The Art of Athleticism
Dance Requires the Stamina of an Athlete and the Creativity of an Artist
When one hears about “athletics,” they usually think about sports such as football, basketball, tennis or even cheerleading. However, athletics has a much wider definition than they may realize. The debate over whether dance qualifies as a sport is a common one, with dancers commonly arguing for it and non-dancers arguing against. Even though dance can also be qualified as an art form, it has more than enough athletic qualities to be considered a sport.
First of all, dance requires intense preparation and strength training. In order to move and pose in an effortless manner, dancers must have strong muscles. For example, turning requires core strength, pointe work requires stable ankles, turn out requires hip mobility and leaps require powerful legs. While they must be strong, their movements must also appear effortless, meaning that they must have extreme control and a deep understanding of how their bodies move.
Preparing for a single performance takes many hours. From learning choreography to final staging, dancers can spend months working on a piece. Especially in the competition environment, dancers are typically learning about five to 10 dances at once. The Maclay Valkyries dance team is a testament to how much work goes into a pep rally or halftime performance.
“[Dance] takes just the same amount of athleticism and stamina as many other sports do,” Valkyries Captain Alexandra Holland said. “We put in just as many hours in the studio as they do on the field.”
Dance is also a mental challenge. For each piece a dancer learns, they must remember choreography, spacing, timing and performance quality, all while staying light on the feet. Before, during and after a performance, a dancer’s mind is working overtime.
“It's a lot of physical labor, and then also just mentally, it's hard to work yourself up,” Valkyries dancer Elizabeth Holland said. “It’s especially hard when you're going into a competition and performing for awards.”
Finally, like many other sports, dance is a team effort. While dancers do participate in solo performances, most of what they do are group pieces, meaning that collaboration is a key component of the sport.
“[Dance] is very much a collaborative thing,” Alexandra Holland said. “In sports, they have to work together on the field and off the field to make the team better. The same thing is for dance: We have to work together to make sure our dances are as clean as they can possibly be for a performance.”
Though dance has the qualities of a sport, it is also often considered an art form. Especially in the context of choreography, creating a piece requires creativity and an artistic vision that aren’t relevant in other sports.
“Especially from the choreographer's point of view, it's really like their art work,” Elizabeth Holland said. “The dancers are the expression of that.”
However, as subjects of the choreographer, dancers are still required to have the strength and athleticism to accurately portray the vision. As a result, dance is a multidefined form of expression, involving both athleticism and creativity. It can’t be denied, though, that dance requires enough versatility to be qualified as a sport.
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