Dance is a Sport (Persuasive)
Is dance a sport? This simple question can spur many passionate responses from all kinds of people. On one hand, you have the people who only consider dance as a performing art. They aren’t considering the extreme athleticism and that dance requires of the individual and of the team. Dance includes strength, flexibility, teamwork, and a competitive nature that is an element of all sports.
If you look at the dictionary definition of a sport, it is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment” (“Sport: Definition of Sport by Lexico”). Dance fulfills all of these requirements. First and foremost, we have physical exertion. Dance- especially competitive dance- demands hours upon hours of training and practice to improve strength, stamina, and flexibility. Competitive dancers are at the studio almost daily, totaling for some to even “up to 30 hours per week” (Feidelson). Dance training this intense provides the “physical agility, stamina and strength” that is necessary in order to successfully compete and perform routines (“Dancers as Athletes”). The amount of dedication and physical challenges dancers have must surely deem them worthy of the title “athlete”.
Dance is not only extremely physically strenuous on the individual, but it is a team sport. Competitive dancers may perform solos, duets, small groups, large groups, and productions. All but solos depend on the team as a whole to function well in order for the routine to score high and place at each competition. Judges will deduct points if a team, especially an advanced level team, seems unsynchronized or displays poor technique. In this case, it’s important that each team member works hard on their own and works well with the rest of the team, just like all other sports.
The last main part of the definition of a sport is competing for entertainment. Several different competitions make their way to cities every weekend from about February to May. There is no shortage of opportunities for dancers to perform their routines on stage and be placed based on the judges’ scores. Like how football teams, basketball teams, soccer teams, baseball teams, and the like don’t win prizes for every victory, competitive dance teams “typically don’t win cash for competing” in fact, “they pay to enter competitions” (Feidelson). Dance competitions are purely for the entertainment of the audience and the joy of dancing for the performers.
It’s quite clear that dance easily fits all of the requirements that generally classify an activity as a sport. Very physical, relying heavily on a team’s ability to perform well together, and most frequently only for entertainment, dance should no question be recognized as a sport.
Works Cited:
“Dancers as Athletes.” Dance Consortium, Dance Consortium, https://www.danceconsortium.com/features/article/dancers-as-athletes/.
Feidelson, Lizzie. “Inside the High-Drama World of Youth Competition Dance.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Dec. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/magazine/inside-the-high-drama-world-of-youth-competition-dance.html.
“Sport: Definition of Sport by Lexico.” Lexico Dictionaries | English, Lexico Dictionaries, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/sport.
