You may have come across a video on the internet showing a dance teacher yelling “Boring. Yawning. Sloppy. Lazy!” That is Abby Lee Miller of Lifetime’s hit show Dance Moms. Now this meme is just one emblem of a show that captured the cultural zeitgeist for nearly a decade.
The show centered on six dancers, between the ages of 6 and 13 in season 1, who spent 40–60 hours a week filming and training for weekly dance competitions under the tutelage of infamously harsh teacher Miller. All day, Miller would criticize them on their looks, their technique, their attitude, and even their weight. Meanwhile, their mothers would watch the classes from a raised mezzanine, picking fights with each other and with Miller, in pursuit of fame and glory for their respective daughters.
The drama, arguably, sold the series. As Nia Sioux—an original cast member and dancer on the show—writes in her new book, Bottom of the Pyramid: A Memoir of Persevering, Dancing for Myself, and Starring in My Own Life, the producers “struck gold with the cast. You could not find a more dysfunctional group of people.”
The show was entertaining, campy, and inspiring—but looking back, it raises uncomfortable questions: Why did millions of Americans tune in to a show built around an adult being cruel to children? What did it reveal about American values—ambition, grit, and tenacity—and at what cost? And how did the show tackle questions of beauty and race? Sioux was notably the only original black cast member, and she writes in the book about the racism she experienced, from hyper-stereotyped solo routines to demeaning comments about her hair.
Today, I ask Sioux what it was like to become a television star at just 9 years old, and the emotional abuse, racism, and bullying she endured; why she didn’t leave sooner; what her relationships with Miller and the other girls are like today; and whether she’d do it all again.
