Dance’s Dirty Secret: Kids Twerking into Trauma – DA:NCE Founder Mary Bawden Fights Back!
From the age of 12-16, I danced at a studio where I was hypersexualised, abused, and groomed. To begin it was things like inappropriate songs (britney spears Slave 4 u at 12, pussy cat dolls Buttons at 13 ect.) and costuming, which creeped into choreography (twerking, dry humping, wide legs dropping to the floor, inappropriate hand placements) and continued into comments such as “dance sexier” “give the boys a thrill” and “you would be a better dancer if you hurried up and lost your virginity” (age 13). This was, to us children, normal, and merely seen as a sign of having a ‘cool dance teacher’. We were often forced to change in large open rooms, with our dance teachers and classmates seeing everything
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