Dance Moms recaps from Channel Guide Magazine

“Dance Moms” recap: Privates ’n’ Benjamins

February 8, 2012 Lori Acken

We begin with this episode with a field trip, Dance Mom Nation! Because Brooke has invited Abby out for tea and creme puffs at a place that looks like a dollhouse and is called “Flowers In The Attic.” I’m going to take a momentary pause here for those of you in my age demographic to skeeve out over the part where someone in Pittsburgh felt compelled to name their posey-shop-slash-café after the 1979 V.C. Andrews novel that made catastrophic familial dysfunction a middle-school must-read and caused us all to be just slightly nervous about our mothers and grandmas for a […]

Dance Mom yourself! Because life’s not cruel enough!

February 2, 2012 Lori Acken

Dance Moms fans, if you’ve got some time — and feelings — to spare, Lifetime.com has a brand-new app that allows you to place yourself, or your own little dance darling, right smack into a Dance Moms dance, black bobbed-wig, alarmingly teensy red bolero and all. […]

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

February 1, 2012 Lori Acken

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 Lori Acken

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 Lori Acken

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 Lori Acken

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 […]

Christi Lukasiak talks “Dance Moms” Season 2!

December 14, 2011 Lori Acken

“A year ago, I was sitting on my porch with a Flip camera talking about how crazy my dance studio is,” laughs Christi Lukasiak, cuddling her toddler daughter Clara while on break from shooting a brand-new episode of the runaway Lifetime reality hit Dance Moms. “A year later, we’re on national television and heading into our second season!” • MORE: Lifetime announces plans for Dance Moms: Miami Fans recognize the bold, blond thirtysomething as unofficial leader of the posse of four put-upon mothers united by their daughters’ training at the nationally known, Pittsburgh-based Abby Lee Dance Company — and the […]

“Dance Moms” returns to Lifetime January 10

December 6, 2011 Lori Acken

From Lifetime: Ever since it wrapped its hit first season shrouded in sequins, costumes and fiery catfights, die-hard fans have been clamoring for more of Lifetime’s fast-rising docu-series Dance Moms. Last summer’s most talked about show, featuring infamous dance instructor Abby Lee Miller, her world-class students and their mothers, Dance Moms will take its long-awaited leap back into the world of competitive dance on Tuesday, January 10, 2012, at 9pm PT/ET. • MORE: Read Channel Guide’s exclusive interview with Dance Mom Christi Lukasiak! Dance Moms will debut prior to the premiere of Lifetime’s new fashion competition series 24 Hour Catwalk, […]

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

October 19, 2011 Lori Acken

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 finale: And it’s Chloe for the win!

October 6, 2011 Lori Acken

By Lori Acken Follow @ChannelGuideLLA I knew it! I said! Way back in episode …well, whatever episode it was where the Big New York Casting Agent came! I said this: “So now that I’ve accepted this new reality in this new reality show, I feel equally secure in tossing this prediction: Despite the fact that she has done nothing but dance joyfully, express her love for her peers and look splendid in an inappropriate pile of brown eye-shadow — Maddie is about to get her comeuppance at the hands of Chloe. I say this for several reasons. One, because that would make […]