Is dance a sport?

Eddickted

I've recently been having a discussion with many female friends and me girlfriend, and they all class dance as a sport. However many friends and myself do not class it as a sport, only as a past time or a performing art. What are you thoughts on this truly perplexing and important issue?

Mr-Invisible

No

Shrew

as someone who's trained as a dancer , toured for the last 20 years and now choreographs and directs, id say no it is definatley not a sport. The training is certainly more demanding then a footballers, both demand virtuoisity and skill but dance does not work towards a competitve goal but is more akin to musicianship . Aiming to express/interpret an idea , a thought, an emotion into movement for its own sake, rather then as a means to score a point. Dance is an incredibly valuable training tool and should be taught more in schools it demands trust, skill, physicality, and the ability to listen, witness and respond to each other , which is a sadly lacking skill in todays world.

shirty5

No

RedArmySE7

No.

ChiAddick

No- its a performing art

T_C_E

Only the slow ones ; )

Ross

you really wanna know don't you?!

Charlie Block

no - when the results in "competitions" are primarily determined by the opinion of a panel of judges.

Stig

I think Charlie has hit the nail on the head. To be a proper sport there needs to be some form of objective measure: Fastest; longest; highest; most goals, least wickets and so on.

Dancing may call for lots of skill and lots of stamina, but so does laying down block paving or teaching someone to drive, that doesn't make them sports does it?

LoOkOuT

Great answer shrew.

Off_it

[cite]Posted By: Harvey Gardens[/cite]I think Charlie has hit the nail on the head. To be a proper sport there needs to be some form of objective measure: Fastest; longest; highest; most goals, least wickets and so on.

What about boxing then? - that often depends on the opinion of judges for a result to be achieved and is therefore subjective.

Stig

But the judges are only there as a last resort, in case more objective measures fail. Also, don't boxing judges work by counting landed punches? I know that it's not 100% accurate (as witnessed by the fact that different judges give differnet points), but it seems a lot more clear-cut than awarding marks for artistic interpretation which may purely come down to a matter of the judges' personal tastes.

oohaahmortimer

whilst channel hopping on saturday night eurosport had some sort of break dancing championship , only watched one act and the guy was the business... is it a sport , who knows but it was entertaining

AFKABartram

if it was based on the way i dance, i'd class it as light-entertainment !

Riscardo

The art of getting a gal to dance withyou is a sport

Amos on the wing

No