Femininity and Female Empowerment in Commercial Dance: Shakira and J. Lo at Super Bowl LIV: Dancing Girls and Dance Moms: Performing Femininity on the Dance Competition Stage

Dance Moms chronicles the Abby Lee Dance Company, a competitive dance team for youth led by dance teacher Abby Lee Miller. Due to its mass viewership, Dance Moms has helped situate dance competition culture in popular culture. Part of the show’s appeal is the intense melodrama punctuated by fantastic performances by young dancers. Many Eurowestern theatrical dance forms are perceived as feminized, often to the point that boys who participate are stigmatized in society. Because most dance competition participants are girls, competition dances provide a critical site for examining the prioritization of performing femininity in one area of dance. This chapter uses “Two Sapphires” as a focus for that exploration. At the competition, the judges were clearly impressed with “Two Sapphires,” which placed first in the Pre-Teen Duet category. “Two Sapphires” illustrates tensions within the contemporary American femininity in popular culture.