A little girl in my granddaughters dance class got her hair cut super short right before recital. The entire class had long hair and the costumes were planned around certain hair styles. I made fruit hats to fit on a bun on top of their heads. Her hair was way too short to put up, the back of her hair was about 1/2 to 1 inch long all the way up to the crown.
Her mom went to Sally's or Beauty Co. and bought a pony tail hairpiece. She made it into a bun, it was wonderful! She used gel to slick the hair off the face and combed it towards the crown of her head. She used a lot of bobby pins to secure the hair and then attached the pony tail hair piece to that area to cover the bobby pins. It looked like a professionally done hair style.
I would say that you could get one of those hair pieces that just clip in and then do all kinds of different styles by using some sort of pinning anchor style thing.
If you google updo's for short hair you should be able to see something that will inspire your creativity.