***LONG POST BUT IF YOU’RE A PARENT OF A POTENTIAL DANCER- YOU SHOULD READ***
As much as I LOVE watching my daughter perform, I would like to share my experience that I had with Dance Tech Academy this year, that will make it so that I will not be watching her dance in one of their recitals again. At the beginning of the year, I was slightly unhappy with the fact that when we got to our first performance, Kinlee’s class had not a single idea that they even had a dance at all. This was because 95% of the time in her class, she spent jumping over toy snakes and playing “freeze dance”. Please understand, I work with children on a daily basis and am able to work with even the most “feisty” of children. I also am able to get children out to perform without any direction, at the age of 3 and 4 years old. Today when they did their second dance (different sing / choreography), these kids had no idea what they were doing almost 8 months later. Aside from all of this, my real frustration and a little bit of anger sat with this. *** Did you know that the basement of the colonial theater is full of tunnels , doors, pathways, etc to allow performers and stagehands a ton of access to the theater to move around and not be seen? I wasn’t ever sure what it looked like until today, when during the recital with the lights off, my daughter was found “escaped” from the recital and running around the theater. When Matt and I went to return her to her group, as NOBODY knew she was missing, we received a literal “laugh” at the fact that she had been alone in the colonial theater! Basically a “whoops!”. Staying with your child isn’t an option as they make you drop your child off at the performers entrance and basically kick you out the door so you can walk around to go buy your ticket into the recital. No parents allowed, but we must trust that they are watching our kid. After making sure that Kinlee was situated (again) I found myself to be VERY lost in the depths of all of these tunnels. I asked FOUR TIMES how to get out and just ended up being yelled at for being a parent back there. Can I apologize again for returning my kid that you lost? Don’t worry, I found my way out after ending up in the orchestra pit twice and at the opposite side of the stage where I almost accidentally made my own appearance! The fact that I was treated like a complete maniac mom for returning my child to her team, and the fact that I didn’t even receive a single apology, is what really really frustrated me. I stuck with them throughout the year because I had already paid the $90 (for a $20 costume - I have access to all of these same costumes that they purchase.... hers cost them $30 MAX with shipping and tax- it was also on clearance) . I also kept hoping it would get better because last year things were great for her. I get that organizing something like that is a big task, but it was so unorganized that they had no idea they had just let a kid loose in the colonial theater. If we hadn’t of noticed her, her class would’ve entered for the second dance and there would have been no Kinlee. I had already contacted another studio about her because we want her to dance at a higher level (jumping over toy snakes was getting boring for her) and I can say now, we are 100% switching studios. I know she’s 4 and things happen (it’s not like they forced her to wander off) but they maybe could’ve apologized and not yelled at me 4 times for trying to return her. I don’t think I will be sending my skaters in their direction either. Anyway, RANT OVER.