Dance school director Inbar Niv,  a former figure skater and choreographer, says dance for girls doesn't need to be sexualised by clothing, music, language or routines.

She says it is dangerous for an adult to lead girls in sexualised dance tuition because the lesson then becomes "this is how we should be, girls are not enough as they are".

No girl at Eltham's Yellow Dance Spot has ever asked to wear make-up, she says, and "we use all kinds of music like Dave Brubeck and Architecture in Helsinki".

"They don't ask for Beyonce or Kei$ha. My theory is that parents think that is what kids want."

The school has run workshops for the National Gallery of Victoria and the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Teachers for Ms Niv's 'alternative' school, however, are hard to find.

"Teaching methods are stuck in old modes of learning," she says. "It is the difference between asking 'what are the feelings in my body?' and 'how do I look'?' Children are not empty targets for instruction."

Emma Little, a child psychologist, takes her daughter Georgia, 7, to Yellow Dance Spot once a week. She had her at another dance school when her daughter was three, but removed her after finding out the end of year production called for full make-up and a full day of rehearsals with much older teenage girls.

"I was told they had to wear make-up to help their faces stand out on stage," she says.

"It should be about kids moving to the beat of their own drum. I'm not a big fan of young kids doing highly choreographed routines."

At dancing, her daughter wears whatever she wants. Usually tights and a skirt and tee shirt. Others wear school uniform or fairy dresses or trackie-daks. There is a choice — nothing is dictated or styled.

The seven-year-old says: "We have a chance to choose our own dance moves."  Part of the class involves stories being read to them from kids' books and then, she says, "we act out the book."