TV Talk: ‘Dance Moms: The Reunion’ offers closure for stars who share ‘trauma bond’
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.
Forget the revelations in “Dance Moms: The Reunion” (8-10 p.m. Wednesday, Lifetime) — who shows up, who skips it, which dancer is dating a woman (and it’s not openly queer Jojo Siwa). The biggest shock is that, despite all their fights and all the backbiting, the OG moms maintain a group text among Holly Hatcher-Frazier, Kelly Hyland, Christi Lukasiak, Jill Vertes and Melissa Gisoni.
That’s right, even Melissa — who isn’t in the reunion and gets slammed in absentia by Lukasiak, who Zooms into the reunion. Lukasiak didn’t make it to the reunion taping because she’s working as a TV show producer and was at a vampire ball for a proposed series on subcultures.
While Lukasiak (aka the funny one) was there electronically, Hatcher-Frazier (aka the most sane, mature one) and Gisoni sat out the reunion, as did their daughters, Nia Sioux Frazier, Mackenzie Ziegler and Maddie Ziegler, who’s achieved the most sustained solo success in entertainment since the end of “Dance Moms” in 2019 with acting roles in multiple movies (“The Fallout,” 2021’s “West Side Story”).
“Dance Moms,” which premiered in 2011, filmed its early seasons at the Abby Lee Dance Company in Penn Hills. The series turned into a reality soap as the moms battled the bullying Miller on behalf of their children, who sometimes ended up in tears.
Miller, who now has a dance studio in Santa Monica, Calif., sold the Western Pennsylvania dance studio and in January 2023 said it would be used as a day care. But the building, repainted dark gray with red trim, is now the home of Krise Transportation, which provides bus service for the Penn Hills School District.
“Kelly and I were together, and we drove by going to Mohan’s (restaurant) and we were like, ‘The bus driver finally won! He took over the dance studio!’ ” Lukasiak said, referring to how Miller “tortured the bus drivers” who drove the dance team to competitions.
In the reunion special, the moms question the timing of a party Maddie Ziegler threw the night before the “Dance Moms” reunion taping on Nov. 1 and 2 for Paige Hyland’s birthday.
“Melissa has been orchestrating and playing everyone as long as I’ve known her,” Lukasiak says when she Zooms into the special. “She saw an opportunity to throw a fire blanket on any bomb that was going to go off today, and she took it.”
Does Lukasiak worry about how that accusation might land in the group chat after the special airs?
“Look, I’ve said all kinds of things about Melissa through the years. She still talks to me,” Lukasiak said. “There were many years that we would not have had the group chat. I think we needed to put some distance between us, but the pop culture phenomenon of it all (has put us in touch again). Nobody’s gonna understand quite what that experience was like except the five of us.”
Well, maybe one other person, but dance instructor Abby Lee Miller does not return for the reunion, which seems just as well to most of the moms and the dancers.
In interviews, Lukasiak said neither she nor daughter Chloe is in touch with Miller. Kelly Hyland and daughters Brooke and Paige said they have no contact with Miller either.
“Every now and then, Jill goes rogue and shows up on Abby’s Instagram,” Lukasiak said.
Jill Vertes, who lives in Penn Township, acknowledged she keeps in touch with Miller occasionally. Jill and Kendall, now 21 and on the James Madison University dance team, stayed on the series for its entire run.
“We tried to leave at times, but we got pulled back in,” Vertes said. “I stayed until Abby went to jail.”
Miller was convicted of financial fraud and served an eight-month prison sentence in 2017. Jill and Kendall attended a Getting-Out-Of-Jail party Miller threw for herself.
“Her reasoning was — and this is a true story — she went to everybody’s baby shower and wedding shower and wedding and she never had a child or wedding, so it was everybody else’s turn to shower her with gifts,” Vertes said.
In addition to the moms’ text chain, the OG girls from “Dance Moms” also have their own text chain.
“When we are all together, we’re just catching up on what we’re currently doing,” Brooke Hyland said. “We don’t really like to talk about ‘Dance Moms.’ ”
But “Dance Moms” remains a good business to be in. Kelly, Jill, Melissa and Holly record a podcast together (“Because Mom Said So” recently got renamed “Dear Dance Mom”). And Christi and Kelly record another podcast, “Back to the Barre.” Chloe Lukasiak launched her own dance competition, Elevé, where she vows “to create something that was the exact opposite of what I had experienced. Something positive.”
In Zoom interviews earlier this month, Lukasiak said she doesn’t regret being on “Dance Moms.” (She and Chloe left at the end of Season 4.) Kelly Hyland, who pulled her daughters from Miller’s dance company and left the show in its fourth season in a dramatic confrontation with Miller, said she has a love-hate relationship with the show.
“We couldn’t be who we are today without the show,” said Hyland, who lives in Naples, Fla., while her college graduate daughters still live in Pittsburgh. “On the other hand, I don’t think we would be as traumatized if we weren’t on the show. There were good points and bad points.”
“I am a lot stronger because of it,” Paige Hyland said.
In the reunion, Hyland said “Dance Moms” played a role in the dissolution of her marriage (she’s currently separated from her husband).
“It definitely put a strain on the relationship — not being home until 10 every night and gone (to competitions) on weekends,” she said. “I’d come home exhausted, brain-fried, upset and crying. It was hard to keep a relationship going for those four years.”
The Hylands said that when the idea of a reunion special came up, they had to think about whether they wanted to be part of it. Their first question was whether Miller would be there, and producers quickly assured them she would not be involved.
“It took a minute to think about going back into that environment,” Paige said. “But also it was exciting to get back with the girls and have that therapy session. It was something we all needed.”
“We have a shared trauma bond,” Brooke added. “We’re the only people who really get it.”
“I feel like it gave us a lot of closure,” Kelly said of the reunion special. “We left (the show and the dance company) on the spur of the moment and never went back; we never had that closure. That’s why I went back (for the reunion). For me it was closure, and I really got to tell my side of the story.”
Vertes said she was game for the reunion immediately.
“My reaction was, it’s about time,” she said. “The show just ended. We had loose ends. There was so much more to say and so much more that could have and should have played out.”
Vertes’ excitement to see the dancers together again only waned when the cameras started filming.
“Then it all came back,” she said. “I thought I was over the — I don’t want to say PTSD — but when they started showing clips my stomach was turning and my heart was pounding and Kendall and I started arguing. It was like time stood still and she was back to being 8 again,” Vertes said. “I look back and laugh, but it still hurts inside when I see Abby yelling at Kendall and me crying. It kills me to this day.”
After the first day of the reunion’s two-day shoot, Vertes said, she went back to her hotel room to decompress.
“I cried, I called my husband, it was the same old thing from 10 years ago,” she said. “I wanted to say this and do that, and I couldn’t get it out there. There’s still so much inside that will someday maybe come out.”
In addition to the reunion special, Lifetime also debuts “Dance Moms: Epic Showdowns” (10 p.m. Wednesday), hosted by Christi Lukasiak, who lives in Mars.
Each themed episode of the clip show culls from old “Dance Moms” episodes.
“Some of them are really funny,” Lukasiak said, citing one themed to 911. “It’s back-to-back clips of Abby calling 911 on the moms or it’s wardrobe malfunctions. … I got to riff a little and be funny. It was just great that it didn’t require me to fight.”