Everybody is passionate about something. Whether it’s a sport, art, occupation, or even a relationship. If you have enough love for this specific passion, you’d make sacrifices for it. My biggest passion is dancing. I have so much love for dance and everything it has done for me in my life. However, a recent television series has given my passion a bad reputation. This angers me and hurts me to know that others whom know nothing about the art that I am head over heels in love with, might view it as something negative. How would you feel if someone or something was causing your passion to receive a false standing?
     

Competitive dance has grown to be extremely popular within the last couple of years. Dance competitions and conventions have grown to be more complex as well. With a growing art such as competitive dancing, social media will do anything to promote a new current interest. Among many shows about dancing, one show in particular has stood out to me for all of the wrong reasons.
     

Dance Moms is a “reality” television series broadcasted weekly on Lifetime. This hour-long show portrays competitive dance to be spiteful and obnoxious. The show displays the opinionated mothers of several young competitive dancers. These girls range from six to fourteen years of age. In the show, the girls are constantly being physically and emotionally pushed past their limits, especially at such a young age. The outspoken teacher, Abby Lee Miller, taunts the girls to make them work harder. Instead of worrying about other competing studios, she often challenges the dancers to compete against one another. She strongly believes that this method promotes hard work.
       

The moms are constantly criticizing Abby’s teaching methods. Instead of switching to a different studio, the mothers continue complaining until they cause a dramatic dispute. This causes for many inappropriate and rude comments to be made toward one another and Abby. Abby is also always out to beat her enemy, Cathy Nesbitt-Stein. Cathy owns a studio called Candy Apples Dance Center. They go head to head in competitions and sometimes result in physical disputes.
     

Lucky for me, I have had the privilege of seeing the reality of the show’s set up. I have attended dance competitions in which Abby Lee Miller’s girls have competed in. It’s very frustrating because the girls get to take stage more than once in the same dance if they need another chance to film. Before they turned the cameras on, the mothers and teachers from the show were extremely nice and outgoing, greeting everyone in the auditorium. However, when they started filming, they put on a show. The mothers began arguing and Abby started yelling at Cathy. I was very much annoyed and displeased.
       

I believe it to be extremely unfortunate and slightly insulting that people are viewing competitive dance as a negative activity. This show leads viewers to believe that dancers are greedy, bratty, and overall divas. This is not the case whatsoever. Dancers are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It is so incredible to go to a competition and meet people who share the same passion as you. They’re supportive and caring people. Most of their mothers maintain the same qualities. I’ll admit that every now and then you’ll run into an eccentric, “stereo-typical” dance mom, but that shouldn’t define the entire art. There are going to be mothers that are a tad bit too involved in any sport or activity.
     

Competitions try their best to persuade dancers to not act like the dancers on dance moms or their mothers. They teach you that dance is a valuable art that doesn’t deserve this negative, obnoxious portrayal. The competitions aren’t as much about trying to beat out other studios. They’re more of an opportunity to share the love of dance with various studios. I think a new reality television show needs to be created. One that captures how this beautiful art can bring so many different types of people together. That would be a show worth watching.