Twitter user @mstandaert posted videos of pole dancers on Sunday and quickly garnered attention on social media. /Screenshot via Twitter
A kindergarten in Shenzhen City, south China' Guangdong Province has apologized amid a storm of controversy, as videos shocked parents and went viral on social media that showed several female pole dancers – said to be too provocative and inappropriate for children – performing on stage on the school's opening day.
Lai Rong, the headmaster issued an apology on Monday in a chat group to parents saying that she intended for the professional pole dancers to "lighten up" the program and refresh the mood on the first day back.
Facing growing criticisms, the school was ordered to remove her position by the local education authority, the Bao An Education Bureau.
Lai had previously said that more kids need to get into pole dancing since the dance was too often commercialized and stigmatized and lacks proper awareness in society, hence why she just wanted to show it to the students, reported IFENG News.
"Many parents didn't think of pole dancing as eloquent or graceful when it first comes to their mind. We hope they'd have a better understanding," said the MC on the stage whom can be heard in a video surfaced online taken by a parent.
However, some parents posted pictures of advertisement on both Twitter and Weibo, China's microblogging site, claiming the dance was to promote a pole dancing school which was given a verbal introduction by the headmaster before the show began.
Also, many reportedly saw the school offered the pole dancing school a table for registering students for pole dancing classes.
Numerous clips of videos on social media showed several female dancers, in crop tops, shorts and high heels, dancing suggestively on poles to an audience mostly of children aged from three to six year old. Parents can also be seen in the videos pulling their kids quickly out of the scene in the midst of the dance.
The parents strongly opposed the school's move, and some complained to the police and the local education authority.
Netizens found it to be hard to believe and extremely unsuitable for kids at such a young age. Some came to the defense of pole dancing but denounced the schools choice of audience.
"There's nothing wrong with pole dancing. What's wrong is the audience it's showing to. It is not appropriate for young kids," commented Weibo user @Zhoujielunnaichadian.
"Why promote pole dance among so many genres of dances?" Another user @Xiaofenfentama was left puzzled.
