Is Ballroom Dancing a Sport?
Pondering about ballroom dancing last night whilst I had to sit out our latest session due to injury (my partners, not mine I hasten to add), and given the popularity of the TV programme 'Strictly', I wondered if ballroom (incuding latin) could be viewed as a sport?.
I mentioned this on Twitter saying that it's certainly exercise and accepted as an art form but is it sport after which, and more as a matter of curiosity, I put dance into Search on our ecommerce application the MarketPlace. Surprisingly it listed 23 titles such as Gotta Ballroom but covering all aspects of dance,even Aerial Dance where supremely fit individuals do all sorts of twists and turns hanging off a bit of thin curtain up to 40 feet in the air (I have witnessed this first hand and it is quite spectacular).
Anyway getting back to the point, Gary Baker twittered me back or is that tweeted (need to be careful with the spelling here!) to say this had been covered in the Guardian recently.
This is the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2008/may/23/dancesport
It covers the Crystal Palace Cup describing it as akin to Eastbourne before Wimbledon. It's an open event held in Earls Court (don't ask me why) in London and describes the competition as dancesport because of it's competitive nature and how fit the dancers are. It's also been accepted by the Olympic Committee as a potential event!
What do you think?
Keith
Keith Irving
iStadia
I mentioned this on Twitter saying that it's certainly exercise and accepted as an art form but is it sport after which, and more as a matter of curiosity, I put dance into Search on our ecommerce application the MarketPlace. Surprisingly it listed 23 titles such as Gotta Ballroom but covering all aspects of dance,even Aerial Dance where supremely fit individuals do all sorts of twists and turns hanging off a bit of thin curtain up to 40 feet in the air (I have witnessed this first hand and it is quite spectacular).
Anyway getting back to the point, Gary Baker twittered me back or is that tweeted (need to be careful with the spelling here!) to say this had been covered in the Guardian recently.
This is the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2008/may/23/dancesport
It covers the Crystal Palace Cup describing it as akin to Eastbourne before Wimbledon. It's an open event held in Earls Court (don't ask me why) in London and describes the competition as dancesport because of it's competitive nature and how fit the dancers are. It's also been accepted by the Olympic Committee as a potential event!
What do you think?
Keith
Keith Irving
iStadia
Tags:
aerial dance,
ballroom dancing,
dance as exercise,
dance as sport,
gotta ballroom,
guardian theatre blog,
latin dancing,
olympics,
psychology of dance,
teaching dance
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Comments
I think that in the absence of any clear criteria of what a sport is or isn't, my response would be "why not?".
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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
Get updates on Twitter@sportpsychrob
Keith
Keith Irving
iStadia