The definition of a sport is, “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”
I have been dancing for 13 years now and participated in ballet, hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, lyrical and pom. Every year, there is always someone who thinks dancers don’t work as hard as other sports or overall isn’t a sport at all. So let me break this down.
When I think of dance, there are a few words that pop into my head, and they are entertainment and art. Dance is made to entertain and it is an art! Any dance is like a sculpture or painting that has a story or a meaning behind it. Ballets have incredible scenery and props to create the production. So I will agree with anyone who says dance is an art.
Going back to the idea of entertainment. We dance at parties, games, we even have dance clubs. Studios develop productions to entertain in front of audiences as big as 10,000 people! As dance has evolved, it’s also meant to entertain during halftime games for football and basketball, which is what I am taking part of now. So dance is meant to entertain right? Notice the definition of a sport? “...or for entertainment.” Let’s continue breaking this down shall we?
“Physical exertion.” You can go up to any athlete and ask them if they have ever felt like vomiting or have vomited during a game, race, and practice. You will get the answer 'yes!' Dancing is a lot of cardio! Just in January and February, my dance team had a choreographed piece we were competing that we did three times in a row. Out of seven girls three of us have thrown up or been close to just from doing the dance over and over. It is physically so exhausting. As dancers, we run and do circuit training to keep up our endurance. After you see dancers done rehearsing or performing, even though we may be smiling, it feels like we ran five miles in two minutes.
Skill. “The ability to do something well or a particular ability.” In order to be a good dancer, it takes technique. You can not do a move, jump, or an extension well without having the proper form or muscles engaged because you will get injured or look like a fish out of water on stage. It’s all about technique, technique and did I mention technique?
Our two-minute performances during halftime isn’t something we just came up with when we were 6 years old. It’s something we invent from our technique rehearsals. We stretch for 45 min to improve our flexibility so a simple jump can look incredible to the eye. A simple arm technique correction can make a single turn become a triple.
Ballerinas don’t just get pointe shoes, you know those things that dancers use to dance on their toes. That takes strength and proper technique. So next time you see a dancer bring her leg up past her head, dance on her toes, or turn five times on one leg, why don’t you try doing that skill without any knowledge or years of technique practices?
Okay so the big one, competition. Although they are not streamed live or on five different TV channels, dance competitions happen all around you in every state. My dance team right now is ranked 9th in the nation after competing in five other competitions to even make it that far.
We have rules! The competitions we do now must have a team turn of at least a double, a turn sequence and the three dance genres: pom, jazz and hip-hop. We have time limits, deductions, and even disqualifications. We are scored, and our referees are our judges. We are judged on technique, togetherness, choreography, stage presence, and tricks. Ballets are competed, hip-hop and lyrical pieces also compete. We can even get called out on unsportsmanlike behavior.
I’ve been in the studio dancing for eight hours straight. My college dance team will have two-day practices. We get up at 4:30 a.m. to make our morning practice. We have conditioning where we do workouts focusing on abdominal, back, leg, and arm strength along with building up our cardio endurance.
Weights? We attach weight bands on our ankles and wrists while we dance our choreographed pieces, or we will wear them in technique for an hour and a half. These bands create resistance against every movement we do. Not to mention we lift each other!
One of the biggest answers I get when I ask people why they don’t think dance is a sport, is because “It doesn’t look hard.” I totally understand this reasoning because guess what: dancing is supposed to be performed like it isn’t hard. I don’t think a crowd would like to see a group of girls and guys dancing with our true emotions because it would be a lot of huffing, puffing, spitting, and crying.
It isn’t easy dancing. There is blood, sweat and tears put into it all.
We have surgeries done on horrible injuries, we tear our ACL's, and we may look 22 but our bodies feel like they’re 40 due to the amount of stress we put on them. We can jog for miles, we diet our bodies when we are in season, and we can lift our teammates in the air while the person being lifted has their leg up to their ear.
If you still don’t believe me, then I invite you to learn a two minute, upbeat piece where you turn 16 times on one leg, jump with your legs in a full 180-degree split, and do a head spring without touching the ground. Do all of that correctly in front of a crowd of 500 people, and seven critical judges, without breaking a smile or a sweat.
Dancing is an art, it is entertaining and it is a sport.
