Our Dancing Queen

I don't know if it is the influence of Hannah Montana, the fact that my daughter is the biggest girlie girl that I know, or some sort of genetic inheritance, but my daughter LOVES to dance. For the past two years, she has been a part of a cute little dancing team that holds a big performance at the end of the year to show off their routine. For both years, she has chosen the intro to hip-hop class which is very cute, but sometimes seems very inappropriate for children in that age group. She joined a new dance class this past year (08-09) after another dance group and I did not see eye to eye on some things. I feel like I am a pretty go with the flow type of person, but some of the things that they did did not mesh well with me. Here is the experience from our first dance class:
Alyssa has a big dance recital where all of the groups at her dance school put on a performance. Ummm where do I start? I guess I should begin with the dance teacher (an 18 year old girl) trying to convince me to buy a sweatshirt to help support the studio. I look at the front of it and it has the dance studio's logo on the front. Oh so cute. Then I turn it around and it says "I'D TAP THAT"! I gave the sweatshirt back to the teacher and let her know that we would not be buying a sweatshirt from her. The teacher, looking at me wildly and bewildered, can not understand why I am so upset about the sweatshirt. I told her that I find it completely inappropriate for a 5 year old to wear a shirt with that kind of content on it, in which she recommended that I get one for myself. Yeah, that would be the day (actually, there was probably about a 5 year span in my life where I would have thought that was really cool to wear something that notified the public that I am "TAP" worthy, but come on, can you imagine me showing up to Alyssa's Catholic School wearing that? Sweats that spell Juicy over my a** completely ok, sweatshirt about tapping that, I do not think so!)
Anyhoo, the recital begins and Alyssa and her 4 year old class to a dance to "Mulberry Bush". So cute. The next age group, the 7 to 9 year olds, come and perform SexyBack by Justin Timberlake. Uh, why is a 7 year old trying to convince me that she is going to bring sexy back, and where the hell did it go in the first place? Does she even know what sexy means? Probably. I am pretty sure Alyssa knows what it means at 5, so I do not know why I think it would be different for a 7 year old. Following that performance, the 9 to 11 year olds (pretty sure everybody is still in elementary school at this point) and do a little dance to Soulja boy (supposed to be soldier boy, but the moron can't spell). I believe that fine musical diddy goes something like "Super soak that hoooo, super soak that ho". Did the kids (and/or teachers) think this song was about the ever popular super soaker water guns? Is there a reason why I am watching a 9 year old little girls gyrating to a song about ho's?
The topper of the day came out when the specially selected group from all age groups (the best of the best) begin to dance to "I'm so hood". Oh really Katie. You are so hood. I guess the blond pigtails threw me off for a minute. If it was not the pigtails, it definitely was the gleaming smile and giggles as she did her dance routine. No Katie, you are not so hood. Eugene, though known for many things, is not on the US radar for most dangerous hoods. In fact, I don't think there is even a hood in Eugene. Anyway, I am pulling her out of the dance studio. I am not trying to raise a little girl who dresses and acts sexually provocative and a wannabe gangster (oh my god, I just described my middle school years).

So after that experience, we changed dance studio's and have been much happier there. The video included is at her new dance studio and I think for the most part it just shows that she is having fun and enjoying the stage. I still can't figure out what she enjoys more: being on stage, performing her routine, or getting to put a pound of makeup on her face so that she is not "drowned out" by the lights. She has several friends from school that do dancing with her and she always gets to do her performance in front of my parents who make it up to see her "Big Show"