Asia's dance style seems far too adult for me too, DameDiazepam - it's like watching the worst of Miley Cyrus, in an 8 year old!
Abby enrages me sometimes, the way she talks to the dancers and their mothers - she is a bully, imo. She takes out her frustrations with the mums on their children, and tries to drive a wedge between the girls and their mums - it's horrific to watch sometimes. I thought it was very telling indeed that when the Dance magazine came to do a day in the life of Maddy, Abby was totally different in class to the way she is usually - she knows how badly that would play, in the dance press - and yet she is happy to behave like that for the cameras - baffling. I suppose it has boosted her own profile and media career, and if she breaks a child or two in the process, doesn't care. The bit about refusing to call Chloe by her name, that SisterChristina mentioned - that was particularly dreadful.
I assume that the parents pay not only for the dance tuition, but I assume they must have to pay for the travel and the competition entry costs too - though it seems as if Abby supplies the costumes (and some of them cost amazing amounts of money - hundreds of dollars!).
Cathy does seem nicer, on the surface, than Abby, but the way she behaves at competitions - and the way she lets her dance parents behave - is atrocious - and that puts me firmly on ALDC's side in every competition. I do admire Abby for the way she has built a dance troupe of elite child dancers from her own students, and has won their loyalty to the group, whereas Cathy is having to get her dancers from other studios and groups, and is ruthlessly poaching and discarding dancers, just to build a troupe that will beat Abby.
I think the pyramid is dreadful - it could be so damaging for the girls' self confidence and feelings - but apparently it was all the idea of the programme's producers - Abby didn't do anything like that before the programme started filming.