My Daughter’s Recital Was Like ‘Dance Moms, Part II’

My memory of dance recitals is filled with bobby pins and blue shadow. Seriously, why did everyone insist on bright blue eye shadow? I even smile at the thought of Dippity-Doo, that horrible green gel we used to glob on our heads to shellac our buns into place. Recitals meant hours of playing around backstage while your whole family waited in a high school auditorium for you to perform, racks of costume changes and even dressers to help  you with the quick ones. They were so exciting! Man I loved recitals.

So of course, I was thrilled about my daughter’s first dance recital. Her first year of instruction came to close and I just couldn’t wait for the sequins and ridiculous headpieces to come out. Much like the blue eye shadow, every costume is required to have a hugely unnecessary bow, headband or hat. I was all ready to volunteer to help out backstage when a more experienced mother sat me down to explain the flip-side of dance recitals.

I remembered lots of excitement about bringing along my Kaboodle full of make-up. This mother let me know that once you stop being a dancer, recital time isn’t so amazing. In fact, it sounds like a very special, glittery version of hell. Here’s what one back-stage veteran thinks about the end-of-the-year ritual. Apparently Dance Moms is more realistic than we all imagined.

So how many recitals have you done? 

Well, I started when my oldest was six. They actually don’t like the moms of pre-schoolers to help out because you need to clear your girls out after their number is finished. [So that’s why I couldn’t volunteer this year…] And I’ve helped at almost all of her recitals. She’s going to be a senior in high school this coming year. And now my younger daughter is in dance, I’ll still have another six years of recitals for her, as long as she goes through high school. So yea, at least ten recitals, maybe a few more. Those are just end of the year recitals. I also help out at competitions since we started company about five years ago.

That’s a whole lot of time backstage! Do your daughters love that you’re so involved?

Ya know, they do enjoy having me back there. All the girls are nervous and have a million things going on. I know it’s nice for them to actually have “Mom” there to help them change and make sure they have every piece of every costume. I think it’s definitely harder on the girls who have to keep track of all of that stuff on their own. At the same time, I need to help get all the kids ready, or keep the other kids in the room, or get the right group to the right side of the stage. I have other things to do than just look after them, which is frustrating when they’re stressed and nervous.


Let’s talk about those costumes…

Oh my God, let’s. Let’s talk about the fact that there is nothing that makes me want to scream at people more than those costumes. I know the things are a pain. I’ve dealt with them for years. They have little parts you need to sew on yourself. They have a million pieces. I mean, newer costumes are better than the older ones, but there’s still a lot to do. And literally every year, I get some girl who comes in and no one has even bothered to take the costume out of the package. They haven’t even tried it on yet. They hadn’t sewed the suspenders or whatever needs a couple stitches. So there I am with a needle and thread ten minutes before the recital.

That has to be intense. 

It is. I’m not sure what’s more frustrating: the ones who don’t even look at the costume or the ones who don’t send the whole thing. I guess it has to be the missing pieces. I can fix it if you didn’t sew anything. Your child can wear a costume that doesn’t fit right. But when you don’t send the accessories, there’s nothing I can do. Your child just doesn’t have it and they look out of place. I actually had a mother come back and scream at my because her daughter was the only one without a hat. It was the middle of the recital and this lady is yelling at me about it. I was like, “You didn’t send it. What did you expect me to do?” She kept saying that she was told they were provided by the studio, which was ridiculous. Her child has been to a recital before, she knew that the studio never brought props along.

Wait, so that was a real Dance Moms moment. Grown women were yelling at each other backstage! 

Well, I don’t think we have as much drama as Dance Moms. No one cursed or anything. But moms do get a little crazy sometimes. I think the worst is the parents who want to come get their kids after their performance is done, but the recital is still going on. They apparently can’t be bothered to sit through the whole three hours. They want to leave the minute their kid’s piece is done. But we can’t have random students leaving in the middle of the recital. It’s a safety hazard! And there’s a finale at the end that everyone’s supposed to be in. Only the littlest kids are allowed to leave after their number, because it’s too difficult to keep them entertained backstage. It got sad bad with parents just sneaking their kids out in the middle of the show that we had to hire a police officer to make sure none of the kids left before the end. But before we did that, it created a lot of confrontations between the people helping backstage and the parents who wanted to leave.

How do you keep all those kids entertained? Looking back, I remember doing a lot of make-up and eating a lot of fruit snacks.

Well, the older girls are fine. They’ll just sit and gossip. Competition girls are too busy to worry about. They don’t have time to change their shoes, let alone get bored. The main issue is the younger kids, like ages 6-10, who only have one or two dances. Those girls spend a lot of time in the back rooms. We try to have to movies and stuff. Now, parents just send them with DS’s or iPads. Of course then one comes up missing and a parent is mad all over again. Because we’re supposed to have time to keep track of every child’s belongings back there.

(Photo: Lorraine Kourafas/Shutterstock)


Is there a sort of camaraderie among the moms who help out backstage? I mean, I imagine you see the same faces a lot.  

Well, there’s a hierarchy backstage depending on how long you’ve been with the studio and how many recitals you’ve seen. Newest moms are in the rooms with the girls, keeping people happy, handing out snacks and all that fun stuff. Next level would be the runners who take each class back and forth to the stage. That’s probably the most exhausting job. Then there’s the dressers, who help change the company girls and make sure, to the best of their ability, that all the girls have what they need. And the ladies who know the recitals the best are actually backstage, cuing dancers when to come on, helping get props on and off, all of that good stuff.

It is nice to see the other moms who help out during recital. For most of us, our kids have been at the studio for a decade. And we used to all see each other during classes when we would sit around in the waiting room. Now that we just drop our girls off to practice, we don’t see each other nearly as much. So recital is like our chance to catch up.

I have to ask, what about the competition you see on that show? Do the moms of the advanced students really compete? Because I can’t remember my mother ever seeming so personally invested in my status within the company. 

Well, it would be easy to just say, “No, of course not! That’s ridiculous!” And the behavior on the show really is ridiculous. But then again, our teachers would never rank the girls either, ya know. I can see how that would cause tension. But I do think there’s a little animosity between the mothers of girls who have made company and the mothers of girls who haven’t. You know, we have moms who spend just as much time traveling back and forth to the studio. Their kids take 4 or 5 classes. But they aren’t competing at nationals, or performing at the Festival of Trees. [That’s a local holiday festival in our city.] For those moms, I think they can get a little frustrated with the company moms. But really, no one yells at each other. It’s more that we just don’t sit around and chat as much.

So really, should I volunteer to help out backstage once Brenna is out of the “Little Girl” classes?

Well, I’ll still be back there next year, so of course you should. But honestly, it’s a lot of girls who are stressed and possibly crying. It’s a lot of mothers who are frustrated or impatient. And you’ll be washing glitter for every inch of your body for the next month. You should wear steel-toed boots, because at least six tap shoes will step on your feet and those stupid things hurt. And you might cringe at the sound of whining for a couple weeks. Okay, how about this? You should help next year, but we should go out for at least two pitchers of margaritas first?

That sounds like a plan.

(Photo: planet5D LLC/Shutterstock)

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