The children’s cabaret

My daughter goes to public school in Geneva, and every year they have a school party with food and drinks and performances. This year her teacher had selected a song for the whole class to perform, which my daughter didn’t seem too happy about, as it was not by a contemporary artist or someone she or her friends were familiar with. Still, they were busy rehearsing, and about two weeks ago we went about looking for a dress for the show. When my daughter told me it the style should "cabaret," a huge red flag popped up in my head. Cabaret? Isn’t that a bit… adult? Still, I didn’t more of it, and we settled on a pretty cream colored dress with a ruffled skirt.

Last Friday I showed up at the performance in the school yard and the girls were in dresses with a boa or scarf and a chair as accessories. The boys wore striped clothes; they were inmates. Now I don’t remember exactly all the lyrics of the song, but I do know that my daughter danced seductively on that chair, swaying her long hair and playing with her scarf. At one point, the boys all took out a cigarette and pretended to smoke it. I was in shock. First thing I thought was, “if the WHO knew about this….” But seriously I could not believe the teacher would pick this song and choreograph a dance like this.

Before I could react, the next group came on stage and started singing another French song, this time about a man so handsome that all the women in town cheated on their husband. I looked over at my daughter’s father and said: “Is it me? Am I being puritanical and stuck-up?” He agreed with me that it was inappropriate and suggested I write to the school principal. All I could think of by now was, thank god we are going to the Philippines. It is true that I allow her to surf the net and watch videos on youtube, so was this really any worse or was I being hypocritical and naïve? Anyway, the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable, but all I managed to say to my daughter was that I thought it was a bit of an adult choice for a children’s show. She didn’t really seem to think much of it.