Last updated on Dec. 1, 2025 at 01:43 p.m.
A Pittsburgh dance studio, fluorescent-lit with cameras always rolling. This is the setting of Nia Sioux’s debut memoir, “Bottom of the Pyramid,” an earnest attempt to reconcile with her experiences as a star in the reality show and cultural phenomenon “Dance Moms.”
Reality TV defined much of the 2010s, with shows like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” headlining this revolution. “Dance Moms” premiered in 2011 on Lifetime and quickly skyrocketed its young cast members to fame.
The book is not a “Dance Moms” encyclopedia, but rather a very personal account centering around Sioux’s experience as the only Black dancer in the original cast.
This memoir is yet another example of the recent trend of celebrity tell-alls, raising the question of whether a “celebrity memoir” functions the same way when the “celebrity” in question was a 9-year-old child thrust into fame by adults.
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“Bottom of the Pyramid” begins with a recollection of Sioux’s life before “Dance Moms,” depicting a comfortable childhood in the Pittsburgh suburbs. In her personally recorded audiobook narration, the scenes are met with a sweet sense of nostalgia.
The introductory chapters narrate her last years lived in relative normalcy, long before producers John Corella and Bryan Stinson approached dance teacher Abby Lee Miller with the idea of the show.
“I really do have the best interest in the kids on the show,” Stinson said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair about the child cast of the series.
One doesn’t have to watch the full show — the hashtag “Dance Moms” has over a million videos on TikTok, after all — to understand that this statement is highly questionable.
The series showcases children having panic attacks on set and even physical altercations between adults. Hence, Sioux’s book serves as almost a companion piece to the show, verifying its chaotic landscape while revealing more scandals edited from the final cut.
The book recounts the filming routines, on-set expectations and even the presence child therapist Stacy Kaiser, a detail many will find startling given the show’s reputation of essentially profiting off of children in emotional distress.
With brave precision, Sioux narrates the harmful conditions under which she and fellow dancers trained under Miller. She states how this hostile environment was only exacerbated by the arrival of Lifetime camera crews.
The memoir’s title, for example, is a pointed jab at a weekly ranking system used on the show, an adult-imposed hierarchy on little girls as young as 6.
Although this clever detail stands out, some chapters struggle to match its sharpness, drifting into therapeutic language or skimming the surface of important topics.
The strongest and perhaps most relevant aspect of the book is Sioux’s frank discussion of the racism she faced.
When “Dance Moms” premiered in 2011, the racism directed at a Black child was openly aired to millions. Today, such a show would almost certainly face intense backlash, if not immediate cancellation, for the treatment of its cast.
Sioux narrates multiple instances where Miller racially targeted her, typecasting her due to her ethnicity. Her first solo, before the show, was choreographed with the song “Nattie of the Jungle,” where she portrayed a child raised by monkeys.
The book includes a plethora of examples of Sioux’s alienation in the cast, noting how she was left out by her peers in social settings and even Miller’s asking her if she “wanted white girl hair.”
When the “Dance Moms” reunion with most of the cast members aired in 2024, Sioux declined to participate. In the book’s opening, she reveals the answer was an “immediate no,” and that she wanted to process her experiences in her own way.
But even then, Sioux may have yet to fully process some of what she lived through by the time of the book’s publication. At times, the memoir feels prematurely written, as though certain conclusions haven’t fully settled.
Sioux has experience in writing, having published a children’s book titled “Today I Dance” in 2020. However, “Bottom of the Pyramid” was her first foray into writing nonfiction, where her reflections are earnest, but its emotional and narrative maturity occasionally wavers.
Sioux’s is another voice in the conversation of children on TV, which has expanded dramatically in the age of social media. Nowadays, virtually any child can become the star of their own “show” via a parent’s phone.
For some viewers, “Dance Moms” remains a comfort show. Sioux’s memoir, however, reframes the glossy drama as the well-lit documentation of a young girl’s often traumatizing childhood.
