Is Ballroom Dancing a Sport?

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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

Tags: aerial dance, ballroom dancing, dance as exercise, dance as sport, gotta ballroom, guardian theatre blog, latin dancing, olympics, psychology of dance, teaching dance

Posted February 19, 2009 at 7:27 AM by keithirving | Permalink | Comments(3)

Comments

I think that it is no less a sport than synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics or any other 'artistic' sport (my words). It is also more physical than darts, snooker or poker.

I think that in the absence of any clear criteria of what a sport is or isn't, my response would be "why not?".

--
Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
Get updates on Twitter@sportpsychrob

Posted by robrobson | February 19, 2009 at 8:27 AM

As a former sport dancer I don’t even think that dancesport is not a sport. In the past I used to practice another kind of sports and believe me, cha-cha of quick-step required from me more energy that 400m running. Those sport psychologists (including me) that work with sport dancers know that sport dance is a sport, not “only” a dance. Good post Keith. Nicoleta Tanase-Trifu www.tanase.biz

Posted by Nicoleta | April 9, 2009 at 2:52 AM

Thanks. I can personally attest to the fact that the cha cha cha and the quick step do bring on a sweat in no time at all. It is interesting that if I did the 400m I would regulary train but it's only actually doing the dancing that makes you think you need to be fit.

Keith

Keith Irving
iStadia

Posted by keithirving | April 9, 2009 at 5:24 AM