‘Shame on Her’: Connecticut Dance Teacher Faces Backlash, Accusations of Racism After Video Shows Her Avoiding Hug from Biracial Girl While Embracing White Children on Team
A Connecticut dance instructor faces accusations of racism after she rushed on stage to congratulate four young contest winners—embracing three white children while clearly ignoring a biracial child, who leaned in for the group hug only to be left hanging as the teacher backed away.
The incident happened at the recent Headliners regional tour dance competition, where Nadia Boucher, a coach for Dance Xpressions in Plainville, Connecticut, appeared on stage following the performance of her dance troupe.
The instructor dashed happily toward the children after the host called her on stage, then leaned in for a group hug. But as she did, Boucher appeared to purposely or obliviously snub the girl with a noticeable big afro puff ponytail, who was standing at the far end where the girls were lined up, making it easy for her to be excluded.
Boucher got down on bended knee to hug the white kids, then quickly scrambled back to her feet without so much as acknowledging the mixed girl, Shaniah, who reaches out her hand to hug the instructor. From where she stood, there was no way she could have missed the girl reaching in.
“That was rude,” someone in the audience blurted out, but Boucher ignored it and went on to give her name to the host as if nothing had happened. Boucher showed no reaction and gave no sign that she noticed leaving the girl out.
Melissa Breglia, Shaniah’s mother, said Boucher’s intent was clear. It made her angry. She shared footage of the moment on social media, where it quickly went viral and sparked outrage, affirming her own feelings about the situation. In several posts to Facebook, the mother said Boucher’s actions had crushed her daughter.
“It absolutely breaks my heart to watch this,” Breglia wrote on Facebook alongside the footage that garnered over a million views. “Shaniah came off stage devastated! Why would a ‘teacher’ treat a child so poorly! My daughter deserves an apology and I will continue to share this until THEY FEEL AS BADLY AS SHANIAH DID!! And the studio feels justified and released a statement to the team parents as if it was MY FAULT!! I STAND WITH MY DAUGHTER!”
In a separate post, Breglia hinted that she had pulled her daughters from Boucher’s dance school.
“It is important to understand that my girls are the ones who lost their entire world… at 6 and 9, they are grieving right now. They are not okay! Their world has been shattered because of this,” she wrote. “They just keep crying… they lost their passion, their friends, and people they thought loved them as family… The dance ‘family’ that they spent hours on end with… sacrificed other plans and put dance first… has completely left them in the dark…”
Reactions in the comments section ranged from outrage at the instructor to sympathy for the young girl, who found herself facing the kind of exclusion Black people have endured for generations.
“Shame on her,” many voices echoed, calling Boucher’s actions reprehensible. Some people called out “angry white women.”
Breglia later revealed that the public had targeted the wrong dance studio with negative reviews and other blowback over the incident.