The Role Of Dance In The Nutcracker Dancer

Dancers putting all of their body weight on the tips of their toes effortlessly and yet people still believe that it is not a sport. Actual dance has been around since about 6000 B.C. It wasn’t brought into America on the mayflower; it has originated from each individual culture, from New York to Africa to Russia. People say that dance is just twirling and jumping on the stage however, Dance is, and should be considered a physically demanding sport.
Dancing meets all the criteria needed to be considered a sport. Dancing- (noun)-an activity involving a physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others. While dancing your body is almost constantly moving. Snow, a challenging dance in the Nutcracker
Daily exercise and rehearsals consist of repetition of exercises to achieve that physical attributes necessary to execute movement required. (Dancers as Athletes, 2012). I, as a dancer can relate to repetition. We dancers at Rocky Mountain Dance Theater will not move on until we get it correct. No matter who long it takes or how tired we are we will keep going at it until perfection is reached. Lauren Allaire ( a senior at SRHS, dancing for 14 years) says, “we condition every rehearsal which includes 6 minute planks, a total of 300 sit ups, 50 burpees, running laps and that’s only the warm up. I practice 20 hours a week to prepare for competitions.” (Abrahams, 2012). Lauren’s warmup shows that dancing is more than just “twirling” around a stage. It’s very exhausting and takes a lot of energy, most people would not be able to easily hold a 6 minute plank. You have to work extremely hard to be able to. Dancers go through excruciating pain to get where they are. Dancers go day to day, stopping for
Dancing has the same components as any other sports- to be able to dance well one needs to be flexible, strong, have, stamina, have endurance and most importantly you need to have a love for what you do (Garcht, 2013). Football players need the same components as dancers. Flexibility- because they need muscles to be safe when the fall. Strongness, to be able to tackle, stamina to be able to go far without stopping, and endurance to be able to keep playing. All Professional ballerinas practice/train 5 to 6 days a week, and take at least 10 classes a week to build technique. (normal day for a proffesional dancer, 2016). Most other athletes practice 10 or less hours a week, dancer practice 20-25 hours a week. That’s double the time, practice, pain and dedication dancing is one of the most athletic sports, from long hard practices to making it look effortless. If dance isn’t considered a sport than neither should football.
Critics believe that if dance is a sport than singing and fixing cars would be too. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary a sport is a physical activity engaged in for pleasure. However this is far from equitable. Dancing is more than just for pleasure. It keeps you in shape though work outs while also being an art and expressing yourself. They work every day from blistery feet to torn muscles. They rarely take sick or hurt days off. If they are too sick to dance they watch, in case of a change