Hello friends! We’re back from vacation. This week’s episode is a shorter one, but it’s built around a question that I think a lot of dance families quietly wonder about: is the competitive studio model actually broken, especially for kids 12 and up?
🎬 The clip that started it all
A dance educator on Instagram called heyitspickett made the case that most studios fail older dancers — not because they’re bad studios, but because of a fundamental design flaw
The argument: dance has diminishing returns. By the time a “lifer” hits 12 or 13, they’ve already acquired most of the foundational skills they’re going to get
What they actually need at that stage is a shift — away from skill acquisition and toward deeper artistry: musicality, movement quality, dynamics, improvisation, choreographic thinking
When that shift doesn’t happen, dancers stagnate and burn out doing the same training they’ve done since they were four
🤔 Why this hit close to home
We stepped away from Big Studio Dance last year to go the solo free-agent route, partly because Atticus was feeling stuck and a little stale in new skills development
I’ll be honest — I thought some of that was him being a little too big for his britches. When he hears this, I think even he’ll admit I have a point
But what that clip describes maps directly onto our experience: the assembly-line solo package where the music is already chosen, the choreography is already set, and the kid just has to learn it. There’s not a lot of room for a hungry dancer to develop their own voice.
🩰 The antidote: three weeks in Phoenix
Atticus heads to the Master Ballet Academy in Phoenix in just a few days for a three-week summer intensive — check out our last episode for the full backstory
I fully expect him to come back exhausted, sore, and soaking in Epsom salts.
The plan: we’ll record check-in episodes over those three weeks so you can hear directly from him what he’s learning, whether he’s holding his own, and what you’d want to know before sending your own dancer there
💸 Solidarity for the broke dance parents
I’ll leave you with a clip from brokedadjordan on Instagram, who wandered into my algorithm with a very relatable take on the cost of competitive dance
His math: every additional dance costs about the same as a lightly used Honda
If you felt that in your soul, raise your hand. I’m raising mine with you. 🙋
May we all stay gainfully employed so our dancers can keep doing the thing they love. See you next week — and hopefully with our first update from Phoenix!
