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.

When do the schools go back? These threads are tedious.

"She"'s also said further on she is definitely pulling the daughter out. That was quick...

Presumably the parents of the girls doing Chicago were well aware of the costumes?

I agree some dances are way over the top and sexualised for young girls and it makes uncomfortable watching.

The charge for drop of is appalling, I’d approach the owners of the industrial estate.

"The late Middle English word center came before the Old French centre (pronounced “saunt” in French). It began to refer to “the middle of something” in the 16th century, and center was Shakespeare’s preferred spelling as well, as it turned up ten times in his plays (centre appears only once). However, the French-inspired centre became the British spelling convention in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially after British writer Samuel Johnson included centre in his 1755 Dictionary of the English Language."

Education is a wonderful thing. "Centre" is the one that "crept in". American English is generally truer to the etymological origins.

Good to see Muphry got you though.

We simply changed dance schools. Easy enough.

DD does dance and martial arts. Brilliant combination.

Could I suggest taking a deep breath and letting the spelling observations slide 😉

Whether this is true or not, for anyone looking for a dance school that is strict about modesty and appropriateness for children, IME Cecchetti ballet teaching does this.

I’d also look for a school that rarely does competitions, and look at it a social media to see if only the same few feature or if lots of children of various body shapes are shown.

If they do GCSEs will they be regulated by Ofsted? That might be the place to report it to

Just leave if you are not happy. Not worth the angst of complaining.

To be honest if it’s a genuinely high standard dance school then a good number of the 15/16 year old girls will be going to dance college in September. They will be expected to be able to dance in heels and be able to dance in all styles including musicals and dance video content. What you’re saying isn’t unusual. I assume the parents had all seen (and paid for) the costume before the show. You can remove your DD but leave it to the other parents to parent their children.

I understand why you feel uncomfortable.

It's possible for teen students to learn how to dance in heels without performing overly sexualised routines.

The dance school filmed it themselves last night for a dvd to sell (which is something else that makes me feel uncomfortable!)

That said, when I was a kid I was active in dance - nothing like this, it was skilled, not titillating and we wore proper clothes! - the man who ran the videography business that would record it got done for having indecent child images on his computer:

I think there is a massive difference between schools though. Standalone ballet schools seem much less likely to be doing that sort of show. There are definitely some dance schools locally that are much more keen on the mega makeup and gyrating style of dance and I avoided them for my children.

My 4 year old recently did her first ballet show. I found it super creepy for some reason. Won’t be taking her back.

I'm in the south. This is a 'proper' dance school that does all the exams, they do GCSES and A levels in their centre too

So for the Jazz piece they danced the Chicago musical wearing ...the Chicago costume.
It is a musical . It is dance. It is fun.

Gosh, don't go to an Art Gallery or the British museum, it is full of naked women.

Move her if you don't like the tone of the school.
How do the older girls feel?
Often they get a say in their dance routines. Perhaps they like Chicago. Perhaps they love Moulin Rouge.

Over the decades appropriate costumes for dance, gymnastics, skating, athletics and especially swimming at the beach have changed and become more revealing. The febrics are usually more synthetic and stronger than in the past though - not see through and the tights are of good quality.

My daughters chose small high jump costumes in secondary school and loved their ballet costumes - the more theatrical and enegetic the dance, the better.. Their teenage friends wore string bikinis which were skimpier.

Visit the concerts of a few other schools and see if another appeals more to your daughter's sense of modesty.

I take your point ,I would have not been happy either. However as pp said some of the girls will be expected to dance in heels and they are not in a strip club,but performing a well known routine from a film . The 20.00 drop off sounds like a scam to me

Having not seen Shakespeare sauntering around the South bank recently, I am assuming we are in 2024 not 1594. The current correct spelling is centre.

.... Flashdance, an 80s movie - I know it well, i was born in the 70s. My children are all under 18.

? What did you mean to say

Why are you visiting strippers in Las Vegas?

I appreciate my grooming comment was a bit much, I was feeling a bit het up last night 😂

Tbh it's the last straw imo with this school. There's such a mindset of hero worship, snootiness, snobbiness, arrogance, superiority. I think it's so damaging for these girls mentally, and in a time when we should be teaching resilience and ownership of their bodies it just makes me so sad. The over sexualisation starting at 14 is just soooo inappropriate in the current climate when parents are already battling social media and our girls growing up quickly.

My daughter started at this school during Covid, she loves dance but has bought into the whole thing, it's almost like a mini cult and she hates any kind of criticism of the way they do things. As I mentioned to a pp she went through a horrific period of school bullying last year and it was the thing that kept her going so I felt like I couldn't rock her world further by pulling her out of the school.

I danced a lot as a kid and it was nothing like this. Yes we wore leotards but not suspenders and bras on a stage. Again as another pp said there were so many dads, grand dads and brothers in the audience last night and they must have not known where to look.

No. OP can report anonymously to NSPCC or Children's Services. They will then investigate. I think this is what OP is asking. No need to even mention to other parents. Simply pulling own daughter out does not help the other girls either.

My dd was in one like this, they had 4 year olds paraded out to tap dance to "every girl wants a sailor" music in sailor outfits and trained to do winks to the crowd, then ballet dance to Chaz and Dave's London girls. The woman who runs it spent all year focusing on costume design leaving the teaching to 15 year olds. They charged to see the show and then £25 for the recording of the show. More money for costumes etc.

I pulled DD out after one show and she now goes to a dance place where they wear leggings and t shirts and focus on dancing rather than nylon costumes and make up.

I felt a bit sorry for the woman who did run the awful one. It was like she was stuck in the past and couldn't see that most parents nowadays wouldn't want what she was doing. The school is suffering financially as a result. She is a well trained dancer so it's a shame really.

I remember flashdance and my kids aren't "grown ass".

They have these things now where you can watch films from the past again, called streaming services too, you'd be amazed how many old things people have watched.