It has been the subject of much speculation over many years, however with the turn of the twenty-first century it seems that dancers will stop at nothing to achieve. Behind these dancers are their parents and dance teachers, encouraging and even directing these young students into a dance world they may not wish to be a part of. In addition to this, they not by physically ready for this kind of work either.
The work of subject is high pressure and high performance dance contests in which applying the same amount of make up and fake tan to a small child as a dancer on Strictly Come Dancing has been rather controversial. Whilst the child may enjoy the dancing, the music, and the social life that comes with dance classes and competitions, it must be noted that they do not have the knowledge of any alternative, and therefore the motivation to pursue another activity.
Whilst younger children are more flexible then their older counterparts, it is apparent that many dance teachers and parents abuse this, pushing the dancers to force their bodies to contort and lengthen before they are perhaps quite ready, substituting health and wellbeing for a leg up by the side of the head and a box jump greater than that in the hit movie Fame. Starting this work (too) early may be detrimental to the dancer’s future and is not a pre-requisite for a successful dancing life.
It is an assumption to label these parents and teachers as “pushy”, as seen on television programmes featuring dance phenomenons such as Baby Ballroom and Baby Disco: it is clear that overall each parent has the child’s interests at heart, however sometimes this gets lost on the way to our television and computer screens.