Dance World

mom practacing her pole dance routine
Originally uploaded by dale4232000

For the past two weeks, I have found myself sucked into a sub-culture that has supplied me with no end of fascination. It is the world of the dance competition and - Oh lawd, people! - is it a wormhole of unending dips, dives, turns and sashays.

Here are some simple observations I've made in the course of my first week in dance competition world:

10) No one should adapt Quest for Fire into a dance routine. No one, people!

9) When you choose a Def Leppard song as the inspiration for your routine, the stripper comparisons will flow like manna from the heavens. Just sayin.

8) Purple, sateen as a basis for the dance costume is a big bowl of wrong.

7) When a child asks her studio to build a routine around a Miley Cyrus song, it is said studio's responsibility - nay, duty! - to say no.

6) Is there an unwritten rule among judges in Dance-Comp World that if you must wear crazy-almost-hooker-like footwear?

5) Just cuz Brittany Spears does it in her video doesn't make it okay for you to reproduce it on the stage with a 6 year old.

4) Holst's The Planets is a wonderful piece of music but a little over the top for a ballet solo.

3) If your child doesn't win a medal, you probably shouldn't buy her one after the competition is over. Just a suggestion.....

2) No winking at the judges. None.

1) If your child asks you to take out another dancer with a pipe (I believe it is now refered to as "Pulling a Galooli") you should not pause contemplatively before answering in the negative.