MARISSA BOSTICK | INTERIM OPINIONS ED.

Dancing is not just about hitting your counts; it is about living and breathing the music. To dance is to express yourself or tell a story like no one else can.

Lifetime’s Dance Moms shows the weekly coming and goings of about nine budding dancers. Each girl is pitted against each other in pursuit to bring glory to the Abby Lee Dance Company.

There is nothing wrong with a little competition but if all they do is practice, what happens to their childhoods?

Abby Lee Miller’s company does not create dancers with passion; it creates dancers that hunt after gold trophies and blue ribbons.

These girls are not nurtured into being works of moving art, but rather robots systematically doing counts.

Abby Lee verbally abuses the young impressionable girls if the smallest move is not to her liking.

Their personal feelings just do not appear to matter at all to Abby.

That is just not right.

People make mistakes all the time and are forgiven. However, whenever they make mistakes the dancers are chastised and degraded.

Though Abby Lee is mostly to blame for what is sure to be a psychotic based breakdown later on in life, you cannot forget about the mothers.

The dance moms whom the show is named after also push their girls to their limits.

Instead of pushing their daughters just enough to light a fire under them they’re pushed to be the definition of perfect.

Abby’s toughness will create strong professional dancers, but at what cost?

The Abby Lee Miller Dance Company does have one constructive thing in place, a pyramid to show whom the top dancer is.

The pyramid, however, is mainly used as another tool to tear the girls down.

As Abby goes through the pyramid she raises the dancers self-esteem and then brings it right back down only to thrust them right into rehearsal.

God forbid the dance company faces what seems to be their nemesis, The Candy Apple Dance Company.

Abby turns into more of a monster then usual with the girls taking on this assault.

How the girls are treated is simply barbaric. It’s mind boggling how any of this isn’t considered child abuse.

Perhaps due to dance moms being a reality show people consider these events a reality of society.

Even Kelly Hyland of Dance Moms admits Abby sucks the life out of her own child.

Abby isn’t all to blame though, if Kelly can admit Abby is a succubus then why does she continue to let the verbal abuse ensue?

Yes, Abby is a bully, but these women are adults that need to stop letting the show go to their heads.

Trying to find a villain in this show is like looking for the worst of the worst: you may find a winner, but they’re all bad.

Very rarely does this show have feel good moments and when it does it never makes up for the overall toxicity.

When the girls win, are they genuinely happy? Or are they happy because they met expectations?

Dancers are things of beauty and grace, so why do the girls of Dance Moms seem so much like automatons?