Know What your Kids are being Exposed to
In the opening scene of The Sound of Freedom, a doting father takes his young daughter and son to follow their dreams. The talented young girl wants to become a celebrity while showing her love of music and dance. The father entrusts the children to this modeling agency and when he goes to pick them up hours later, they are gone. The children became prey.
Just a few years ago, Netflix was at the center of scandal when it released a series called “Cuties” which was seen as exploiting young girls for viewers.
Not to mention all of the instances in which drag queens are dancing for children in libraries all over the country.
These are but a few examples of a much larger problem. How can parents protect their children who just want to be kids whose parents just want to save their innocence?
The Issue
In children’s dance classes around the nation, young children are learning to dance with choreography that hypersexualizes them and their bodies. These children have become covert victims of sexual exploitation in what used to be a safe place – the dance studio. Children’s dance is being distorted and the art form of dance is being hijacked.
These studios/teachers often unknowingly model their movement choices on what they see in the media culture. This cultural shift is the difference between healthy, age-appropriate dance versus unhealthy, age-inappropriate dance. Booty pops, lip-licking, finger licking/sucking, breast or groin stroking, obscene gestures, suggestive grinding, and seductive props and looks are becoming more commonplace in children’s dance:
The impact
Research shows that most girls – as young as 6-years old – are beginning to think of themselves as sex objects. According to the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, the effects of the sexualization of children is widespread:
• Body Dysmorphia
• Eating Disorders
• Poor Academic Performance
• Promiscuity
• Higher Risk of Abusive Relationships
• Unable to Identify Sexual Abuse
Boys have many of the same negative effects as girls when they are hyper-masculinated including body dysmorphia, depression, eating disorders, rape culture and violence.
Girls’ and boys’ sexual development is being hijacked. The culture invites children to imitate the porn-style dance moves of their favorite stars. Yet, neither boys nor girls have the emotional sophistication to understand what they are seeing and doing. More research and data pertaining to the impact of hypersexualized children’s dance is available on www.danceawareness.com.
Healthy DA:NCE Directory Looking for a dance studio that prioritizes the health and well-being of young dancers? The DA:NCE Awareness Healthy Dance Directory is your go-to resource. This free directory highlights studios and organizations dedicated to teaching age-appropriate, healthy children’s dance. Designed with concerned parents and guardians in mind, the Healthy DA:NCE Directory helps you find safe and nurturing dance options in your community.
More info: https://www.danceawareness.com/find-a-safe-studio/
BACKGROUNDER
DA:NCE Coalition The DA:NCE Coalition is a non-partisan advisory and advocacy arm of DA:NCE Awareness—made up of dance teachers, studio owners, artists, enthusiasts, and caring adults who want to help us:
· Bring international awareness and education to stop the exploitation through hypersexualization of children in dance
· Promote the art of dance and its benefits to children by creating educational materials that advocate for their safety and protection in all dance environments
DA:NCE Goals
1. To protect children from hyper sexualization in adult costumes, choreography and music, and to protect the art of dance
2. To create free research materials to give adults informed choices about the differences between healthy or harmful dance
3. To engage in respectful conversations about hyper sexualization without shaming/demonizing adults or dance studios so that there is a path for reflection and changed perspectives
4. To communicate the hyper sexualization of children in dance and its connection to the public health issue of pornography with bipartisan engagement
Free Resources for Parents and Concerned Adults
As awareness grows, dance educators, parents and concerned citizens are speaking out against this cultural shift toward normalizing the hyper sexualization of children in dance. Free resources to educate and grow awareness are available at danceawareness.com, including: • Video library highlighting the damaging effects of hypersexualized children’s dance • Educational PowerPoints and in-depth videos for people to use in their outreach efforts • Resources for parents to find and select healthy, age-appropriate dance studios • An educational and actionable newsletter, sent only three times per year, as well as an engaging eBook that explains the problem and offers solutions
Important Links • APA Report: www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report
• Wholesome to Hypersexualized: A Short Story of What Happened to Children’s Dance: https://youtu.be/3eJNhnsDqDc • DA:NCE Healthy or Harmful: National Experts Talk About Children’s Dance: https://youtu.be/KUAzIbuXbxE • DA:NCE brochure: https://www.danceawareness.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/DANCE-Brochure-Inside-2024-outlines-combined.pdf
Netflix’s ‘Cuties’ slammed for ‘explicitly sexualizing’ little girls
Q&A
- What inspired you to start DA:NCE Awareness, and how did you first recognize the issue of hypersexualization in children’s dance?
- Can you explain the distinction between age-appropriate, healthy dance and hypersexualized dance, and why it’s so important for parents and educators to understand this difference?
- What role do media and pop culture play in shaping the choreography and costume choices that lead to hypersexualization in children’s dance? How can this influence be countered?
- In your experience, how aware are dance studio owners and instructors of the potential harm caused by hypersexualized choreography, and what steps can they take to ensure age-appropriateness?
- The APA Task Force report highlights serious effects of sexualization on children, including body dysmorphia and eating disorders. How does hypersexualized dance contribute to these outcomes, and what can be done to mitigate this impact?
- What feedback or resistance have you encountered when addressing this issue, especially from within the dance community? How do you approach those conversations without shaming or alienating people?
- What advice would you give to parents who may feel conflicted about their children’s involvement in dance due to concerns about hypersexualization? What specific signs should they watch for when selecting a dance studio?
- How does the Healthy DA:NCE Directory work, and what measures do you use to ensure the listed studios meet the standards for promoting safe, age-appropriate dance practices?
ABOUT MARY BAWDEN…
Dance educator and author Mary Bawden received a BA in modern dance from the University of California Riverside, a MA in worship (emphasis in dance) from Hope International University in Fullerton CA, and a California secondary teaching credential. Mary began choreographing dance within church services in 1994. In 2003, she founded Soul to Sole Choreography and released a book, Dance is Prayer in Motion, in 2016. The book focuses on an educational approach to use conceptual movement as a communication tool for worship. Several years ago, Mary began to notice the culture around children’s dance moving toward an unhealthy trend: sexualizing children in adult-style costumes, sexually provocative choreography, and music with sexual content and/or themes. Many in the public arena have been slow to recognize this harmful form of child exploitation. Mary’s observation of this unhealthy trend inspired her to advocate for healthy, age-appropriate guidelines to protect children and the art of dance. In 2016, she founded DA:NCE (Dance Awareness: No Child Exploited), a non-partisan organization, to create awareness through the collaboration of credible experts with excellent research to provide free evidence-based educational materials for dance educators, parents, and concerned adults, inside and outside the dance studio.
She has spoken at numerous conferences from NDEO (National Dance Educator’s Organization) to CESE(Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation) Summits in Washington DC. Mary has also been interviewed and written for a wide range of TV, podcast, and radio hosts. In 2019 one article she wrote received over 250,000 views (Read Article). Her organization offers many resources that have researched the damaging consequences of hypersexualizing children in dance including short trailers, videos with national experts, downloadable PowerPoint presentations, an ebook on Healthy Versus Harmful Dance, a DA:NCE newsletter, the Healthy DA:NCE Directory, DA:NCE Coalition and My DA:NCE Why.
To Book an interview, email Bookings@SpecialGuests.com or call Todd Baumann at 512-966-0983
