How to take GOOD dance recital pictures?

I'm working on getting the Nikon d5000. My sisters best friend and his little sister have their winter recital coming up, he is doing hip hop and she is doing the little kid thing where they do ballet in tap shoes and an acro number (that's gymnastics with dance for you non-dancers). They are 8 and 3. I've seen they practice lots so I know the routines, and I'm a dancer so I'm familiar with how fast certain moves happen. The thing is whenever I take pictures of recitals or comps you can't see the people because of all the light flooding in from the spotlights. I know to crank up the ISO to at least 1600 but thats about it. Extra lenses are NOT an option. With the girl's ballet/tap it will be easy to catch stills once the whole light issue is gone because they don't move much. Hip hop is moderate speed and the acro is mostly summersaults. Any tips photographers?

I'm not sure I understand your problem. Are you saying the spotlight is shining into your camera and it washes out the scene? If that's it you just have to move. There's noting you can do but find a spot where the light is not zapping you in the face.

Are you saying you can't shoot fast enough? That can be solved by both taking control of your camera and being prepared. When you ask the camera to focus and expose for you, that takes up those precious miliseconds and you catch the end of the move, not the move. Manual focus, manually expose and hit the button a second before. You get it with practice.

Are you saying the poeple are blurry? If that's the issue a diffrent lens is the only option. With the lens that came with your camera you have a 5.6 when zoomed in. That is 3 or 4 times slower than you should be shooting at. A 1.4 or 2.8 is what you need.

Hope one of those helps.