Everything I Learned About Life, I Learned in Dance Class (22 page)

Abby

BALANCING DANCE AND SCHOOLWORK

There are so many more alternative ways of educating your child today than were available when I was a kid. You need to gather information and investigate your options. I think a lot of time is wasted at school—waiting in line to get on the bus, and then riding the bus home, and stopping at every neighborhood along the way. Waiting in line to go to the cafeteria, buying your lunch, eating your lunch, and giggling with your girlfriends.

A big story line on
Dance Moms
this season has been about Melissa’s choice to homeschool her children, Maddie and Mackenzie. Well, let me say my piece. I grew up in Pennsylvania and I am a firm believer in our public education system. However, we have a very strict attendance policy in our public schools. Take it from the kid who grew up with allergies and asthma, who had bronchitis for all of September and October one year, and got to school late with Vicks VapoRub still on her chest. The policy is: thirty days absent and you fail. How would Maddie and Mackenzie, these exemplary students, fly to L.A. to audition for a movie? How would they spend weeks recording a CD? And how would they take additional classes that their school doesn’t offer?

Also, nobody is letting Melissa teach her children anything, not even Men 101. When I pitched the idea of an alternative education for Maddie and Mackenzie, I proposed that Melissa take the girls to the Carnegie library daily. Have a Carnegie Mellon University computer-engineering major teach them math, science, and computer lessons. Then have a scholarship student from Spain teach them Spanish and another from Japan instruct them in Japanese. Obviously, a professor from the renowned musical-theater program would teach them history and English, and give acting lesson too.

On the other hand, academic professors say that from kindergarten through fifth grade, every kid should attend school so they learn how to stand in line at the water fountain, how to go through the lunch line, and how to put things back where they found them. This is where they learn how to get along well with others. You learn all of these important things in school, just like in the baby class at dancing school.

If your kid is going to a traditional public or private school, take time to figure out if he or she is in the right class. Did the AP Calculus teacher happen to see your daughter in the hallway and ask her to join his class because he thinks she has what it takes? Does this scenario ring a bell? Did you, as the parent, call the guidance counselor and request that your daughter be placed in the AP Calculus class? If your child takes four hours to do her homework each night, she’s in the wrong class, because the curriculum was designed for a child who can handle that class. Someone who would only take thirty minutes to do the same homework.

Some of the kids at my studio are homeschooled and some attend the Cyber Charter School, which is an online educational program. I have a recent graduate who’s nineteen and he was cyberschooled. Things got bad for him when he was in junior high and had a medical issue. It was much easier for him to sit at a computer in the comfort of his home. It made more sense in his case. Now he’s on Broadway in the cast of
Newsies
, doing eight shows a week.

As far as balancing their education with dance, you would find that most overachievers and perfectionists do it all. If they’re really on the ball at dance, then they’re generally on the ball academically as well. If they’re lazy, they simply aren’t going to do it. I think time management, which their parents should teach them, is important.

Do the mothers have a job, a husband, children, get supper on the table, get the kids where they need to be, and make cupcakes for the next day? It’s up to parents to teach their children good work ethics and responsibility. If you live it, then your children will learn it. I guarantee it!

Dear Abby:

I’m twelve years old and all I want to do is dance, but my parents want me to take lots of other lessons, like piano and tennis. How can I convince them not to make me do that???

I would figure out some way to outsmart your parents. Bang on that piano as loud as you can early in the morning and late at night. And there’s only so many times you can forget your tennis racket before the coach is going to tell your mom and dad that he or she doesn’t want you as a student. So drive with your mom all the way to practice, get out, and announce that you forgot your racket or tennis shoes or whatever it is you need to play. The coach is going to say, “She’s not serious, we don’t want her here,” and then you’ll be free to dance.

Don’t get me wrong—I think there are a variety of activities out there that can make you a better dancer. Playing piano is helpful for your dancing because it teaches you musicality and teaches you how to read sheet music and understand the music you’re dancing to better. You might want to squeeze in a piano lesson once a week. If you want to excel in dance, then my advice is to avoid sports that work against you. Track-and-field activities make your feet go straight ahead, which works against your turnout and this goes against what you’re trying to do in ballet class. Long-distance running is hard on the knees too. Stick to sports that are educational and that you can do for the rest of your life, such as golf.

Abby

ABBY’S ULTIMATE ADVICE

Three Key Points to Remember

1. Luck is that place where preparation meets opportunity. Work hard and be prepared when opportunity comes knocking—it may be a while before it comes back for another visit!

2. Start your kids in dance young, and help them find their passion. Encourage them to dream big dreams, and give them the tools they need to pursue them.

3. Find the best dance instructor and the best dance studio for your child—don’t settle for second best (or worse).

GRANDE FINALE

You’re Only as Good as Your Last Performance

I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

—Audrey Hepburn

I WISH I HAD
a crystal ball and could tell the future like Zoltar in the Tom Hanks film
Big
—or like the fortune-teller who read my aura at that charity event a bunch of years ago—but I don’t, and I can’t. I do know that I’ve worked very hard to get where I am today, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon. I have even bigger plans for the future, and I can’t wait to see how everything turns out five, ten, and twenty years from now.

There’s one thing I do know for sure: I don’t want to die in Pittsburgh.

Nobody wants to die in Pittsburgh. I cannot die in Pittsburgh and that’s the honest-to-God truth. I can’t go down that way. So when I look ahead to my own future, I see myself doing something that will take me to another part of the country. For example, I would like to design dance costumes for the masses, and also design a line of children’s clothing. I see myself living in Orlando or Miami, or even in Los Angeles—wherever the work takes me. I know that the place I eventually move to has got to be hot and sunny. If I want snow I’ll go to Steamboat Springs, Aspen, or someplace where it’s white and pretty—not gray, dirty, and slushy like the stuff I pay to have removed from my parking lot.

I cannot believe that I’ll be fifty soon. I have a while before I hit that frightening number, but it’s astonishing to me that I have been on this earth that long. I just hope I accomplish what I was put here on this earth to do. I feel I’m working on it, and I will continue to always do more and do it better.

I love the idea of having a talk show called
Abby Said!
I hate to drop names, but I’m starting with Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand—on the same day on the same couch together. That would be surreal. Of course I would book Tom Cruise and John Travolta, providing they would do their signature moves on the show. I need to see John Travolta do that walk from
Saturday Night Fever
in the flesh and Tom Cruise slide across the stage in his underwear doing his routine from
Risky Business
.

I wouldn’t book too many women, but Whoopi Goldberg would be a definite must, along with Broadway babes like Chita Rivera and Ann Reinking. I would want to interview Ben Affleck and Matt Damon together but without their wives. I want the scoop, the real dirt on what happened. And I would have lots of people from the dance industry.

One thing I’ve discovered is that it’s a big wide world out there. I’ve been to Elton John’s Oscar-viewing party three years running and the Tony Awards three times as well. I’ve also been to the
American Idol
finals, the Teen Choice Awards, and the Emmys. Next on my list is the Grammys, and any other award show I can get into.

That’s been a perk of the show that’s been huge. All the fans are taking photos of all the celebrities, and the celebrities want to take
my
picture because
their
kids watch the show. I have to give a shout-out to Jennifer Lawrence—congrats on your Oscar! On the red carpet going in for the awards ceremony she mentioned
Dance Moms
.

I would also like to work toward getting dance back into the schools. It’s no secret that performing arts programs—from drama, to music, to dance—have been severely cut back or killed altogether because of budget concerns. Today everything is about getting the best test scores possible—the academics. But there’s more to life than academics, and cutting back on the arts is, I believe, doing a huge disservice to our children and to the future of our nation.

I think every child should dance, boys and girls, whether they’re in private or public school. I think some kids learn differently and you get exceptional kids in the arts, and to cut all these programs, we’re going to miss out on youngsters who could have been great. They’ll end up frustrated artists with dead-end jobs with no hope of living out their passion in life. They’ll be doing something they hate when they should have been doing something they
love
.

In America, most kids have a lot of freedom to choose what they want to do, and often they choose the wrong thing. They waste time and money, and end up being a failure even though Mom and Dad tell them that they’re fantastic. The kid who’s born with a perfect dancer’s body who should be a dancer may want to play soccer. That kid probably isn’t going to end up supporting his family as a professional soccer player. He’ll end up doing something else when he could have been a great dancer.

I think it’s important to keep the dance programs in school, and for every child to learn how to dance and to experience live theater—to go to a show where people are performing onstage. It’s an education that will pay off for years to come, and it just might lead to the career of a lifetime.

Wherever my future takes me, I know that success will follow. How can I be so certain? Because I always set my barre high and I refuse to give up and I will never back down. I will work harder than anyone else, fight harder than anyone else, and reach higher than anyone else—that’s one thing I can guarantee. It’s just the way my parents raised me, and I’m not going to change anytime soon.

Something one of my best students, Katie Hackett, said about me sticks close to my heart. She said, “Everything that Abby wanted for all of us has happened for her.”

It’s always been about my students, about turning them into accomplished dancers who could get a job at the highest levels of the profession. My own success is a reflection of their success. As I see my students go on to exciting, lucrative careers on the stage, and on television and in films, I know that I have done everything that I can do to help them along the way. I’m proud of them, and I hope they are now proud of me.

It’s true: everything that I have ever wanted for my students is now happening to me. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings for all of us!

I want all of my students to buy this book, but there are a few things I’d rather they didn’t know.

The first would be that I fell asleep while seeing Elvis live and in person. This wasn’t some corny Elvis impersonator at some rinky-dink county fair; no this was THE Elvis Presley, in person in Las Vegas. We went to this swanky supper club that seats a thousand people. Of course my dad, the big spender, tipped the maître d’ way too much money so that we could get a table right down in front. I was about seven or eight years old and I certainly knew who Elvis was because of all his classics, which I’d heard at dancing school. “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “Hound Dog” held my interest for a while, but I think the hours spent in the hot desert sun combined with the heavy dose of chlorine from an afternoon dip in the pool took the swivel right out of my hips. After a few too many Shirley Temples, I had my head flat down on the table and was sound asleep.