S07.E19: All Choked Up

[OnceSane]

Quote

With Abby gone, Laurieann pushes the girls to do professional-level choreography. Kalani and Brynn compete in head-to-head solos. The group routine focuses on an issue that results in a fight between two jealous moms.

[Lady of nod]

Loved Brynn and Kalani, nice to see them break out, they seemed excited. Yolanda should seek help. Now. I feel so bad for Eleana.  She's a talented girl with a total psycho mom. How refreshing to not have to listen to Jill whine this week. 

[CDC]

I think these were some of my favorite dances I've seen in the past three or four seasons.  It was so nice to see something new!  As Laurieann said, repeating the same 8-counts over and over in every dance isn't a way to grow.

Poor Elianna.  It's wonderful that she was willing to stand up to her mom to protect her friends, but it sucks that a 9-year-old has to do so.  I'm impressed that she seems to be a kind and caring individual with the mother that she has.

[renatae]

Yolanda is a nutjob who rivals Christie. And a baldface liar to boot. She really did go for whatshername's throat. I thought it was ridiculous that all the moms wanted Stacey (?) just to let it go without Yolanda admitting what she had actually done. No, she didn't act in self defense and "push back" because Stacey didn't touch her. No wonder warm and fuzzy LaurieAnn has left the building.

[cali1981]

12 hours ago, renatae said:

Yolanda is a nutjob who rivals Christie. And a baldface liar to boot. She really did go for whatshername's throat. I thought it was ridiculous that all the moms wanted Stacey (?) just to let it go without Yolanda admitting what she had actually done. No, she didn't act in self defense and "push back" because Stacey didn't touch her. No wonder warm and fuzzy LaurieAnn has left the building.

Yolanda is an unfit parent.  Watching her poor little daughter begging her not to intercede was heartbreaking.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch to describe what Yolanda did as psychological child abuse. 

I can't believe that the group routine didn't win.  Laurieann's choreography is light years beyond Abby Lee's. The "Q" routine was outstanding and more typical of what you would expect to see of advanced dance students in this age bracket.  Laurieann is probably right in her assessment of what the judges at these "competitions" want. It seems to be the typical spin and leap routines which get boring at some point.  Her stuff is way beyond that so they may never win.  Kalani's solo was also very good as was her acting and selling the number.

Here's a question for anyone here who is a dancer. dance instructor or has a kid in a dance program.  I can't imagine that most reputable dance studios push this fantasy about everyone being a star.  I know some dancers, a couple of whom have made it to Broadway.  My daughter is a Equity Stage Manager and has worked with many dancers over the past ten years and she pretty much agrees with the following.  My impression is that dancers, like musicians do what they do because they are compelled to.  Every fiber in their bodies tells them that they have to do this.  Dancers live to dance and if they're lucky, they may be able to make decent living doing it.  The concept of being a breakout star is not really in their psyche.  The other thing is that a professional dancer's shelf life may not be that long.  Two of the dancers that I know had to quit in their mid-thirties because their knees were shot.  I just think that Dance Moms has painted a very unrealistic picture of what a dancer's life is truly like.  I may be wrong and if so, please feel free to disabuse me of my assumptions.

[Absolom]

I know some Los Angeles choreographers and yes the "shelf life" is short for most people.  There are hundreds of dancers and would be dancers for each slot available.  One dancer I know was thrilled to be on one episode of DWTS with guest dancers for group dances.  He's usually doing back up dancing in music videos and he's very, very talented as in much more talented than almost all or all of the Dance Moms kids.  It's a tough world.  

This episode snagged 756K viewers.

[cali1981]

2 minutes ago, Absolom said:

This episode snagged 756K viewers.

That's not good at all. OTOH, I don't know what the ratings have been but SYTYCD is enjoying a renaissance season with great dancing. If DM goes down after this year, hopefully SYTYCD will survive.

[Absolom]

The numbers have overall been dropping steadily for months.  This was up slightly from last week I think.

[HeyLookItsAng]

5 hours ago, cali1981 said:

Laurieann's choreography is light years beyond Abby Lee's.

I think so, too. What am I missing here? All through the episode people kept saying that they missed Abby, and they weren't winning, and they're all nervous about nationals. I wanted to be like, "Uh, you guys get that these mean nothing, right?" It's like they valued winning "True Rising Sparkly Stars 2017 Dance Nationals" over getting work in the industry. I know that sentiment was likely fed to them by production, but they could easily transition to something other than the relentless competitions. It's called Dance Moms, not "National competitions."

Edited August 31, 2017 by HeyLookItsAng

[cometcupid]

19 hours ago, HeyLookItsAng said:

I think so, too. What am I missing here? All through the episode people kept saying that they missed Abby, and they weren't winning, and they're all nervous about nationals. I wanted to be like, "Uh, you guys get that these mean nothing, right?" It's like they valued winning "True Rising Sparkly Stars 2017 Dance Nationals" over getting work in the industry. I know that sentiment was likely fed to them by production, but they could easily transition to something other than the relentless competitions. It's called Dance Moms, not "National competitions."

I agree. Laurieann brought up actual, real issues with the girls dancing - stamina, complexity of the routines - that are important to being professional dancers. If production really wants to continue the show with the same group of girls, they really need to branch out into showing the girls auditioning and actually working. Laurieann could facilitate that both in the narrative of the show and the real world.

[CDC]

Random note: I loved Laurieann's dismissal of the moms- "Mothers, thank you very much. Go have a drink, have a chicken wing, have something, SCRAM!"

[tessat]

Yolanda reminds me of Jill except her daughter is talented and Kendall is not. Jill always felt that Kendall should have been given a solo right off the bat to show Abby what she was capable off - and when the moms said that they had been here for years and earned these duets, solos ect. - Jill was adamant that Kendall should be in every routine. Kind of funny that she now sounds like the moms of old - always stressing how her kid has earned this due to her time with the group.

There have been many dancers I danced with that went on to make it a professional career - some ended up with Disney, some on Broadway and yes - a dancer's shelf life is short - but many have gone on to either become choreographer's or open their own studios. They all did it for the love of dance - not to become famous although a few of them are well recognized in the dance world.

[Lemons]

On 8/30/2017 at 5:58 PM, cali1981 said:

Yolanda is an unfit parent.  Watching her poor little daughter begging her not to intercede was heartbreaking.  It wouldn't be much of a stretch to describe what Yolanda did as psychological child abuse. 

I can't believe that the group routine didn't win.  Laurieann's choreography is light years beyond Abby Lee's. The "Q" routine was outstanding and more typical of what you would expect to see of advanced dance students in this age bracket.  Laurieann is probably right in her assessment of what the judges at these "competitions" want. It seems to be the typical spin and leap routines which get boring at some point.  Her stuff is way beyond that so they may never win.  Kalani's solo was also very good as was her acting and selling the number.

 

That's interesting, what do you like about laurieann's choreography?  I don't think the Q dance was advanced at all. The story  was unclear.  Abby has had guest choreographers who created much better dance routines  that told stories and they won without using tricks, etc. Abby's choreography was basic competition dance routines but they are competing in competitions so it made sense. 

Brynn doesn't have great musicality so that will hold her back in anything except lyrical. Kalani was good but it's not surprising that there was one dancer who scored higher. No big deal really. 

Lauriean. Is a big bragger and I haven't seen anything current or unique in her choreography.  She seems out of touch. 

[Fiero425]

On ‎9‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 4:57 AM, Lemons said:

That's interesting, what do you like about laurieann's choreography?  I don't think the Q dance was advanced at all. The story  was unclear.  Abby has had guest choreographers who created much better dance routines  that told stories and they won without using tricks, etc. Abby's choreography was basic competition dance routines but they are competing in competitions so it made sense. 

Brynn doesn't have great musicality so that will hold her back in anything except lyrical. Kalani was good but it's not surprising that there was one dancer who scored higher. No big deal really. 

Lauriean. Is a big bragger and I haven't seen anything current or unique in her choreography.  She seems out of touch. 

All of these people are out of touch; esp. Jill and Holly thinking their kids are the best dancers out there and deserve more exposure! Ridiculous! ;-)