The Dance Recital

This past school year, my younger daughter (Thing 2) took a dance class offered one day a week after school (she was in a 3-year old classroom at her preschool). It was a 45 minute class, and she learned a little ballet and a little tap. The class was taught by a woman who specialized in teaching these classes at preschools in the area, and gave a cut of her fee back to the school. Halfway through the school year, that teacher moved out of the area due to her husband being transferred, so a large local dance school picked up these classes (at the same price thankfully) and the owner of the school came to teach my daughter’s class.

This Saturday was her recital. They did a little ballet number, that was about as good as what you’d expect for kids that age. Some of the kids, like Thing 2, were 4, but there were a few that were in the 2 year old class this year, so they were 2 or 3 (their moms, thinking their kids were excellent dancers already, pushed the school to allow them to dance a year up…which of course totally screwed up the class dynamic, as half the kids could pay attention and do the moves, the other half had the attention span of a kitten).

One of the moms who thought her daughter’s poop doesn’t stink, of course, was quite flustered to find her precious little snowflake in the back row (the teacher put the kids who could do the performance in the front). This mom did nothing but bitch and complain all year long, about everything from the dance class, to her daughter catching cold and flu from the school, to everything in between. It was very funny to see the program (full color, which we had to pay $5 to get), with Thing 2’s name in there, and her last name was screwed up…..they left the second half of her last name off (it’s a 3-syllable name, they only got the first 2). Well, that wasn’t so funny, what WAS funny was that our complete last name was transposed onto the girl with the annoying mother, so instead of it being “Alex Whatever,” it said “Alex Same Last Name As Steve.” That actually made it worth it. Sure, we got robbed, but this woman got even more burned. Sucker.

The theme of the recital was 80’s music, so there was a lot of neon, lots of dancing to Michael Jackson, Madonna, and other 80’s hits. The intro was a compilation of different 80’s songs, the bulk of which were right off the soundtrack for “Flashdance,” that was performed by some of the older students, most of whom were probably born between 1991 and 1997. So, it’s safe to say that most of those kids have no clue what “Flashdance” was about. However, I can assure you every parent in the audience whose daughter was NOT part of that ensemble turned to the person next to them and said, “hey, isn’t this from a movie about a stripper?”

Or was that just me?