| Your Post: | Common app, oh common app, why won't you let me pick ballet as an art or as a sport under the extracurricular activities? I have been doing ballet for the past 10 years of my life and it is part of who I am today. I built a huge community just because of that but the majority of our society considers it a joke. Whenever someone asks what sport I play, I proudly tell them ballet because I do consider it a sport. Ballet- it's also more than just any sport; it's also an art which allows for self-expression. The average person pictures five year olds with their arms in the air making an oval and spinning in circles. But is that all that ballet is?
Everyone has different opinions on what sport means. To many it means a team event or competition. An online dictionary defines it as,"an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc." . This definition just gives a list of activities that excludes ballet. But ballet is "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess". Ballerinas often train more intensely than a regular athlete. They breath, sweat and live ballet their whole lives. According to Wikipedia, " 'Sport' comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being 'anything humans find amusing or entertaining' have an element of competition. Not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football). Not rely on any 'luck' element specifically designed into the sport" . According to the given definition ballet meets the requirements. Ballerinas and balleranoes do not rely on luck all. The movements they perform have been practiced and practiced down to muscle memory. How to produce those movements is a skill and there with no luck involved. In fact "scientists did a study on all the different sports. They included many, including ballet. They judged them on difficulty according to speed, endurance, etc. To no one's surprise, football came in first. But what amazed everybody was that ballet came in second... by one point" . So what makes ballet less of a sport? It was after all proven that it's difficulty is higher than any other sport besides football. Maybe there is another reason for this besides the definition.
Some say that just because ballet doesn't cause as many injuries as other sports it is not as physically demanding. That is absolutely false. In fact in the British journal of sports Medicine there was an article by B Tajet-Foxell, F D Rose stating that, "Like sports professionals, dancers were found to have higher pain and pain tolerance thresholds than age matched controls in the Cold Pressor Test." This study proves that both dancers and major athletes have high pain tolerance. The higher pain tolerance is expected in ballerinas because dancers and especially professional ballerinas push their bodies to their breaking point every single day and have been accustomed to the pain at this point in their careers. Similarly, the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research published a study whose results basically state a similar point of view. It states, "classical ballet could be compared with other high-intensity interval training, but unlike athletes in sports, ballet dancers are not always physically prepared for the demands put on their bodies" . This is why most ballerinas only last to their thirties, by that time their bodies are too worn out and damaged to continue any longer. They still however teach classes at lower intensity because once you start dancing you could never stop. You probably can't say the same thing about any other sport. Especially not football.
My roommate pointed out to me that for ballet to be a sport there must be competitions and that ballet doesn't have those. If you don't do any research on the surface it may appear that way, however, one must understand that every day is a competition day in a ballerina's world. Once they are recruited into a company they train and exercise but while they do this they are being judged on their performance and could be promoted at any point. They fight and compete for every position in the company and as soon as they slip up they are fired. Then, when the time for the actual performances starts, the completion level rises to new levels. Every ballerina will fight and push their bodies to the extremes just to be the prima ballerina. According to Atlanta ballet, ballerinas train on average seven and a half hours a day plus evening performances, all this just to have more time on stage.
Then there are competitions for future start to be discovered for the companies. There are many prestigious competitions all over the world to attract new stars. In fact the YAGP is the single biggest ballet competition in the world. According to the YAGP website the officials claim that the "YAGP's Galas- featuring the world's most promising young dance students and the stars of today's leading international dance companies- have been thrilling New York City audiences since the inception of YAGP in 1999." Also in NYC there is a New York International Ballet Competition (NYIBC). "For the three-week intensive program of dance education and professional training, all 48 dancers from around the world receive full scholarships to participate. The dancers learn the same choreographic version of the pas de deux and contemporary duet chosen for each progressive round." Says the NYIBC website. This is only two competition but there are many more. Attached is a link to a website that has the list of all the major ones.
But how can these competitions be judged one might ask? Some say that it can't be because ballet is too similar to theater and theater can't be judged because it depends on the individual liking. Others disagree and say that ballet can be judged just like any other sport but especially similar to gymnastics. It will be judged by the moves, precision and how well those moves are produced. For-example, during a ballet audition all the future ballerinas have to dance the same exact dance moves as the thousands of other ballerinas. The same goes for say, gymnastics. Gymnasts are asked to make specific moves and by doing so they gain more points and therefore win the competition. This is the exact the same as a ballet competitions but ballet is more. You cannot simply execute the movements flawlessly, you also have to make your audience feel the motions and make it seem effortless.
But why is society not viewing ballet as a sport? Maybe it could be because it is a female dominated field and most sports like football are male dominated. Most football players don't particularly want to be dressed in tights and "costumes" which are used to create art. Football players are wearing tights and costumes but their costumes are used to protect themselves. Ballet is the only sport that females dominate in and men are not comfortable by the female aspect that comes with it. Ballet is also used as a stepping stone for some other sports. I know for a fact that gymnasts and figure skaters have to take ballet classes to strengthen themselves so they can perform better in their sport. In the movie Centre Stage:Tturn It Up the main character tells us that as a hockey player it was required for him to take ballet classes to strengthen his ankle. He was ashamed at first he actually liked ballet more than hockey. Why you might ask, was he still ashamed? Well, put it this way; if his coach told him to bench 200 pounds to get better at something he would have done it in a heartbeat and feel proud about it, but he wouldn't feel the same if the coach told him go dance ballet. The reason again is because society thinks that ballet is a feminine thing to do and no boy wants to be regarded as feminine by society.
Can ballet be called an art as well as a sport? As an art history website points out, "Art stimulates different parts of our brains to make us laugh or incite us to riot, with a whole gamut of emotions in between. Art gives us a way to be creative and express ourselves. For some people, art is the entire reason they get out of bed in the morning. You could say 'Art is something that makes us more thoughtful and well-rounded humans.'" To be a great ballet star you must convey the emotions of your character to the audience that is watching you. You must make them feel everything; every arm movement, every breath, every moment of joy and sadness and much more. The Google definition of art also agrees and states, (art is) "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." The beauty of ballet or even dancing in general is that you can unleash your imagination move artistically in any way you like. If a dancer had a terrible day and just wants to release their anger, ballet lets them do that.
One ballet forum on the internet called Ballet Alert states, " dancers and athletes have different goals. Aspiring dancers hope to become artists, and, with great luck, artist/stars. Athletes try to win games and competitions. (I should note that I am not saying one goal is better than the other, just different.) Often athletes are beautiful to watch, and that is part of their appeal." This gets to the core of the difference between the two. Yes ballerinas want to succeed in their careers and perform more shows than the rest of the girls, but they also love what they do and they show their love through dancing. Alice Robb the author of the New Republic agrees and even takes it a step further. She states, "by having competition instead of dancing a part of ballet is lost; the emotion and feeling behind it. It became too technical and not moving. It became too publicized and competitive to a whole different level."
So now that you have all this information, what is ballet? An art or a sport? Well, it's both. The movements dancers produce and the precision with which they make those movements, that part is sport. The emotion that is transmitted through the movements those ballerinas produce however, is art. Most Americans might not agree with me, but I am not an American, that's what makes me different. I was told a sport means a team to root for and ballet doesn't offer that. It also implies that you are brought up supporting a certain team and the majority of your family supports that team as well. For ballet, it is a bit different. You can support a ballet company instead a ballet team, which is almost like a team in its own way. What makes the ballet companies so special is that they are not all about winning or losing, they are about pleasing the audience. They don't do this job just for themselves; they do it for us, their audience.
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