch of dance moms was going to recreate the same essence of craziness as the original cast naturally had, but they managed to capture my attention. Smack downs, shadiness, and spite galore!
glo not as bad as ABby, but
I do not think any coach can exceed Abby Lee Miller’s absolutely destructive teaching techniques. Her unhinged outbursts towards elementary school children, her outlandish dance routine concepts, and her borderline abusive training actions are partially what attracted such a large cult following to the show. The current head coach Glo Hampton certainly is no Abby Lee, as she does not verbally berate kids or ignore political correctness, however she isn’t innocent. Alike many dance teachers, she heavily plays favorites to the most advanced dancer (does it count as nepotism if she lives in the customer’s basement?) and dishes out disproportionate critiques. She will put her deemed golden child, the ‘Maddie Ziegler’ of the new studio, on the top of the pyramid even when she is absent while discrediting another dancer who brought the team the trophy that week. The displaced anger and blame on the wrong people is rampant in this season. It’s giving when your high school English teacher favors the bullies of the class.
A+ choreography
Now onto the positive aspects of the show, as I cannot be a judgmental critic all the time (it’s in my dancer nature). As someone with a movement and music loving heart, I heavily enjoyed the artistry of the Studio Bleu choreography. Acclaimed for their exceptionally technical and flexible dancers paired with beautifully choregraphed moves make Studio Bleu so memorable (as I distinctly remember seeing them perform circa 2012). Also, witnessing such raw talented in such young upcoming individuals is always a pleasure and brings back sweet memories of my junior comp days. An ordinary viewer would not possess the background knowledge to assess how difficult some of these skills these kids executed, but I can appreciate how adept these 10 year olds are. I was in the novice category at that age!