Proving My Pointe: Is Dance a Sport or an Art?
Hello guys. This week I wanted to share something fun that I wrote back in high school. Part of my senior project was writing a research paper on something related to our chosen project. My project was teaching dance lessons, so my paper was about whether or not dance was a sport or an art. I truly loved writing this paper, I got very high marks on it, and everyone I have shared it with loved it.
This past Tuesday was also a World Tutu (2/2) Day, one of my favourite ballet "holidays." I have added links to all the citations that were from online sources. Sharing this post would be very fitting. Now let us jete (jump) in (see what I did there).
People underestimate the insane athleticism needed to make ballet look easy. They think ballet does not require athletic ability, and anyone can do it. Ballet is not easy, and unfortunately, not everyone can do it. Ballet requires as much, if not more, physical exercise than most sports do. Ballerinas must be highly dedicated and train for hours to perfect the technique needed to make it look easy.
On the other hand, ballet is also very artistic because dancers tell a story to the audience without words. It is all in body motion. They must be emotionally naked in front of thousands to convey the message. It takes an athlete to dance ballet but an artist to be a ballet dancer.
First of all, what is the true definition of a sport? A sport is "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment." Ballet fits under this category because ballerinas move around a lot. As seen in many ballets, a dancer will be on one side, and then a jump or two later, she will be on the other side. Furthermore, ballerinas sometimes have to exit from one side of the stage and enter from the opposite side a few seconds later. Dancers also jump a lot and have long, complicated movement sequences. All of this movement is physically exhausting to a dancer's body. According to a 1975 study by Dr. James A. Nicholas in the Journal of Sports Medicine, ballet ranked number one as the most physically and mentally demanding sport (Kottler). Ballerinas also have to have the skill to properly execute the moves required, and many ballet dancers compete in dance competitions such as the International Ballet Competition or Youth American Grand Prix.
As one ballet dancer, Grace Hamilton, states, ballet is subjective, but so are sports like gymnastics, which has been recognized by the world as a sport. There is a correct way and a wrong way to perform the moves. They also have a specific technique. If competitions can judge us, creating an Olympic rubric (Dance Spirit) should be easy.
There are competitions such as the International Ballet Competition, where dancers from different ballet schools worldwide come together in one venue and compete against each other in one of the hardest ballet competitions out there. The USA IBC is an Olympic-style competition for the best ballerinas out there. It provides a significant stepping stone toward a professional goal. Like the Olympics, ballet dancers worldwide compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals, cash prizes, and company contracts. The IBC serves as a good place for company directors who are hiring dancers to come and search the new talent. Because of this, many of the competitors leave with jobs, which is easily the best prize of all (USA, International Ballet Competition).
Ballet dancers train for hours on end to perfect a three-hour-long performance without timeouts or stopping for instant video replays. Moreover, people still have the nerve to say that ballet is easy! As one ballerina, Mckenzie, says, she has had twenty hours of rehearsals this week. Non-dancers have yet to learn the skill level you must have to do well at dance competitions. When dancers perform, they also have to be musicians, artists, and actors (Abrams).
Some of the physical aspects in ballet are unnatural. The insane flexibility that challenges the flexibility of contortionists, the turnout of the hips, plus the strain of putting your entire body weight on your toes when dancing on pointe. An audience member will never see the strain on the body because of the dancers' ability to convey emotion and make it look easy (Kottler).
At ballet competitions, even if ballerinas are not directly facing off head to head, they are being scored by a panel of judges with a dance background. It is similar to how the judging is at the Olympics. Even the scoring system is similar. Dancers are judged by several factors such as their age division, what style they are dancing, how well they use the stage, their technique, music choice, costume, their connection to the audience, etc. Also, for some competitions, you have to have specific tricks in that dance to get a good score. You need to have those tricks in your dance to get a high enough score to do well. Each category to be judged has a specific number of points to get. Finally, all the points are tallied for their score (Welcome To Starbound National Talent Competition). If there is an Olympic rubric for gymnastics and figure skating, creating one for ballet should be easy.
For an activity to be a sport, most of the time, there must be a team. The ballet version of teams is ballet companies. For example, in San Francisco, the 49ers and the Giants are two major league teams. There is a ballet team in that same city, also known as the San Francisco Ballet. In every state in the USA, there are at least three or four ballet companies there.
Now, what makes ballet an art? Art is "the expression of or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." Ballet fits under the category of art because dance is very beautiful and visual. For some people, dance is another way of communicating. Most full-length ballets convey some theme or meaning, whether a love story like Romeo and Juliet or a cute fairy tale like Cinderella. Dancers, especially ballerinas, are telling a story without words. They must connect to the piece they are dancing to and emotionally connect to the audience. Most dancers, whether dancing ballet or not, aim to make the audience cry or feel some emotion (Crabb).
People also assume that ballet is an art because famous painters, such as Edgar Degas, have used dancers as models for new art projects (Bennett). You will not find famous artists using soccer players as their next model of inspiration because by no means is soccer an art unless they are advertising a sports drink.
Most sports are based on a rubric. One cannot do this with ballet because it takes emotion and artistry away from it. Competitions such as the Youth American Grand Prix only highlight the athleticism of ballet as a sport. It ultimately leaves out the passion and creativity of the dance. For example, the documentary First Position demonstrates the pressure placed on ballerinas to perfect their moves rather than focusing on the dancer's performance. Ballet is more than just a lot of tricks. It is about connecting with the audience and making them feel some emotion, good or bad. (Kottler).
Most people believe that ballet is an art because it is mainly female-dominated. That is not the case because, in the past, ballet was dominated by men. As time progressed, society became more open-minded, and ballet became more feminine. Nowadays, many men do ballet; at times, what male ballet dancers have to do is more challenging than female dancers. For example, male ballet dancers assist female dancers in complicated, intricate lifts, jumps, and turns. Lifting women requires lots of strength. If males do ballet, it must be more of a sport than an art.
Dance is also an art because some styles are easier to do than others. Anyone can dance, but only some have the power to be a hardcore ballerina. As Joan Robinson stated, ballet is more of an art than a sport. Yes, you have to have proper technique, but we should not substitute tricks for art. A ballerina can and should be, above all, an artist (Dance Spirit.)
Since the ballet world has competitions like the International Ballet Competition, it does not necessarily have to be added to the Olympics. Ballet should be recognized as a sport, and the International Ballet Competition should be televised. Advertisements about the competition should also be aired to promote it as a sport. A granola bar, cleverly named Barre, was contrived and manufactured by two professional dancers, similar to how Gatorade is geared towards people who play sports like football or soccer. Ballerinas should also be able to score jobs with brands like Nike, Gatorade, etc. That would get the world's attention about ballet being a sport.
All in all, ballet is an artistic sport, like gymnastics and figure skating. Men and women start at a very early age to train for ballet with many hours of practicing technique and conditioning their bodies for strength and endurance. The men have to do specific exercises to strengthen their upper bodies for lifts, just like other athletes with specific trainers for pitchers or kickers. In fact, in the NFL, many trainers use ballet as part of their training regime for their athletes (Dance Spirit). Ballerinas have to have athlete strength, stamina, energy, and power. However, they also have to be emotionally naked for an audience to truly appreciate ballet as an art and a sport. As a sport and art, ballet takes serious dedication, sacrifice, and many years to perfect, but no one gets the satisfaction of a standing ovation quite like a dancer.And that concludes today’s post. I hope you enjoyed hearing my thoughts on being an artistic sport. As always, don’t forget to give this post a like, share this post with all your dancer friends and leave me a comment telling me what you think dance is. A sport, an art or both? Sending you all the light and love in this world. See you next week!
