as far as my history in dancegoes, my mother owned very successful studios throughoutthe miami area. she left miami to marry my dadand moved back to pittsburgh. and then, she was semi-retiredfor a while and thought, i can't do this.
when is the new season of dance moms starting, this is just too boring. so she opened upanother studio. and when i was 14 yearsold, i studied dance, but not very seriously.
all of my life, my dad took meto dance class just like i was any other kid. i wasn't featured. i wasn't special. i didn't do solos. and competition didn'texist at that time. i'm showing my age. anyway, i went to girl scouts. i played the clarinet.
i went to charm school. i was in the ski club. i did everything thatevery kid does. none of it was worth anything. if you want to be good atsomething, you really have to dedicate your life to it. and that's what my kids do. and when i was 14, a competitionwas coming to pittsburgh.
i took three girlfriends,choreographed a routine for them-- a trio-- put them in the competition,and they won. they won their division. and so i was hooked. that september, i started theabby lee dance company. i was 14 years old. and i chose children that wereabout 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, that range, because theteenagers were older than me.
so even though they were thebest dancers at the studio, they weren't going to listento a 14-year-old.
so i chose kids that wereyounger than i was. and i choreographed a groupnumber for them. and we started competingthat season. and the rest is history.
