Having recently started this blog, I'm constantly looking for new topics to write about. The other day I was talking with a friend of mine and she suggested a topic which I hadn't considered - Dancing. While I do value and respect her opinion, my initial reaction was to scoff at the idea. After all, this is a sports blog, and dancing is not a sport.
Or is it?
In the traditional sense, the art of Dance is considered to be a form of entertainment as opposed to a competitive sport. Perhaps I'm not the best judge of this, considering my idea of dancing occurs only after a few drinks at the bar and consists of mostly air guitar with a few repetitive moves thrown in that I make up as I go along. It got me thinking though, and the more I thought about it the more I was able to find parallels between dancing and sports that support the argument that dancing should in fact be considered a sport.
One of the defining characteristics of sports is it's competitive nature, whether it be individual competition or a team sport. Dance can also be a competition. Examples of this have become popular in recent years through reality TV shows, such as Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance.
Dancing with the Stars showcases celebrities by pairing them with professional dancers. The show is more about the journey taken by these celebrities, most of whom start out with little to no dancing experience, as their partners help them improve each week. The show has stared many professional athletes, including Cincinnati Bengals Wide Receiver Chad Ochocinco (he had his last name legally changed from Johnson to match his jersey number 85), who this season made it into the Final Four despite no prior professional dancing experience. The loud mouthed and often controversial football star became a fan favorite while showing dramatic improvement in his dance routines, thanks in part to his athletic ability. Reports of Ochocinco pretending to bribe judges with a dollar bill or pulling out a cell phone to celebrate a spectacular performance are unconfirmed, but it's believed he made it through the season without being fined by ABC.
So You Think You Can Dance on the other hand is a competition for more serious dancers. These aren't celebrities pleading for attention, they are unknown talents with aspirations of dancing professionally. For them, this is as competitive as it gets. The quality of talent on this show is considered to be more impressive than what can be found on similar shows once the field is narrowed down to the contenders.
So we've established that dance can be just as competitive as any other sport, but there's more similarities when you dig deeper. Athletic ability is another important factor in dance. One of my ex-girlfriends is a dancer and when I was in college I spent a lot of time hanging around her and some of her fellow dance majors. In addition to watching them perform in their dance shows, I also got a behind the scenes look into how they rehearse and the physical toll it takes on them. Make no mistake, they certainly break a sweat. Some dance rehearsals can be just as grueling and exhausting as practice for sports. Especially if you're comparing it to a practice for Allen Iverson (Practice?! You talkin about practice?).
Dance requires a certain level of flexibility, stamina, strength and concentration. Name a sport that has superstars that don't possess an extraordinary amount of each of these traits. Package a near super-human level of each of those traits together and the result would be Lebron James. Great dancers are great athletes.
The parallels go beyond just the physical aspects. Take for example a football coach that draws up a play for the offense. The receivers have precise routes they are instructed to run, just as the linemen know exactly where they are supposed to be and who to block. How is this any different than choreography? A receiver that is off on their route can cause a pass to be off target, resulting in an incomplete pass - or worse. A lineman that falls out of the designed blocking formation allows the defense to blow passed them with a direct path toward the Quarterback. Likewise for a dancer, if they blow a spot in their routine it throws off the flow of the entire dance. An individual performer can recover, perhaps without anyone noticing, but if they are part of a group then their mistake could cause the rest of the team to become out of sync. Sticking with the football analogy, it makes you wonder what the dancing equivalent is of a pick six (interception returned for a touchdown). You can bet it could look ugly, which is why following the dance steps (play calling) of the choreographer (coach) is vital to the performance.
One of the arguments against dance being a sport is that it's usually presented more as being a show for entertainment as opposed to a competitive game. Except sports are entertainment. Ask any owner of a sports franchise and they'll agree that the purpose of putting a team out there to compete is to entertain the fans. As far as they are concerned, putting fans in the seats is priority number one. It's a business and the fans are how they make money. Winning just happens to correlate with selling tickets. This is why the Staples Center sells out for Lakers games but not for Clippers games. People want to pay to see a winner. This is what creates the competition. This philosophy to some extent carries over to players and coaches as well. Of course there are those that play to win championships to enhance their legacy, but many players and coaches compete for their next contract. If they don't remain competitive then they aren't going to be able to cash in. They are paid millions of dollars to entertain the fans and the better they are at doing that the more they are going to get paid.
In the United States the major sports are considered to be Baseball, Football and Basketball. Hockey is dragging a bit behind, and while it's in the process of making a comeback, it's still considered Canada's sport. Then there's soccer, but it's safe to say that this is a sport more popular in just about every other country in the world than it is here. To say that soccer is more popular in a country like Mexico than it is here is like saying that tacos are more popular there than apple pie. Perhaps other countries have a different perception of dance than what the majority of this country has, but in the US at least it may be time for dancers to receive more respect for their athletic abilities. While dance may never reach the heights to be considered up there with the big three sports, there's no reason why it doesn't belong amongst the likes of Golf or Tennis. Thanks in part to reality television we may soon be reaching a point where dance surpasses them. If so-called "sports" like Curling and Ping-Pong can be considered Olympic events then Dance belongs in the sports category as well. It's entertainment, it's athletic, it's competitive and there are only a few that are truly considered great. That meets my definition for a sport.
So maybe that friend of mine knew what she was talking about after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment