I feel like my daughters dance school is inappropriate

[grossedouteurgh]

Got back this evening from my daughter's dance school performance at the local arts center and was horrified.

Prefacing this by saying I have had a few issues in the past with what I feel is money grabbing (introduced a charge of £20 recently to drop kids off in the car park. Their studio is on an industrial estate - why?!! This only serves to put safety at risks/makes money).

Also feel they have such a feeling of superiority and favouritism at the school which I don't think is healthy to foster in teens and pre teens.

Anyway, got home this evening from the Easter dance show and literally feel sick. I've seen more clothes on moulin rouge dancers and the way they had them gyrating over the stage is just gross. I filmed some of it because it genuinely felt like a strip club, and if that was my daughter I'd be horrified (she's still in a class below).

I obviously won't share but we're talking flash dance style, suspenders, gyrating... from 15/16/17 y olds.

It made me feel so awful.

I guess the parents in this situation are brainwashed by the school and it's a step to the next thing?

What can I do? I don't want to let this lie.

I had exactly the same experience with my daughter. She was 5 at the time and the costumes and performance were fine for her age group. It seemed as though as the girls got older the costumes stayed the same size and flashed a lot of flesh! I enrolled her in a few different club free tasters of different styles of dance and sports and over a short period of time fazed out that original dance group. She moved onto gymnastics and absolutely loved it. I also said to the original dance club she couldn’t be on any future shows (without saying she was off) for the time we fazed it out.

Go with your gut instinct as a parent and leave the dance school.

Find another activity your children will enjoy - because let's face it, it's a learning skills activity - unless you wanted your child "discovered" or were planning an entertainment career for them.

And let's also face it. Those kids who are "discovered" are the ones who follow direction and do whatever the person in charge tells them to do.

I have to admit decades ago I took my eldest to ballet classes. I was totally appalled by the instructor egoes strutting around. Just the absolute tosh and petty pretentious dictator power they displayed.

Took daughter no.1 to Karate instead. She was awesome - and also learned more valuable self-defense skills (co-ordination, balance, katas, preparedness) than dancing could ever teach her.

I used to dance as a child and it was tasteful and modest. Kids had fun. I cringe now when I see 4 year olds and up in red lipstick and makeup with awful outfits and dancing to match. Young girls looking like something from a window in Amsterdam. Gives me the ick. I coach martial arts and had many girls turn up in full makeup after dance class wearing tight shorts disappearing up their wotsits, gyrating and slut dropping in the dojo. Sent to the toilets to wash their faces and change and told not to move about like that. As a female, it made me very uneasy yet their parents don’t see an issue? These are young children!!

try and find the It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode about the kids dance competition, both hilarious and spot on!

It's everywhere OP, everything is designed for the male gaze.
The boys won't be gyrating, just the girls.

Gymnastics in higher and higher leg costumes.

Volleyball in knickers when boys can play perfectly well in shorts.

Swimming in high leg bikinis when again, boys swimming fine in shorts.

It's packaged as female empowerment but most of the people at the top making the decisions are men.

I remember a few years back a local dance group at the village fete. 7 years upwards dancing to ‘let’s talk about sex!!

Why so rude? Ridiculous notion to think you have to be a certain age to know about things!

Really..🤨

i very much doubt this happened sorry

Send then an email to highlight your concerns. Arrange a meeting with the manager. See if other parents agree with you and will back you. Then vote with your feet and leave.

Coincidently, I've been having the same concerns this week.
Teenage dd has brought home costume for one of her dance pieces in up and coming show.
It's a red lacy nightie and fishnet tights. The song is about a prostitute....
Surely there are more suitable songs they could have danced to? Dd said its a show and it's acting. Dance teacher have asked if they're happy to dance to it.

Gymnastics in higher and higher leg costumes.
I dont know where you have got that from as BG changed policy many years ago to allow female competitors in domestic competitions to wear shorts or leggings. Another poster said that female gymnasts are taught to smile and 'flirt' . I can tell you as a qualified gymnastics judge that deductions are made for age innapropriate gestures/dance for heavy make up and for leotards not affording sufficient coverage.
I would also like to challenge the poster who lumped pole dancing in with stripping!
Pole dancing is fairly mainstream now and a competitive sport , with children and men participating.

Don’t get me started on what they’ve done in Irish dancing.. wigs etc.. horrifying ..

Yes, awful. Watched a documentary recently on it, its on Netflix I think. It was very bizarre, they looked like they were in an American beauty pagent.
I thought Irish dancing was very ethereal...

A lovely male friend of mine (very family orientated) told me how his young teen daughter was recently in a similar show at school, he was very shocked.

@BettyShagter 🙄

Was it chosen by the teens themselves? You only have to look at some of the girl groups and what they (don't) wear, prancing around in their streetwalker style see-through undies. If they chose a show, or dances that mimic'ed those, then the school are possibly genuinely grooming them for potential work. But, the school should have more sense of responsibility to guide these young minds. To me, the trend to overt sexualisation, is a backward step for women.

And yes, I agree with you YUK!. Find a better school.

The arts often attract pedos.

So I’m a liar and you feel the need to apologise for accusing me of such.

true story, happened around 20 years ago. whether You choose to believe or not. I’ve nothing to gain by making up tales..

So take your daughter out & let other parents worry about their daughters. End of, surely?
Skimpy costumes & gyrating aside, the dance school is hardly 'grooming' young girls!

I really don’t think you understand what the OP was saying there!

I've got it from a local gymnast class for kids where I had to drop off for someone a few times.
Asked her what that was all about and apparently it was so they could teach/judge better.

For competitions yes, but at local level, the owners call the shots.

Yes I do...that the OP had said she didn't want to remove her daughter.

"I don't feel like it's enough to pull my daughter out though"

It is grooming, in that it is setting sexualised norms for young girls. They may not have any other agenda than training young people to go into a highly sexual industry, but just look at some of the shows now where female costumes are nothing short of sex shows.

I know I am much older and therefore very old fashioned, but I shake my head in shame when I see groups like the Pussycat Dolls (who started the rot IMHO), Fifth Harmony and Flo and the influence of the Korean doll groups - which also have a bad influence on what it is normal to look like.

Gymnastics is bloody awful still, but female volleyball is in regular shorts and female swimmers all wear legsuits down to their knees now.

Such a shame you have to pull her from something she enjoys.

is there a dance school standards board? They would know how to help,

also, you need to get a group of parents with you - power in numbers!

If you get enough on your side, you could try and form a parent committee, with say in the choice of dances and costumes? If 10 parents said no, this is lewd they’d have to rethink it!