I feel as if I should be, ok.........................

 

Miller Dance & Performing Arts Centres An explosive and glittering extravaganza of music and dance that will have you dancing in the aisles. From the infectious Latin rhythms of Cuba to the smooth sophistication of ballroom dance, together with the power of street dance and hip hop, this is a truly entertaining and magical evening for all the family.

This is what Nik's in. The first number is Salsa in the Disco~cheeky Girls, shes to wear a flimsy see-through strappy dress (which is too short IMO!), plain black tights and jazz shoes. The second number is Cha-Cha Slide~DJ Casper, shes to wear a Miller Dance T-Shirt, Black Trousers and Black jazz trainers The Third number is Witch Doctor~Cartoons, she's to wear a wig, black T-Shirt, Black leggings and black jazz trainers

 

She's also in the finale, but as yet we don't know what she's wearing

 

They have been practicing these routines (apart from the finale) since last October, religiously every week, on a Saturday, on top of their normal classes and we've had 3 all day rehersals, the last one being last Sunday which was the 1st full dress rehersal.

 

Sunday, was when were were told what they'd be wearing, my first gripe, why leave it so late!  FFS we're 2 weeks away from the performance and they're only just getting the costumes sorted and we still don't know yet what they're wearing for the finale and they're performing on Sunday!

 

The cost is a major gripe, don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for Nik to enjoy herself, but the costs are ever mounting! £273 for tickets to see the performance (that is for 26 of us), rehersals have been between £2 & £6 per week since October (on top of her £40 termly class fees), her Bloc jazz trainers were £64 (which puts paid to buying her jazz shoes @ £14 as well for the 1st number) shes going to wear them for 3½minutes and will them probably never wear them again!

 

The wig (adult one, bright orange, which doesn't fit £6), dress silver sequins sewn on what looks like to be a towel with straps £15), black dance leggings £17, black dance trousers £20), plain black dance tights £3.50 (had to get adult size as childs dont fit!), Miller Dance T-Shirt £7.50 and a black T-Shirt (hunted everywhere, I could'nt get one so I got a white one (99p) and dyed it! and well, who knows what they're wearing for the finale, we'll find out Saturday and the performance is the next day!

 

Now the instructions about the day, no electronic games, no tamagotchi's, no mobile phones, no video games, no personal hi-fi's or dvd players, they are allowed to take a book to read  Nik's group is 7-9year olds, how many of them are going to be buried in a book, FFS!  Lunch and tea are to be provided, but no chocolate, no yoghurts, no squashy fruit, no cans, no fizzy drinks.  and the biggest thing of all, NO PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT!!!!!!!

 

Now she's to be at the Theatre for 8.15am and the last performance ends around 10-10.30pm, its Mothers Day and she wont see her mum all day, she's gutted! so am I!

 

They have a full dress rehersal in the morning, a VIP and guests production in the afternoon , then the family production in the evening.  So they're running through the whole show, 3 times!!!

 

She'll never make it, after last weeks rehersal on Sunday, she was asleep in the car before we got to the main road, and they were rehersing from 1 til 6pm .

 

My big worry is, un-supervision, any school, browneies, whatever will always had an adult:child ratio for 8's and under (the majority of this group are) there are 44 of them and they have 2 mum helpers!! thats it 2, now last week there was a near fight broke out between Nik, my niece Lauren and her friends Elisha & Kiera (E & K are the daughters of my friend Linzy), the mum helpers couldn't contain it and thhey fetched me, I shouted, bawled and laid the law down, but got it sorted, what happens it that happens on Sunday and I (or Linzy or my sister Caroline) aren't there to take control of the situation!

 

Lyn who's running the show, may change her mind about the costumes during the week again and has said she'll ring us all up ( there are over 200 in the show), she may change the black t-shirts back to her original choise of matching the colour of the wig (all the girls have different colour wigs), Nik doesn't have an orange t-shirt, and will I have time to get one anyway!  Lynn also tried to press the poiint yesterday about the need to wear jazz shoes for 1 number and trainers for the others, I equally pressed the point that I wasn't going to buy her them, in the end as she was saying "I insist" I walked off (I know it was rude, but on top of the car fiasco, I really couldn't take this on too)

 

So I'm really not happy about the level of supervision (or not) on the day and I want to be there, shes said a definate no (the letter we got yesterday was in capitals and bold type!) I think its a health & safety issue, also what happens if theres a fight (verbal or physical) do I hold them personally responsible - or do I pull her from the show, thereby wasting all the money on the costumes, tickets etc and spoil her day as well as mine!

 

Sorry I've gone on

 

Rosemary x