Argumentative Essay -Dance Is a Sport

Amanda Salzano

Writing 103

Professor Ehrlich

October 6, 2015

Argumentative Essay

        According to an American Heritage Dictionary definition, "sport" is: "An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and even swimming have always been concretely defined as sports in society without any question. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports.

        Just like in any other sport, dancing involves intense physical exertion. What appears to be a simple ballet barre routine is actually not simple at all. The amount of energy that goes into making the movements look effortless is just as high as the energy needed to score a winning touchdown. Those who have never danced before are unaware of how much strength and endurance is needed in order to perform well. Many professional dancers practice for more than six hours a day and many dance teams practice for more than twenty hours a week in order to perfect and synchronize their movement. USA Today reported that many football players have said they practice on average about 43.3 hours on their sport a week- playing, competing, and training. (USA Today, 2011) According to a performing arts school, Arts Alive, professional dancers practice and train for about 6 hours per day. (Arts Alive) This equals roughly an average of 42 hours per week, the equivalent of a professional football player.

Dancers suffer from life altering and career threatening injuries just like athletes do. “Injury rates among dancers are higher than in any other professional sport,” says Shaw Bronner, a director of a study completed on dance safety for Dance Spirit Magazine. The article reported that eighty percent of professional dancers will be injured at least one time in their career. In addition to being injured, forty percent of dancers from small ballet companies and fifty percent of dancers from large ballet companies will miss performances due to injury. Just like athletes, if you cannot perform, you do not get paid. (Dance Spirit Magazine)

Dancers all around the globe participate in many performances to showcase their skills, similar to how any other athlete would compete in games. However, there is a natural competition that exists between individual dancers for jobs, as there are fewer jobs in the world today for professional dancers. This natural sense of competition can be related to football, where the competition is lies in the scarce distribution of college scholarships or contracts with famous teams.

The winning team in a dance competition is determined by a panel of judges. Some may argue that because the teams are not facing off head to head, dance is not qualified as a sport— but a deeper look into the sport of gymnastics validates otherwise. There is no doubt gymnastics is an extremely difficult sport, which is why it is presented along with many other sports in the Olympics. The scores of the competitors are solely determined on the scores that the panel of judges decides to give them. There is a strict set of guidelines, which the judges follow in order to determine their scores. These same rules apply at dance competitions, so why would one qualify and not the other? Furthermore, multiple tests conducted at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, dancers from Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance were ranked among professional athletes in terms of overall athleticism. (Gatorade Sports Science Institute) This educated viewers and broke the misconceived stereotype that “dancers are not athletes.”

Classical ballet is the most traditional and formal style of ballet that adheres to classical ballet technique. It is known for its aesthetics and rigorous technique (such as pointe work, turnout of the legs, and high extensions), its flowing, precise movements, and its ethereal qualities. A study depicted in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research took a deeper look at classical ballet from the perspective of it being a sport. They selected previously published research and examined professional ballet dancers along a series of fitness parameters: aerobic capacity, muscular power and endurance, muscular strength, and anthropometry.