Thank you so much! I really appreciate this! This is really helpful!

I am looking at using Level 4. I am a native speaker and will be working with my daughter. I see we can only buy through lamppost. Do you recommend the add on package? Should I buy any of the texts or is the online textbook the same as the physical book? Any help is appreciated. She's been learning through a private teacher but her teacher is not teaching 4 and my daughter has sprung this on me last minute after insisting since February that 3 years was enough. Thanks!

We have a costume fee for Nut. I think it's about $100. We are in a small urban area and only do one weekend of shows. The fee goes to making sets and replacing costumes and cleaning them. Of daughter's four costumes, she will need new pants for one costume and a new unitard for another costume. Daughter danced for a park and rec studio for a couple of years when she was young. It was definitely more expensive than what you are paying. I'll be honest and say I regret starting her there. She has sooo many bad habits that she still has to fight with herself to fix.

We allow outside tryouts and we get a few but not many. I have not but but I can see it could happen. I do try to remember that every show is so different. Our Clara/Nutcracker have been young girls (last year she was 9 or 10) or young adults (this year our Clara are older teens although our Nutcracker is the same boy). Our Chinese girls this year are super young while last year they were much older girls. Our studio does Nutcracker, only one day, two shows for students, then three shows for the public over the weekend. Then we do a Spring show for the public, usually something like Cinderella, although last year it was a variety type show with Broadway hits, a bit of Swan Lake, and bits and pieces of all styles. I don't know yet what we are doing. It's only for the highest levels, pre-pointe and up, I think. Daughter has never done this show but she will this year. We then have a regular end of year recital, one dance for each level and style.

Good luck to your kids today. When will the cast list Ben out?

Our studio basically has all the girls in the top three levels (all girls have been on pointe at least one year, usually more) do Flower and Snow. Then this group typically gets either a lead diveressment or corp an/or a doll depending on level. Of course, our highest levels get Snow Queen and Dew Drop. We usually hire out the Sugar Plum (last year being an exception). It was a complete surprise that daughter got Harlequin Doll as she is one of the weakest dancers of this group. She is a jokester though, and tall, so perhaps that is why. Would it be strange to ask the director what made him choose her? He just started at our studio this summer so we have no idea what his plans are for nutcracker. I'm left scratching my head. Speaking of weak, daughter is very weak. For someone who dances as much as she does, and for as long, she really has a weak core and arms. Even weak for your average teen. Anyone ever experienced this? She sat up and walked early as a baby but the girl slouches more and more every day. It's so very strange. Daughter's last dance class ends at 9pm at the latest. We are only 7 minutes away so that's so very nice compared to last year when she'd end at 915 and it was a half hour home. She's dancing six days a week now with rehearsal twice a week. She does two to four hours every day. Farrar, good luck this year. I hope the change is good for him. Lady Marmalade, I hope your daughter gets the role she wants and ends on a high note and that your son gets Cavalier.

Nothing like what we expected. Its all kind of strange. She ended up as Snow and Flower but she's not sharing a role. She's also in Arabian Corp. The big surprise, she's the Harlequin Doll. That was not even on the radar. She's so excited.

Insert nutcracker anxiety here

Along with all the above advice, I found that LWDs tend to have chicken allergies. Mof, I'm dealing with my own stupidity this week. My poor pup is itchy probably because I forgot his allergy (he's been on salmon based food for years now) and I gave him a bit of my chicken earlier this week. Grrr. It might explain the reflux/vomiting you mentioned.

Nutcracker auditions were today. Over twenty girls, level 4 and up, showed up for auditions. Daughter was one of four called back for Arabian Lead. She was the only Level 4 called back for divertissement leads of any kind. She was so excited and she did it with a darn burst blister (formed and burst during auditions!). Highly unlikely she will get it but she was just thrilled to be called back for her wanted role. She would like nothing more than to be the Arabian lead. Rehearsals for flower/snow start Tuesday. Tuesday's were going to be her day off. Oh well. Anyone have advice for healing a burst blister asap?

Summer has been a game changer for daughter. She did a week intensive with our new director at the ballet school and loved it. After Nationals with her competition school, she decided to quit the comp team and go to the ballet school full time. I'm in the middle of applying for a scholarship for her as we just can't affor that many hours a week. If she gets even a partial scholarship, she will attend at least four days a week with a possible fifth, taking 1.5-2 hrs of ballet each day as well as modern, contemporary, tap, and jazz. She was moved up a level but more importantly the written feedback we received was completely on point and exactly what she heard during intensives even though it was written by the previous director (but approved by current director). She has a lot of stage presence but needs to work on musicality, strengthen her core, and refine her technique. Lots of bad habits. However, in the week of intensives, her turnout improved drastically and I can see her using her core. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with her. My only concern is that we will have a huge class as they are combining the top three levels a couple times a week so there will be 23 girls If they were all to show up. This week they are doing maintenance/warm-up classes. We start classes next week. Ten days until Nutcracker auditions. Not ready for that already.

Farrah, I'm glad you took him in. Dd did p/t last year and the year before. I wish there was a dance p/t around here. I'd love Tom have her looked at. I'm hoping this new director at her ballet school will be good for her. I've already seen progress in areas she's always been told she's not good at. I think she's had alignment issues.

Then I wouldn't worry about any other styles, except maybe hip hop and tap. If they think they might be interested in teaching hip hop, I recommend starting younger vs older. Our ballet exclusive girls have a hard time shifting to hip hop. Tap is a little easier but again, better if starting younger vs older. But if they are thinking just teaching ballet, lyrical, contemporary, modern, jazz, than it'll be fine. And I wouldn't do intensives in tap or hip hop either way. A one hour tap class during the year wouldn't be a bad idea for a kid interested in teaching in the future. At least here in Il, many of the preschool/K classes are 1/2 ballet, 1/2 tap or 1/3 ballet, 1/3 jazz, 1/3 tap. If they have the basics to tap, they could teach preschoolers/Kindergarten.

It depends on what their end goal is. My daughter loves to dance but her goal is not to dance professionally. She might use dance to make extra money on the side, maybe teach at a local dance school or somesuch, but dance/dance teacher isn't her goal in life. She also loves the competing part of dancing. So she dabbles in all kinds of dancing. She has to attend intensives for her competition school so she does what she has to there to be on team.

Farrah, I'm sorry your boy didn't move up. It's so hard on everyone when they worked hard and biology gets in the way. We are waiting for our levels still. Our director left mid-yearish and our new director didn't start until summer classes had already started. Daughter was going to start doing privates with the director's wife when they left (she was offered a position she could not say no too). We are worried she won't move up as she's been on the border all year. The new director has only seen her a handful of times. At her other school, Nationals did not go well. It was quite disheartening and overall I feel daughter has been stagnant. We are hoping to change things up next year but a lot depends on where she lands. We are nearly positive she will move up to the senior team and hopefully that will bring more advanced instruction. Daughter did a week intensive at the ballet school, then we did Nationals, and then this month she will do dance intensives this month in a variety of genres. She got a lot out of the ballet intensives and I wish we had been able to do all three weeks. She's also taking ballet twice a week, tap, and modern for three weeks. How is everyone else doing this summer? What are you looking forward to this fall? Anyone use dance for high school credits? I think I'm going to use her conditioning class for PE. It's an hour a week and is basically a specialized workout class. Have debated giving her a fine arts credit with all the classes she takes.