Ok, so you're not having the blurring problems with the flash, only without? What's the fastest shutter speed you've been able to use and still obtain a properly exposed image?

I assume you've tried the largest possible aperture and set the ISO to the max? (1600 on that camera)

What lens did you get? I also have an e500 and am considering a brighter lens.

I was forced to learn how to do this on the fly at 3rd Coast Tribal this January, when they decided to forbid flash photography for the first time. I used a Canon 85mm/1.8, and had the ISO set at 800 to 1600, with the shutter going at about 1/50. Any slower shutter speed, and I got too much blurring from the dancer movement and my own camera shake (I used only a monopod).

How far from the performance area are you? What you describe sounds to me like your depth of field is too narrow. The more knowledgeable photogs on here can probably correct me, but IIRC the depth of the focus plane varies proportionately with focal distance. In other words, if you set your aperture at 2.5 and focus at a person 100 feet away, you might get their entire body in focus. However, if they are only 20 feet away, you may only get from the nose to the shoulder in focus.

The only solution I know to it is to jack up your ISO and reduce your shutter speed as much as possible, or try to get farther away. And take lots of pictures! With a really narrow depth of field, I find it is really hard to know until after the fact if you actually caught what you want. It doesn't take much movement by a dancer to suddenly have her veil or bracelet in perfect focus, and her face blurred. I took about 2,000 photos over two 3-hour shows, and reduced it down to about 150 that I liked. But once I learned to use depth of field, I feel it's really improved the quality of my photos.

If you're interested, the photos from that shoot I did are at:

kinglyam.smugmug.com/gallery...26_JE8TG
kinglyam.smugmug.com/gallery...71_4mu4q

Good luck at the show!

OK so I took everyone advice and take about 580 pictures. After looking through them I ended up with about 300. I would say out of those 300 about 50 are good and maybe a few GREAT ones. We had so many problems with the background being wood and the carpet was yellow and red. The lighting was home made for the back part of the stage and the front part was can lights. All in all the longest part was getting the noise out of them. Then I had to go in a sharpen most of them because the noise reduction left them fuzzy looking. Not sure why I may have done something wrong.
I want to say thank you everyone for your help, it made so much difference. I just hate that with the stage lighting you can't get GREAT pictures of wings spinning or veils flowing. Oh well just part of the business. Thank you again!!!!!!!!!