Abby Lee Dance Company | Channel Guide Magazine

“Dance Moms” recap part 2: A Big Baby Wrote Me A Letter

March 22, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Aaaaaand we’re back. At the halfway mark, we’re finally in Chicago at the Co. Dance competition and convention, and — if Abby is to be believed — unofficial gathering of the Abby Lee Miller fan club, which is everyone. Sadly, she has traded out my dearly beloved lip necklace for a set that looks like slices of a bright blue geode formed themselves a chain gang for committing a crime of fashion. • Missed part one? Read it here. Yep-per, this does appear to be one fancy-pants competition. The stage is beautifully appointed and lit, which will make a nice change [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: She Cried With Her Boots On

February 15, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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We learned something right out of the gate, didn’t we, Dance Moms Nation?! We learned that the floors in Abby Lee’s studios cost a whopping $68,000. Thus, like the dancers upon them, they are precious and heels are not allowed. Naturally, Jill shows up in gray suede boots with not-allowed heels. It’s OK, she tells Abby Lee because she’s standing on her toes. Rules dribble off Jill like water off a duck, but Abby lets it slide for now, ‘cause she’s got stuff on her mind. Namely this week’s competition, which is Dance Explosion in Secaucus, NJ. It will be riddled [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: Bully for you! And you! And you!

February 1, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Forgive me, Dance Moms nation, but I must begin this one with a big bucket of editorializing. I just must. Is it just me, or has this season begun to give off wafts — OK, big ol’ smoggy clouds — of having been stripped of the one thing that made all of the adult theatrics palatable (or at least survivable)? That is, the dignity of the little girls who — no matter what behavior in which their parents or the truly insufferable Abby Lee indulge — go out there and dance with preternatural grace and maturity, and treat one another with [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: Brooke turns away

January 25, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Considering how well the gang did against the Candy Apples on the Apples’ home turf last week, you’d think everybody would be in a better mood ’round the ol’ Abby Lee Dance Studio. Not so. After Abby Lee demands the girls and Moms give themselves a big round of applause for indeed making the Apples into applesauce, the mood turns somber again. We’re going back to Starbound in New Jersey, but this time we’re going as National Champs. So let’s start on a high note and begin the journey with the Pyramid of Doom. First up in the bottom row [...]

“Dance Moms” recap: Return of the Candy Apples

January 18, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Forgive me, Dance Mom Nation, for I am an episode behind, having been sequestered at a hotel in Pasadena covering the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. I’m all caught up now and will recap the premiere (I think. Eventually.), but in the interest of staying current, let’s forge ahead with last night’s humdinger, “Return of the Candy Apples.” • Watch “Return of the Candy Apples and other full episodes of Dance Moms online Before I dive in, let me issue a correction to early posts in which I said Brooke and MacKenzie did not return for this second season. [...]

“Dance Moms: Miami” coming soon says Lifetime

January 17, 2012 | By Lori Acken
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Watch your Pilates-toned backs, Bravo Housewives! Looks like Lifetime has found a lady-centric reality franchise of its own in the Dance Moms. With the popularity of the original Pittsburgh-based Dance Moms reality spectacle (now airing its second season Tuesday nights at 9) at a fevered pitch, Lifetime has announced it will air six hour-long episodes of Dance Moms: Miami, set at the sultry south Florida city’s Stars Dance Studio. The school’s owners, renowned contemporary dance teacher Victor Smalley — an instructor on Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance — and choreographer Angel Armas train a diverse group of [...]

“Dance Moms”: Chloe’s audition tape, finale fallout and a teensy teaser for Season 2

October 19, 2011 | By Lori Acken
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Even though Dance Moms’ domineering diva Abby Lee Miller swore to Reality TV World that the production company for the jaw-dropper hit auditioned moms only and the kids came aboard untested, today her co-star Christi Lukasiak tweeted a link to what she says is Chloe’s (perfectly adorable) audition tape for the series: • MORE: Read Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Dance Mom Christi Lukasiak!

“Dance Moms” episode 11: bad dad, Abby mad!

September 30, 2011 | By Lori Acken
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Are you getting melancholy about next week’s season finale, Dance Mom nation? Or has news of a second season warmed your heart? In any case, I’m pretty sure last night’s episode set us up for some of what we’ll see in Season 2. Namely a big pile of Maddie drama. We begin in beautiful Lake Tahoe, site of the much anticipated Nationals, where the girls frolic (i.e. bend themselves in thirds backward) in the sunshine and fresh mountain air — and Abby Lee is suddenly sporting an on-purpose hairdo and department store make-up in her “confessionals.” Also pearls. We [...]

“Dance Moms” Episode 10: There are no real winners here

September 15, 2011 | By Lori Acken
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By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA Forgive me for saying it, but God bless Cathy Nesbitt-Stein. For if it were not for her and her rosy-red dreams of revenge-steeped glory, this episode of Dance Moms — “Cathy Brings It On!” — may have become too depressing to watch. In a genuinely depressing depressing sort of way — not in the incredulous, “this cannot possibly be happening” camptacular sort of way of the first nine episodes. In a tense, tired, beaten-down moms, tinderbox Abby, pins-and-needles children, “can anybody possibly leave here saying hooray for anything about Hollywood?” sort of way.

“Dance Moms” Preview: an Abby/Cathy throw-down in Tinseltown

September 13, 2011 | By Lori Acken
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By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA Do I trust this video to still be in this cyber-spot when I wake up in the morning? No. No I do not. But in any case, here’s what we have to look forward to tomorrow night, Dance Mom fans and spectators. Cathy versus Abby and a nice little air-slap/talk-to-the-hand mutation. I’ll be back to blog as usual on Thursday.