The Summer of Dance (on TV)

If last summer was The Summer of the Stage Mothers, this summer is The Summer of Dance (although if you watched Oxygen's reality show The Next Big Thing about Trapper Felides, a famous children's performance coach in NYC, you would know the stage moms are still lingering-- as are the Dance Moms on Lifetime). Actually since 2005 I've associated the summer with dance. Why? That's when So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) premiered.  While some might say Dancing with the Stars is responsible for the revival of dance on television if you look at the dance styles featured on the show I think it's thanks to SYTYCD.

While SYTYCD is the original and will always hold a special place in my heart, lately I've found it a bit predictable (not unlike its sister show American Idol).  In a sure sign of SYTYCD's success, one of its runners-up, Travis Wall (Season 2), now has his own show (although I feel like the show really jumped the shark last week when Nigel accused one of the choreographers of being mean like Abby Lee Miller and they then cut to a shot of her in the audience).  Like The Next Big Thing, All the Right Moves airs on Oxygen starting July 31.  Nick Lazzarini, the first winner of SYTYCD, also is featured on the show and I can't wait to see some of my favorite dancers onscreen again.

This summer I discovered some new favorite dancers thanks to The CW's Breaking Pointe (a real-life version of Center Stage [for the true pop culture fans out there, I laugh every time "Jody Sawyer and her bad feet" show up on my screen in Pretty Little Liars, my other guilty pleasure of the summer]), a docu-reality series about a set of dancers in Salt Lake City's ballet company Ballet West. I especially loved Beckanne Sisk; she also apparently appears in the dance documentary of the summer, First Position, which I sadly have not yet been able to see because of the Little Man, but I can't wait to see it! I mean, who wouldn't love these feet?

I found this article from Dance Magazine on Ballet West's decision to allow cameras in to be quite interesting-- and a commentary on the need for the arts today to find innovative sources of audience members and money in today's constrained environment.

While I love that I get to see Broadway star Sutton Foster on my TV screen once a week thanks to the new ABC Family Show Bunheads (not at all related to the book Bunheads by Sophie Flack I reviewed a few months ago) it's clear that TV and its money is still a draw even for the biggest stars of the Great White Way.  The show itself is a bit farcical, but I've enjoyed seeing the likes of Gary Janetti (who can forget the Les Mis flashmob he gifted his boyfriend Brad Goreski?!) and some talented young dancers/actresses. I only wish they would let Sutton do THIS more often:

Finally, that old standby TLC has been getting in on the dance action.  Last month they aired a new special on Irish dancing (not the fun documentary, Jig, I reviewed last fall), which you can watch in its entirety on YouTube by following this link.  [The New York Times Magazine got in on the act too last month, with this provocative spread on Irish dancers.] At their fall upfronts TLC announced they are filming their own reality show based on competitive Irish dance in the US.  And they're trying out a competitive kiddie cheer show.  Last week they aired Cheer Perfection starring the Dunlaps, who have been on Toddlers & Tiaras. Another crossover network star a la Honey Boo Boo Child, apparently. TLC doesn't have to pay for much show development when their shows just spin-off more and more interesting series... By the way, looks like these cheer moms in Arkansas give the Pittsburgh dance moms a run for their money in the crazy race, though they don't seem to approach the levels of the Texas cheerleader murdering mom. Yet.

While it's been my summer of dance thus far in less than two weeks most of my attention will be focused on Olympic sports. I'm especially excited about gymnastics, as you might expect-- though I wish that some of the gymnasts would learn some better dance skills.  What has been your favorite dance show of the summer and which Olympic event/athlete are you most looking forward to watching?

Pint-Sized Phenoms: The "Prodigy" Edition

When I started this blog series I deliberately chose to name it "Pint-Sized PHENOMS" and not "Pint-Sized PRODIGIES." I think the word prodigy has so many connotations and can put undue pressure on children to meet a certain standard both now and in the future.  It is only certain fields that are amenable to creating prodigies (notably music and chess, mainly because of their rule-bound nature) and kids can excel and be phenomenal in a variety of fields, like volunteering, that don't lend themselves to a prodigy label. Plus, the label "prodigy" has an expiration date while being phenomenal at something can happen throughout the life course. This week I was reminded why I dislike the word prodigy.  Zoe Thomson has been getting a lot of Internet attention. She's an eight-year-old guitar player getting the prodigy label.

While Thomson's number o f viewers continues to increase I can't help but think about the long-term implications of being labeled a music prodigy.  For instance, people will make assumptions about her and her family's mental health and social skills.  Especially after this study was published last month in Intelligence. The study finds that prodigies are more likely to have autistic family members and it's gotten a fair amount of attention (here's the Slate article).

I don't think those findings would apply to sports prodigies though, as the focus there is more on physical prowess.  Take 12-year-old Travis Wittlake, Jr., just featured in Sports Illustrated as a "future game changer."  He's already won back-to-back national titles in all three types of wrestling.   His father is a former wrestler and a wrestling coach, so that's his family connection.  Travis has been in the spotlight since he was 7 (see video below) so let's hope he can handle the increasing pressures he'll face from his family and the public as rising national star.

Proving that being an early standout doesn't just apply to boys when it comes to strength sports, 10-year-0ld Naomi Kutin is truly amazing.  She's been breaking weight-lifting records for the past few years (while still observing the Jewish Sabbath, which is significant because she can't compete in the many competitions that are held on Saturdays).  Her family seems amazingly supportive and wise-- especially her mom, who you can see in this video below.

Note that, like Wittlake, Kutin's father is a weight-lifter, which has surely helped her technique and passion. (Personal question: I wonder how Orthodox the Kutins are given Naomi's weightlifting attire?)

Another set of religious athletes who I would consider phenoms for a different reason are the boys featured in this Time LightBox feature on the National Youth Boxing Championship held last week in Acre, Israel.

The boys, aged 9-13, were Jews and Arabs who squared off in the ring together-- fighting without incident and without politics.

The upcoming Olympics offer another opportunity for sports to transcend politics.  This week the US team was finalized and its rosters boost some pint-sized phenoms (and, yes, prodigies).  At 15 swimmer Katie Ledecky is the youngest team member. She'll be racing in the 800-meter freestyle and many would call her a prodigy.  Interestly, girls the same age, like gymnast Kyla Ross, aren't considered prodigies since their sport favors the small and young; veteran Alicia Sacramone, at 24, didn't make the five-member gymnastics squad, which is made up entirely of teenagers.  Just goes to show you can be young and phenomenal, but not a prodigy (Note: for more on Sacramone's coach, Mihai Brestyan, who'll be at the Olympics with his new 18-year-old star Aly Raisman, check out my recent piece in Boston Magazine!)

Call the Pageant Muskers

I learn a lot of random things thanks to The Learning Channel. Recently TLC taught me that muskers is the "gypsy" word for the police.  After watching Season 2 of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and Season 1 of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, I think some of these people need the fashion police as much as the actual police. I've written before (in one of my most popular posts ever, natch) about the outlandish dresses Traveler girls wear and how similar some of these styles are to those worn in the child beauty pageant world. In addition to the outfits there are other similarities which were spotlighted in the UK version of the show. Those similarities include young girls getting fake nails and spray tans, wearing make-up, and curling their hair into impressive styles.  Both versions of the show feature girls with interesting names like Boo, Nan-Girl, and Pookie, to name a few; anyone who has watched Toddlers & Tiaras knows that many pageant girls sport unusual names or more traditional names with unconventional spellings. (The men featured on the show, especially the American version, have their own fashion sense as well. Think Pauly D's blowout and spray tan from Jersey Shore, minus the real diamonds and gold.)

The US version of the show, which aired its final episodes last week, featured some brides who looked like they had absconded with the loot from a Southern child beauty pageant. Check out the crowns these ladies wore on their special days:

Crowns aren't the only things blinged out at American gypsy weddings-- so is the footwear.  These boots would almost surely help a girl win an Ultimate Grand Supreme on the pageant circuit:

And I'm guessing baby shoes-- and pacifiers!-- like this one will soon start showing up on TLC's other mega-hit Toddlers & Tiaras.

Baby Jackson pictured above was featured on what I thought was the most interesting episode of the American series set in Murphy's Village in South Carolina. Murphy's Village is a prosperous, but insular, community of Irish Travelers (as opposed to European Roma) who are resistant to outsiders.  I found the traditions featured in the wedding of this boy's parents (whose mother was marrying into the Murphy's Village community) fascinating, like the original poems that are linked to the oral tradition of the Irish and the jewelry party that is meant to help find a future mate for a baby.

But most of the series focused on the extended Stanley clan of women who live in West Virginia.  The Stanley women like to fight and in many ways they reminded me of the White family, the subject of one of the most haunting documentaries I've seen, The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia which makes me wonder if the Whites share a similar immigrant background.

So I'm wondering if some child beauty pageant participants have Romany or Traveler roots/blood? Do you know of any who specifically identify as "gypsy" eitherin SC, WV, or in other states?

I also wonder if Sondra Celli, the dressmaker featured in the TLC show, is now getting requests to make child beauty pageant dresses. She stumbled into making gypsy dresses and I'm guessing she could stumble into a pageant dress career and still make top dollar (her occasion dresses for gypsies, though worn once and made in just a few days time, cost thousands of dollars).

Not all Romani or Travelers behave like the Stanleys and others featured in the series. Even in the US the population is quite mixed.  Oksana Marafioti's memoir, American Gypsy, just released last week, paints a much more complex picture of her childhood as an Armenian gypsy in the former USSR and in Los Angeles. Marafioti had some pretty negative things to say about the TLC show over on Slate's Double X.  Marafioti writes about bright colors and dresses and skirts, but nothing like Sondra Celli's creations.  Her story focuses much more on the magic and fortune-telling that many associate with "gypsy" culture.  Mikey Walsh's memoir, Gypsy Bot: My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies, recently released in the US after it was a hit in the UK, helps tell the boys' side of the story about growing up gypsy in the UK.  For boys the ability to fight is key, hard for Walsh in general and especially after he came out of the closet.

Both memoirs talk more about the colorful traditions around funerals than those around weddings. The UK show featured celebrations at elaborately decorated gravesides so I can only imagine what a funeral looks like. Could that be TLC's next series: My Big Fat Gypsy Funeral?!

ETA: The day after I posted this I read an article about opposition to child beauty pageants in Ireland (this isn't new, as I wrote about last year, though I do find it somewhat surprising given Irish dancing fashions).  Some hotels are now refusing to host the events in Ireland, yet another thing to add to the growing list of similarities between child beauty pageants and Roma/Traveler events (the TLC series show venues in the UK routinely canceling on gypsy events).

Shrinking and Pinking: Any Age, Any Size, Any Sport

So much is happening in the world of sports with the lead-up to the Summer Olympics-- and female athletes have been stealing the spotlight, especially in track (so much has been written on the 100m controversy, but I have to endorse this Sports Illustrated article by Tim Layden as the absolute best I have read on the topic). It's only right that women sports stars are getting so much attention as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the passage of Title IX.  And it's not just that they generate their own headlines in the sports pages these days that matters.  What's most important is that thanks to Title IX women achieve more in the classroom and in the boardroom (I've written about Betsey Stevenson's study before here, which includes a link to her interesting paper).

These three athletes who have recently created headlines are a reminder that today women of any age and size can achieve in any sport.

1) Swimming legend Janet Evans is 40 and a mom of two. She also just competed in the Olympic Trials in distance swimming. I know she may not feel like it all the time, but it seems like she has it all.

2) Holley Mangold (in her second appearance in the Shrinking and Pinking series) was just profiled in The New York Times Magazine. Yes, she's 350 pounds. Yes, she wears make-up. Yes, she's NFL star Nick's sister. No, she doesn't want to be skinny. No, she doesn't make a lot of money. No, she probably won't medal in London (US weightlifting is described as the equivalent of the US' Jamaican bobsled team). I'll still be rooting for her and hoping she rocks some hair bows and nail polish, flaunting her awesome skill and femininity.

3) Nineteen-year-old Maggie Parker participates in a sport that isn't even in the Olympics. She's a bull rider. And earlier this month she became the first woman to ever win prize money on the professional bull-riding circuit.  It was only $460 but you have to start somewhere.

I doubt Parker'll be doing this when she's 40, like Evans, and she's surely about a third the size of Mangold, but all three women prove that in a post-Title IX world female athletes come in variety of wonderful packages.

Writing and Reading at Slate's Double X

A few weeks ago I was thrilled to receive an email from Hanna Rosin that Slate's Double X was interested in a piece I was working on about a variety of former Miss America contestants running for political office. Today it's a feature at the online magazine, focusing on the history of the Pageant and the politics of its contestants. Double X has been providing some of the best commentary on Anne-Marie Slaughter's much-talked about Atlantic piece, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," which you almost certainly have read by now.  Rosin is a co-founder of Double X and she's a Contributing Editor at the Atlantic. You know who she is if you watched the video interview embedded in the online version of Slaughter's story because she's the interviewer.

Many people have asked me what I think about Slaughter's piece.  But after reading what feels like hundreds of articles, Facebook comments, Tweets, and blog entries about it, I've been hesitant only because I'm not sure I have anything particularly new to say about it. (Has anyone mentioned how cute the toddler in the briefcase is before? More compelling than the breastfeeding boy on the cover of Time, right?)

In all seriousness though when I read Slaughter's story last Thursday I felt it so keenly that I started to cry. This isn't an unusual reaction among many highly credentialed moms I know.

But then I realized how lucky I am. Lucky to have a flexible job, lucky to have a husband who is a highly committed father. (Then, because I'm a new mommy who grew up with Catholic and Jewish parents, I started to feel guilty that in my early 30s I can make choices that hopefully help make all family members happy. And so it goes on and on...)

One topic I was surprised Slaughter didn't cover is breastfeeding. It's a hot topic, as the Time cover showed, and Rosin knows well having written one of the other most controversial Atlantic stories, The Case Against Breast-Feeding. While I was doing research and writing the Slate piece I had to carefully time things between nursing sessions for five-month-old Carston. One night, when my phone rang unexpectedly to do an interview right after his dinner, my husband (who I should mention is a professor with a flexible work schedule) happily and willingly took charge.  But the reality is that when you're breastfeeding, even if you pump sometimes (which I do), no matter how helpful your partner is, the weight is squarely on your shoulders all the time.

When I had to shift interview times around to accommodate my son's needs I didn't really specify why. After reading Rosin's article on Double X last week making the case that women shouldn't be ashamed to say when we are doing things for our kids, I realized she was right. So when I had to take a break while corresponding with the editor at Double X to nurse my son I decided to explain my slight delay in replying to emails.  She replied that she had to leave soon to take care of a sick child.  Life happens, family matters, and we still got our work done.

For the moment that's having it all-- and more-- for me (and this little guy, who got to enjoy the ocean and the beach for the first time over the weekend).  We also started weaning a week ago and he seems to be doing just fine, don't you think?