“If this is a foreshadowing of Season 3, Back to the Barre might be ending soon,” says Christi. This Dance Moms reunion episode made both her and Kelly physically ill to rewatch as it marked the beginning of dark times for the show. Producers were accusing them of dirty off-camera behavior, including Christi choking Cathy, which Christi vehemently denies. There was major drama involving meet-and-greets, who did them first and what they charged, the hypocrisy of it all and the early insight it ga...
Jun 26, 2023•2 hr 7 min
“You tortured us for years, now we get to torture you,” Kelly says to Bryan Stinson, co-creator of Dance Moms and today’s guest on Back to the Barre. He shares funny moments and memories from the show which he credits with sending dance class registrations across the country skyrocketing with its debut. He, Christi and Kelly discuss the show’s legacy and what they would change if they could do it all again. He answers the long-standing question as to why production didn’t show more fun and funny...
Jun 19, 2023•1 hr 21 min
“I did not have time to make a drink because I was being chased by a bear,” Kelly explains in one of many revelations from this latest episode of Back to the Barre. Before launching into their review of Dance Moms Season 3, which they admit will take a dark turn, she and Christi wanted to have some fun answering fan questions. They reveal their most drunken moments both on and off camera and the key to determining which of their famous fights were the most authentic. They explain their favorite ...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 16 min
“I have to sit here and take it, and be the one who says, ‘Yes, I'm a terrible human on every level, sure,” says Christi, as she and Kelly walk us through the second part of the Dance Moms Season 2 reunion. They explain which statements were taken out of context, attributed to the wrong people, and just flat out made up. One of the most difficult aspects of filming the reunion–and filming the show in general–was the struggle for the ladies to tell their side of the story or to defend themselves ...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 39 min
They always asked me the most stupid things, Kelly says, about Dance Mom reunion shows, the first of which is the subject of today’s podcast episode. Christi reminds us that the Moms were the real stars of the show and they got up to a lot while their daughters were endlessly rehearsing with Abby. They attempted to work out at the gym but always got sidetracked to the same place. Christi reveals why she would sit outside of the studio at the bus stop and who she spent hours talking to there. Abb...
May 22, 2023•2 hr 11 min
“We thought we’d take you guys on a little jaunt down memory lane,” says Christi, who describes, along with Kelly, what it was like, as regular moms from Pittsburgh, to attend the 2012 Teen Choice Awards. They recall which celebrities acted like fans toward the cast and which were really rude to them. The drama that went into getting ready–including Kelly throwing a pair of shoes at Christi– reflected the gray area between their old lives and their newfound fame. While it wasn’t always as much f...
May 15, 2023•1 hr
Thanks to Chloe for being our very special guest this episode! Links Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarre Thank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510 Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christiluk...
May 08, 2023•2 hr 1 min
“It’s finally time,” says Brooke about making her long-awaited guest appearance on Back to the Barre. Throughout the episode, her references reiterate the robust second life that Dance Moms has been given on TikTok. She explains what the platform has dubbed “The Brooke Effect,” and that she learned from many of her followers that her inability to remember much from her time filming the show is actually a trauma response. As Kelly points out, Brooke was the worst age to film the show, not only be...
May 01, 2023•2 hr
“This episode is infamous as far as bad behavior goes,” says Christi. It’s so full of offenses neither she nor Kelly can believe it’s still airing, especially with the way the world has changed in the ten years since it first aired. Kaya and her daughter Nicaya arrive to audition to be on the ALDC, or really, as the other Dance Moms realize but can’t break the fourth wall to say, to be on the show. Producers were always threatening to replace the Moms with new people if they didn’t cooperate, an...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 54 min
“This show is just about you and me being assholes,” says Kelly about the latest episode of ‘Dance Moms,’ where the girls prepare for and perform in Abby’s annual recital, which Kelly and Christi both admit is incredible. Less incredible is the girls’ ability to dance hip-hop, and since Paige’s foot is still broken she has to figure out how to dance from the waist up. Abby brings Payton in to join the “Light My Fire” group number, which means Leslie is back and lashing out at everyone. She tells...
Apr 17, 2023•1 hr 45 min
In this episode of Dance Moms, the girls are headed to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to compete and they are joined by the Candy Apples. This is the episode where Jill and Cathy truly start to despise each other. It’s a hatred that lasts to this day, though no one can say just why. During rehearsal, Christi and Melissa get into a fight and Melissa pulls Maddie’s solo. She decides she doesn’t have to show up for filming even though Kelly shows up when her girls are out with injuries. It’s part of ...
Apr 10, 2023•1 hr 36 min
“I held it in this whole episode but then I went balls to the wall,” says Christi of the explosive fight that ends the latest episode of Dance Moms. This week’s competition takes place in Philadelphia, where the girls dance a ballet routine despite not having had a ballet class in three years. Chloe remembers this as the hardest dance she’s ever had to do. Christi remembers that they had a really nice steak dinner at Palm. Brooke has an acro solo called “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and Kelly says ...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 27 min
“I can’t believe this is real life,” says Christi on this latest episode of Back to the Barre, “We’re standing there arguing on national television over a bow.” Jill and Kendall are back, having left Candy Apples, and Jill is being accused of stealing a two-dollar hair bow at the Starpower competition in Lancaster, PA. Before that though, at the beginning of the episode, she is accused of stealing Kelly’s hairstyle. Meanwhile, Abby criticizes Nia’s hairstyle, telling her to fix it, and Holly fir...
Mar 27, 2023•1 hr 23 min
“I guess everyone is just happy for me to be born!” says Kelly. In this episode, the Moms gather at her house to celebrate her 41st birthday, the only one the show seems to celebrate, she points out. Leslie shows up late and continues to be entitled and to insult everyone before throwing her mic pac across the room and leaving. Christi continues to be annoyed by Leslie but can’t tell if she’s rolling her eyes in annoyance or from all the wine served in Kelly’s Lolita glasses. Christi says it was...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr 59 min
“ It’s like Cinderella:” says Christi of the latest episode of Dance Moms, “You can go to the ball if you get your work done, but I’m going to give you a lot more work.” The girls are headed to Akron, Ohio to compete against the Candy Apples including Kendall, who has recently joined after leaving Abby’s studio. Abby gives Paige a solo so that she can try for a title and thinks Paige should be thrilled, but Paige knows–like everyone else–that a solo means a week of torture. Especially since Abby...
Mar 13, 2023•1 hr 53 min
“This one’s interesting because Abby is nice,” says Christi of this special episode of Dance Moms, where Abby counts down her top ten favorite dances from the show so far. Unsurprisingly, Kelly and Christi can’t understand her choices. What is most surprising, though–shocking really–is the praise Abby heaps onto Chloe and Brooke during the episode. If she had spoken even a tenth of those words to them while they were still her students, Kelly insists, Brooke wouldn’t have ended up hating dance a...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 24 min
“These girls were being micro-analyzed,” says Christi about the pressure the girls continued to face as dancers and reality show stars. They’re competing at Starpower this week, the largest competition in the United States, Abby keeps reminding everyone. It’s so big, in fact, it’s split into two venues, and Abby sees an opportunity to sign Maddie up for two solos. Once again, she and Melissa form a secret plan to get Maddie ahead, use bad acting to cover it up, and everyone else has to keep thei...
Feb 27, 2023•1 hr 48 min
“This is all bad acting,” says Christi about the episode of Dance Moms titled “I Know What You Did Last Competition.” Like a pair of detectives, she and Kelly spend this episode of Back to the Barre pointing out all the behaviors that gave Melissa and Abby away as cheaters and (bad) liars. Abby and Melissa had conspired before the previous competition to scratch the cd containing Maddie’s choreography music, knowing that judges would automatically declare Maddie the winner just for completing th...
Feb 20, 2023•1 hr 33 min
“Every woman in America has this on her refrigerator,” says Christi of yet another line that Kelly uttered in pure frustration that would go on to become one of the most quoted lines in Dance Moms history. Kelly and the other Moms have been spending extra time making costumes that they pay Abby to provide while Abby sits eating in the McDonald’s parking lot. When Kelly fails to get rubber stoppers for the chair Paige was using in her dance number (which Kelly explains was a setup by production) ...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 31 min
“You can tell that things are starting to take a dark turn,” says Christi of this episode of Dance Moms. Abby is starting to take her already toxic tactics to a new extreme. To punish Chloe for winning the Joffrey ballet scholarship and for getting a solo this week, Abby makes her stand at the front of the studio while the other girls critique her. She triangulates Chloe, Brooke and Maddie against each other, telling each one that they are the team’s true leader while also implying they are each...
Feb 06, 2023•1 hr 42 min
“Didn’t you just want to smack Abby?” says Kelly while reviewing this special episode of Dance Moms– the top-20 countdown of “Abby’s Most OMG Moments." Christi is happy to report that this was the second-lowest rated episode of Season 2, despite Abby’s insistence that fans only tuned into the show to watch her. Watching this countdown made the cast aware of several things they had never realized about the show. Kelly realizes how funny Holly really is and that Leslie only complained shout Peyton...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr 43 min
“There was a lot of infantilizing of Kendall,” says James Mahan, former “Dance Moms” producer and the rare genuine friend that Kelly and Christi maintain from their days on the show. He returns to share more behind-the-scenes perspectives and brand new stories. Some of his observations a casual fan could make, like noticing that Jill only ever refers to her daughter as “little.” On the other hand, he explains the complicated politics behind staging competitions on reality TV. Christi shares the ...
Jan 23, 2023•1 hr 30 min
“I hear and validate your frustrations,” says former Dance Moms producer James Mahan. He joins today’s episode to discuss some of the funniest behind-the-scenes moments with Christi and Kelly, and confirm some of their long-standing issues. The off-screen banter between Christi and James during the show’s filming resulted in some of Christi’s funniest on-screen moments. The majority of James’ time was spent fighting with Abby. He had to convince her to stop ripping off famous dance routines, not...
Jan 16, 2023•1 hr 28 min
“You know who gives them body image issues? Abby,” says Kelly of this latest episode of Dance Moms. A scout from the prestigious Joffrey ballet company will be the audience of this week’s competition. Oddly, Abby chooses to choreograph a gymnastics-heavy number with a plastic surgery/body insecurity theme called “Nip/Tuck”. This leads to Christi and Kelly discussing what plastic surgery they and Abby have and haven’t had. Christi credits botox with transforming her signature “angry eyes,” Kelly ...
Jan 09, 2023•1 hr 34 min
“If we all got lawyers then there wouldn’t have been a show,” says Kelly about this episode of Dance Moms where Melissa sends the other Moms cease and desist letters. In the viewing room, the Moms had asked Melissa why she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring, and Melissa stormed out, while getting in touch with her lawyers. Abby lashes out at both the kids and the Moms in defense of Melissa. This scene sums up one of Christi’s fundamental disagreements with the show: the hypocrisy and double stan...
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 35 min
“All of those things that we said, it was really nothing. It was just us being us,” says Christi of the exchange between herself and Kelly that would become a viral sensation on TikTok more than a decade later. Christi’s daughter Clara would repeat the meme to Christi in the car, not realizing she was quoting her own mother. In this episode of Dance Moms, the competition takes place in Miami. Paige has surgery for her plantar warts and doesn’t know if she will recover in time enough to compete. ...
Dec 12, 2022•1 hr 26 min
“We should be in prison for ever being part of this episode,” says Christi of the “lost” episode of Dance Moms titled, shockingly, ‘Topless Dancers,’ in which Abby has the girls perform in costumes that give the illusion of nudity. Needless to say, the Moms were shocked and fought hard with the producers not to film this. Even by Abby’s standards, which have seen the girls perform themes of teen suicide, guns, and childbirth, this was too much. Audiences clearly agreed, and the show only aired o...
Dec 05, 2022•1 hr 40 min
Links Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC50aSBAYXH_9yU2YkKyXZ0w Subscribe to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/backtothebarre Thank you to Ashley Jana for allowing us to use Electricity!! Follow her on IG HERE: https://instagram.com/ashleyjanamusic?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Download Electricity HERE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/electricity/1497482509?i=1497482510 Follow Christi on IG: www.instagram.com/christilukasiak Follow Kelly on IG: www.instagram.com/kellylhyland Hosted...
Nov 28, 2022•3 min
“This is only episode 8 of Season 2 and Jill’s already walked out,” says Christi of this latest episode of Dance Moms. This week, Nia is at the top of the pyramid and she’ll be dancing a solo to a bridal theme. It’s inspired by Melissa’s engagement, despite Melissa trying hard to keep it a secret. Christi finds this hilarious considering Melissa will openly tell everyone other private things they’d rather not know about. The Moms go wedding dress shopping, and we find out an intimate detail abou...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr 18 min
“The whole thing made me sick,” says Christi of a key moment in this episode of Dance Moms. For Kelly, it’s the moment where her relationship to Abby began to change. The two discuss how, more than a decade later, they feel physically ill watching it, and still need to reassure themselves that their now grown children are OK. Which isn’t to say there isn’t plenty to laugh about, as always. Jill’s latest attempt to suck up to Abby only proves that she and Kendall don’t know Abby at all. Jill repe...
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 41 min
