Everything I Learned About Life, I Learned in Dance Class (19 page)

We do not live in a selfish world. We live in a world where you must think of others. For so many people, it’s all about them. Forget about everybody else! What if you’re in a group routine that has partners and there are twelve kids? Suddenly you quit and there are only eleven kids. What does the kid without a partner do now?

I believe that you have to give kids the wings to fly. Start off small, make sure that you can trust them (and if you’ve done a good job parenting, you can), then cut them a little slack. Or even better, cut them a
lot
of slack.

Dear Abby:

I’ve owned a dance studio for two years. I’m thinking about starting a competition team. What do you think attending competitions does for your studio?

Some studio owners have great recreation programs, with kids who come and have fun. Then they start a competition team and end up losing money and losing students because the kids don’t want all the extra rehearsals, the time commitment, the pressure to be better—they just want the sweatshirt, the jacket, and the glory. So the answer is, I think competition can be a great thing. It’s going to motivate your dancers to improve. It could help your business because students will want private lessons. They’ll want to come to extra classes and pay for rehearsals so they have the edge up at a competition. However, it could also be detrimental. You don’t want your students to see the studio down the street winning everything at a competition, because then they’ll end up there.

Abby

DON’T PUNISH YOUR KIDS BY TAKING AWAY THINGS THAT ARE GOOD FOR THEM

Years ago I used to have a lot of parents who would reprimand their children by taking dance classes away. If kids got bad grades on their report cards, Mom and Dad pulled them out of dance class, rushing them home to study. I always thought these parents were kind of dumb because they were paying for the kids to come to dance class yet punishing them by not letting them come to a class they’d already paid for. But not only were they punishing their kids, they were inadvertently punishing everybody else on the team too. You sign a contract that you’re going to pay for ten months from September to June, whether your kid comes or not. You can’t call and say your daughter is taking the month off until she gets her grades up. The child needs to know that her grades have to stay up in order to be in these activities. That’s part of the commitment.

Also, you’re punishing your kids by taking away something that could be their future. They might have been destined to become a professional dancer someday, and here you’re taking away that possibility through punishment. Kids love what comes easy. Not everybody is book smart. Not everybody is a scholar. It takes all types to make the world go around. You need to look at dance from all angles and realize that. I’ve had many parents tell me that the investment they made in dance—for tuition, costumes, traveling, and competition—could have paid for college. I’m sure that’s true, but not every kid’s best path is to go directly to college after he or she graduates from high school.

From ninth grade to their senior year, when your kids are dancing twenty hours a week,
that
is their future. They’re already working toward their first dance job right out of high school. They’ve already put those years in and landed their first job on Broadway—their big break, making great money—while their friends are off at college and grad school. Dance is their first job, and it’s a vocation that they must take seriously. That’s why I say, “Don’t punish your kids by taking away things that are good for them.”

ABBY LEE DANCE COMPANY WORKING DANCERS

Dear Abby:

I run a dance studio and have one student who never makes it to class on time and almost never comes in the appropriate dancewear no matter how many times I remind the parents. I really see potential in this young dancer and don’t want to lose her as a student. Do you have any suggestions?

I know you have compassion for this child, but unfortunately there are many children with potential. Does she have parental support? That’s the big question. I wish I could switch moms and kids around at my studio sometimes. In your case, I think giving her a gift of a brand-new leotard and tights would be nice, and arranging for a ride with another student could be helpful. But remember—sometimes the kids you do the most for are the ones who kick you in the ass in the end.

Abby

A CONTRACT IS A CONTRACT

In the Abby Lee Dance Company contract, things like dyeing your hair, piercing your face, and getting a tattoo are
not
okay. Through my contract, I am trying to teach my kids what is acceptable in the dance world. If you go for an audition or a job, whether it’s to be in a commercial or a marketing campaign, you’re hired based on your photo. If you show up looking completely different, with a different hair cut and a different hair color from what you had in the photo, they won’t use you. Also, if you’re hired at a certain weight so that you fit into a costume and then you drop twenty pounds, they won’t use you anymore because you’re swimming in a costume that is just too big.

It’s the same with being a Rockette. If they lose or gain more than fifteen pounds, they’re put on a list to be watched. They could be fined because they won’t fit into the costume. You’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of satin, sequins, and rhinestones that have to be altered if you lose or gain too much weight. Whether it’s a lease or a rental agreement, you have to teach your offspring to respect contracts and follow them—unlike dance mom Christi, who is teaching her daughter a different philosophy.

If the contract says you can’t perform our choreography anywhere outside the studio or at competitions and you have your daughter doing our choreography all over the place to make money, what are you teaching her? Parents who disregard contracts are training their kids to skip out on their lease in the middle of the night when they get their first apartment. That’s what you’re teaching them.

Selling cookies is part of your contract with the Girl Scouts. You don’t turn the cookies back in and say you couldn’t sell them. What if everybody did that? Like the kid who is the star player on the Pop Warner football team. While the rest of the team is selling candy bars to raise money, the star player, who is a natural athlete, doesn’t sell anything. If the contract reads that you have to sell a certain number of candy bars in order to play, then you should have to sell those candy bars or get benched and not be allowed to play. If the superstar player gets to play even if he doesn’t sell anything, this is teaching the young player that he can break contracts, and that’s not okay in my book.

If there’s a contract set forth, it must be signed and honored by all involved. Although you don’t want to be a tattletale, teach your children that if they see someone breaking a contract, it’s important that they bring it to the attention of the authorities.

Parents who lie about a kid’s age are putting the integrity of the coach, the teacher, or the president of the club in jeopardy, and could possibly ruin the career that professional has worked so hard for. You’re really playing with fire. If a wrestler is lying about his weight class, this could ruin his coach’s career. You should always take contracts seriously and teach your children at a young age that, for example, this piece of paper says you’re going to pick up your toys and if you don’t do that, then there will be consequences. If they don’t pick up their toys, then Mommy goes to the drawer to get the paper out and says, “Look, this is what you agreed to, and you aren’t holding up your end of the deal.” I don’t think parents want to raise young adults who are going to treat society with disrespect and try to weasel out of commitments. We don’t need any more of that in the world.

Dear Abby:

I am a teacher at a dance studio and I have one parent who is causing a lot of trouble because she feels her daughter should be moved to a higher-level class. I really feel this student would benefit from a few more months, if not another year, at the level she’s at. What should I do to calm this mom down?

Parents always want their child to be in with older students or at a more advanced level. I don’t know why, but they do. I suggest you take the kid out of the group where she is currently, put her in the next advanced level, bury her in the back of the number, and be as tough on her as you are on the others so the mother realizes she can’t keep up. You may lose a student, but it may be worth it in the long run. Stick to your rules—always. No child is worth bending your rules for, because whether that child leaves because there’s another issue, problem, or conflict, or they leave when they’re eighteen on a happy note, they still leave.

Abby

ABBY’S LIFELINE AT LIFETIME

by Tim Nolan

My first introduction to Abby was not in person but by watching a behind-the-scenes video of a promo shoot my team was filming for
Dance Moms
. I’m lucky to run the marketing department for Lifetime and I take pride in my amazing creative team, so when I watched the shoot I was astonished to see how upset Abby was and thought she was being too harsh and difficult. Well, it was the lack of authenticity of the wardrobe and choreography that upset her, and I couldn’t argue that, but I still had the impression that she was difficult. That would soon change.

As I spent more time with Abby I began to appreciate her style. I love people who make me laugh, so when she asked me to fulfill one of her mother’s lifelong requests, how could I say no? Her mother, who was also passionate about dance, always wanted to go to the Tonys. So I worked my connections and was able to get four tickets—one each for Abby; her mom; my fiancé, Rudy; and me.

When the big night arrived, we went to pick them up at their hotel. We were all running late, not a great start! Everyone piled into the van, but the driveway of the hotel was jammed with traffic, and there was a taxi in front of us that was taking forever to load. I quietly began to worry we wouldn’t make it to the show in time, and while I stewed in my own panic, I watched Abby calmly roll down her window. Without a care in the world, she shouted to the taxi customers:

“Hey, are you guys going to the Tonys?”

They looked a bit shocked and shook their heads no.

So Abby shouts, “Well, we are and we’re late, so get out of the way!”

Rudy and I fell on the floor of our van laughing hysterically.

The taxi moved out of the way, and our two-block expedition began in earnest. We navigated the maze of one-way Manhattan streets, running into several blockades around Radio City Music Hall. At each blocked street, Abby rolled down her window and yelled at the cops working the corner. At one block it was “Hey—my mother is very sick and can’t walk. We need to use this street.” At another block, “It is imperative that I get to the Tonys—open this block!”

Now, NYC cops aren’t known for being courteous, so the fact that they smiled at her and let us pass was a shock to this New Yorker.

We pulled up front, stormed the doors, and ushered Abby’s mom to her seat—all in a flutter of autographs and photo ops. No sooner had we settled in, with me amazed we had made it at all, than Abby said, “Let’s go get a drink,” and back out to the lobby we went. I could barely keep up! More photos, more fans—“We love you!” “Can I have a pic?” “Abby, over here!”

I spent one night with Abby but I learned the lesson of a lifetime. I learned to embrace passion, have fun in life, and if people aren’t going where you want to go, tell them to get out of the way and move on. You will have a good time!