She better pull a group dance outta her butt soon or I’ll be late for hosting Meet The Press.
No, seriously. How many studios does she own? And does she know she’s wearing two bras?
Oh I know this new Senator’s wife is not gon’ come in here trying to steal my look. I called Red.
I know, right? All side swept. Don’t tell the girls, but I just overslept and didn’t have time to curl the other side.
Seriously? Again? Imma ’bout to get all Sia on this new chick and wrap her head in that curtain.
There was a giant bug and it went in my ear and then my brain. Now we need a Girl Party and some Raid, asap!
I swear that perfume Jill keeps regifting is burning my eyes. I’m going blind back here, lady. F’realz.
With apologies to John Lennon.
Imagine there’s no drama.
It’s easy if you try. Unless it’s Dance Moms.
Then all bets are off.
Or something. I’m still working on that last line. But you get the point.
There was a new Competition Sheriff in town this week and it had everyone on the edge of their saloon chairs. The Imagine Dance Challenge in Woodbridge, VA would bring the ALDC face to face with one of their toughest rivals in the circuit and it was clear as soon as the credits stopped rolling that Abby Lee Miller was already off her game a little.
Starting with the Pyramid of Shame, of course. Which, if you squinted a little bit, actually kinda sorta looked almost triangular this time around.
Clearly, it’s tough to create a legitimately pyramidal (…is that even a word?…) composition with only five glossy head shots, because Abby’s been struggling the last few episodes.
This week began with Abby’s favorite game: Name That New Girl.
Jade Cloud was in the hizzle, replacing nervous little Sarah Hunt who had been booted off the Team last week when her Holy Roller ‘I Think The Garbage Needs To Be Taken Out’ Mom Christ-y finally pushed Abby’s last button.
You remember all that hilarity, right? Christ-y definitely needed some time to chillax, which would also give that tiny niblet Sarah a chance to replenish some of the fluids she lost by crying non-stop through two entire episodes. Poor little peanut.
Besides having a name that sounds like she was one of the Jem and The Hologram girls, Jade also has a mother who looks like her face should be on the butt end of a car.
Whoa. That didn’t come out the way it was intended in my head. That sounded kind of rude when I proofread it a second time.
What I meant to say was that Mom Loree looks like her face should be on one of those shiny political ‘Vote for my Husband for City Council’ bumper stickers, because she totally looks like one of those Washington Ladies you see on CNN who host those Washington Lady Lunches where Michelle Obama and Oprah tell everyone that America’s children don’t eat enough broccoli.
Because she does. Look at that Washington hair. I bet it doesn’t even move in the wind. I’m totally voting for her husband in 2016 and I don’t even know what he stands for yet.
Since Maddie is currently MTV‘s It Girl and could be pulled away at any moment to star in the next Sia video or fly to the Moon on that plane Justin Bieber wants to buy, Abby was still looking for someone to play the role of Dance Princess #1, should Maddie no longer be able to fulfill her duties.
Enter Jade. Just like little Sarah did. And Kalani Hillicker did before her. And Kamryn Beck did, until she had to go on hiatus to speak at the Neurophysics Symposium in Geneva, Switzerland. Because that’s totally why the Kia Kamster wasn’t there this week.
(Autographed copies of Kamryn’s book “How To Over Achieve And Still Rock A Glitter Headband” will be available in the lobby, BTW. Credit cards only, please.)
Bottom of the Pyramid: Chloe and Nia. So wrong.
The middle tier: Completely hogged by the Ziegler Gurlz. MackZ and MaddieZ. MackZ needed to stand up straighter because Abby had a lot invested in her budding youtube career. And MaddieZ went on the Ellen Show, so yeah to that.
And there was Kendall at the top! She killed it last week with her Phantom of the Opera face dance and my MomCrush Jill couldn’t have been any happier. I was hoping Jill might have been so euphoric that she’d bust out a little spontanious celebratory Gangnam Style, but that didn’t happen.
This week’s competition was a new one, so Abby was nervous. Especially since the girls would be coming up against studio bleu…one of their toughest rivals.
studio bleu is a pretty big dealio in Virginia. They spell their website name all in lower case letters with the ‘E’ and the ‘U’ reversed just like a day spa, so you know they mean business. Unfortunately, all that fanciness totally freaks out my Macbook’s auto correct, so if there are a couple of Studio Blues in here instead of studio bleus…blame Apple.
Jade and Chloe both scored solos. Christi did some quick math and figured out that…once again…Chloe was going up against the New Girl like it was some kind of sadistic weekly freshmen hazing ritual.
Mom wasn’t happy. And neither was Daughter. I don’t remember the last time I saw either of them actually smile, which makes me sad.
Up until about 30 seconds into the Pyramid, Abby’s original plan was to go up against studio bleu (…that just looks wrong. My high school grammar teacher would be horrified right now…) with some amazing, yet unseen group routine.
But now, after rethinking the group’s chances against studio bleu, Abby decided to shelve the number until Nationals. Which meant that there was no group routine to rehearse.
None. Nada. Zero. Zip.
As the Moms headed up to the MomPerch, the girls stood around looking at themselves in the mirrors waiting for some direction. It was clear that Abby had no idea what to do next.
It was also pretty clear that Holly is a side sleeper, because all her sassy new hair was mashed up on one side during her first interview sniglet. Or, wishful thinking, maybe my long-term goal of getting Dr. Beyoncé to unleash her Inner Hip Hop Majorette with the Bring It! girls was finally working out in my favor.
Boom. Bam. Pow. DB4L! (See what I did there?)
Dang, Gurl. Getting your money’s worth at the salon this week.
As the Moms sat upstairs trying to figure out how many bras Loree could comfortably wear at one time (…see photo evidence Exhibit A above…) Abby finally figured out what to do with the hot mess she had made of the group routine.
Phobias: What freaks you out?
Maddie: Being Alone. Chloe: Public Speaking. MackZ: Bugs And Auto-tune. Kendall: Crowds. Nia: Needles. (..Girrrl…I hear dat...) Jade: Heights.
Then they did a quick improv based on their individual phobias, except for MackZ who saw an invisible bug and ran out of the room and then ran back into the room and then saw another invisible bug and then ran all the way upstairs when everyone started laughing at her for doing so much unnecessary physical activity.
If MackZ is going to stay MackZ and not revert back to Mackenzie Boo Boo Child she’s gonna need to grow a pair. And stat. Even Mom Melissa said so.
Clearly, Melissa was already agitated before MackZ showed up (…see photo evidence Exhibit B above…) due to the fact that Loree was shamelessly stealing her look. Bitch.
When Abby tried to calm MackZ down by saying “You don’t think people laugh at me?” my ego momentarily took over and I was all like ‘OMG she totally reads my blog!’ until I realized that she was probably referring to all of Kelly Hyland‘s tweets.
I miss Brooke and Paige.
With two days to go before Virginia, Jade got to working on her Miss Saigon dance while Chloe fine tuned her dark ‘They Don’t Want My Kind Around Here’ solo. Not that Abby noticed, of course, because she was too busy phutzing with Jade’s spandex.
It also didn’t go unnoticed that when Abby had insisted on putting my girl Nia in an afro wig a few years ago Holly blew the Nutty Heard Round The World, but when Jade was handed a Geisha fan all Loree said was ‘She looks the part.’
Wait. What?
Afro wig or not, it’s still The International Year of The Nia. So there.
Because of all the drama surrounding the Attack of the Invisible Bugs, MackZ got herself benched from the group dance (…literally. There’s literally a BENCH you have to go sit on when you’re benched at the ALDC…) which now bumped the remaining girls up into the Teen Category. A higher age group with bigger, stronger girls.
Which is never good. Loree said so. You never bump a group UP. Always DOWN. She also said “Vote for my Husband for City Council” about a million times.
We get it, honey. We saw your car in the parking lot.
Totally unrelated, Holly had sunglasses on her head. Just needed to point that out because accessories always make the outfit.
Finally, it was Showtime! And crazy crowd hysteria when the ALDC pulled up to the curb.
Oddly, the studio bleu girls were waiting for them outside like they were all going to link arms and not allow them access to the building. Not really sure what that was all about.
Inside, Abby could barely look the Moms in the eyes as they tried to figure out a way to drop the ALDC team back down to Pre-Teen or TweenyBop or Junior or whatever they call the lower category.
By (…literally…) benching MackZ, Abby had messed up the average age (…who knew there was so much arithmetic involved in competitive dance?…) and now the team was stuck going up against girls twice their age. And size.
As she flipped through the show’s program book (…that either had some local advertising or pornography on the back cover because it was all blurred out…) Abby made some lame excuse about needing to do online banking instead of figuring out what to do with MackZ. None of which made any sense, because…One: You need a computer for online banking, not a dance program…and Two: It just didn’t make any sense.
Loree’s last minute attempt to convince Abby to allow the bug-infested MackZ back in the routine (…which would totally screw with the Time/Space/Age/Math Continuum enough to bump the ALDC back down a notch…) failed miserably and the team was stuck in the higher category. Holly thought it might work, since Abby respects Lorre as a dance studio owner. Apparently, Loree owns almost as many studios as she does undergarments.
Side note: Loree also stole Melissa’s look again at the competition. That’s twice in one week. This s*** is going down in some back alley before Nationals, you know dat. Don’t act surprised when it happens, because I’m telling you ahead of time.
Side note #2: I swear Christi was wearing one of Loree’s bras in one of her interview sniglets. Did you see that tiny barely spaghetti strappy looking teal thing?
Whoa, Mama. There’s kids in the room.
Jade’s solo was amazing. That girl can contort. But Mom was concerned because acro is not her thang. And judges either love it or hate it.
Chloe did great. She always does great at performance time when it’s time to get it done. She just needed to relax a little more.
Backstage as the girls ran through the group routine one last time, Chloe somehow got into Maddie’s orbit, or personal space, or whatever dancers call it and Abby flipped her lid.
It was clearly an accident and didn’t require paramedics or any stitches, so I don’t really see what the big deal was all about. But you know how Abby gets when someone goes near her prized porcelain Maddie collection in the china closet.
And how about that studio bleu Director? You tell me she wasn’t a perfectly replicated DNA splice of Walmart Dance Mom Leslie Ackerman and that loud Christ-y Church Lady from last week? Seriously. Go back and look.
OMG. Twinsies, right?
The group routines were both da bomb, even though studio bleu looked like they could babysit the ALDC girls if all the Moms wanted a night off. No joke.
From the perspective of someone who knows nothing about dance but talks like he knows everything, I thought the studio bleu girls were outta sync once in awhile and that the ALDC team showed more emotion.
But I also thought that Loree, Jill and Melissa were going to have a Dance-Off in the audience and that never happened. So, whatever.
Which would have been Awe. Some.
End of the day, Chloe took 6th Place but still didn’t smile. Jade turned herself upside down and inside out for 3rd and (…intentionally or not…) gave one of the best fake smile/side eyes EVER to the 4th Place girl when she stepped up to grab her award.
Kaeli, who came out of nowhere from studio bleu and must have done her solo during that Raising Asia commercial (…did I miss something on a snack break?…) won First Place, which made that Leslie/Christ-y woman get all emotional like I do when my Spring allergies first start acting up.
And then the ALDC got the First Loser Award: Second Place.
Beat out by their own babysitters. Not cool.
Needless to say, backstage didn’t go so well after the trophies were all handed out. Loree implied that Jade had lost because of Abby’s guidance. And choreography. And musical selection. And complete lack of online banking skills.
Melissa kept looking at the back of Loree’s red dress like today might be the day it all goes down. Again, you heard it here first.
Jill and Holly were pretty low key this week, all things considered.
And MackZ had bugs all over her.
Really gross ones.
Ha. Kidding. Psych. Get back in here, you crazy kid. It was a joke.
Or was it?