Dance: It’s Not Just a Sport, It’s a Lifestyle

By Caroline Sovice

Abstract

People that do not know about the dance community do not realize that it is as much of a sport as basketball, football, soccer, or gymnastics. However, unlike those sports, how the performer looks can matter as much as the skill of their performance.  In the top-level ballet companies, like Julliard or the Hartford Dance Companies, 1 to 2 pounds can make the difference between a lead role and being a background dancer that receives little or no attention.  That is why many dancers develop injuries and eating disorders.  The injuries come from over practicing and pressure from peers that will not allow you to take time to heal a minor injury.  Even though injuries are horrible, they are not as damaging as the mental strain that leads to eating disorders among many of the most competitive dancers as they strive for the 1 or 2 spots available every year in top companies. Dance is not just a fruity, girly activity that these dancers do in their free time. Dance is a sport that requires dedication and a desire to work through pain and realize that to achieve success you must give it you all each an everyday whether you feel like it or not.

Keywords: Dance, community, ballet, tap, jazz, freedom, expression

Introduction

I have been dancing for 16 years. I was on a competition squad for six of those years.  This experience allows me to realize the work requirements, the dedication, the dangers, the friendships you form, the inside languages and the sense of a family you share with these individuals as you come together to put on your show. In order to be successful, you have to make these sacrifices of time and health to be in the dance community. The dancers have to put time aside to go over the dance routines and to perfect the choreography the teacher gave them. However, there are any dangers when it comes to dancing. I have had so many injuries that almost ruined my dance career, but I was one of the lucky ones that did not have one major injury that ended it all for me. It is so easy to get injured. Dancers can jump on their feet one wrong way and that is the end of his or her dance career forever.  That is why many dancers put their all into each performance.  They realize at anytime what they are dong may be the last time they are ever able to do it.

In order to understand more about the stress and how it affects the dance community, I decided to focus my research on eating disorders and long-term injuries in the dance community.  Based upon my field notes, these two topics appeared to be the most common issues and had the most relevance to members of multiple communities.  Furthermore, by understanding this I will be able to study other dance communities and see how these issues affect them. These are also the two main topics of academic research in the dance community based on my searches of Google and ebscohost. For this reason, I believe they will provide me with the best tools to use in evaluating my field notes and enable me to

provide information that can help future researchers’ conduction field work on any dance community.

 

METHODS AND SETTINGS 

Because of my experience, I chose to look into the local dance community in Lexington, and the dance community around the world. I first chose to look at the local dance community in Lexington, the UK Dance Ensemble. “The UK Dance Ensemble is made up of current UK students who are interested in dance and the opportunity to develop their bodies as intelligent and responsive instruments through dance techniques. In addition, they are given the opportunity to develop creative skills and understandings through their participation in formal and informal dance performances” (UK Dance Ensemble Website). This Dance Ensemble does not care what race, color, sex or religious affiliations or beliefs a person has as long as he or she is dedicated to performing. The membership is open to all current UK students.   They have audition in the Fall and Spring semesters to continuously maintain a full roster. The UK Dance Ensemble meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00-5:50 p.m. at the Barker Hall Dance Studio for technique classes. All members of the Ensemble must attend at least two technique classes per week and are encouraged to enroll in the Modern Dance Classes, KHP 181 & 182. Around concert times, extra rehearsals are necessary and are arranged by the individual choreographers. I interviewed three young women, who are a part of the UK Dance Ensemble. I interviewed Kristen (sophomore), Jordan (Junior) and Sam (Senior). “The students’ participation in the dance activities, choreography, performances, costume

making, set design, and poster and program design will provide appreciation of dance as an art form. It will also provide a greater appreciation of all the arts and their interrelationships” (UK Dance Ensemble Website).

To get more information about the dance community, I looked into the social media world. YouTube has really

helped me examine multiple dance communities from all over the world. To get information about these communities, all you need to do is type in any style of dance into YouTube, and one will be able to see dancers from Africa to China to even Lexington, Kentucky. Dancers can leave comments below the video, telling the dancers in the video what they liked and did not like, I also used YouTube to look up famous dance TV shows that are well known to the dance community. TV shows like, “So You Think You Can Dance”, “Dance Moms” and “Dancing With The Star.” These shows let the viewer see the many types of dance that exist, and how they are adapted by people of all ages.  Dance is one of the few sports that is not limited by time.  A dance that was popular twenty years ago can be done to new music and take on a new meaning.

 

LITERATURE REVIEW 

Through out my research, I found a lot of articles that support my argument. “Eating Disorder Symptomatology Among Ballet Dancers.” This research article talks about the struggles of being a ballet dancer. There is so much pressure on these girls to be perfect and skinny.  For many of them the only way they believe that they can have this is through starvation and purges which leads to the development of an eating disorder. They have all of this pressure from their ballet teachers, the ballet students and sometimes even their parents.

In Laura Herbrich’s article “Anorexia Athletica in Pre-Professional Ballet Dancers” she stated, “competitive sport has been under increasing discussion as a possible

favorable factor in the development of eating disorders among children and adolescents” (1115).  This showed me the need to look at all levels of dance communities in order to see how big of a problem this really is and opens the door for future researchers to look at a wide range of different types of dance also. The article further stated “a higher prevalence of eating disorders has been reported in athletes than non-athletes in recent years. Those primarily affected are female athletes involved in aesthetic sports” (1115).

In the article “Perfectionism and Learning Experiences in Dance Class as Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Dancers”, it shows that these problems exist at all levels and helps researchers into the dance community realize that to understand what is affecting the community that you must look beyond just the professionals and realize that anyone who dances could have this problem.

In the article “Knowledge of Eating Disorders Among Collegiate Administrators, Coaches, and Auxiliary Dancers” Female dancers and athletes are especially vulnerable to eating disorders, unhealthy weight behaviors, and bad eating habits. Dancers are not viewed as “real athletes.”  They do not have people to monitor their health or eating habits, they are on their own when it comes to being healthy. The only healthy that matters in their eyes is the “skinny healthy.”  This is important to understand because if the leaders in their lives do not control these disorders it will never be taken care of.  This means that researchers need to focus on the athletes not the coaches or teachers because in many cases they either do not know what is going on or do not care as long as the performance is good.

 

Behind the Dancer 1

In order to understand a dance community you must first understand the members and their desires. The best way to do this is to talk to several members of the same community so that you can get a better understanding of why each is involved. For my first interview, I spoke with Kristen. This interview took place in the dining room of our sorority house. This was a hectic time, and we were both trying to get ready for our formal meeting we were required to attend in ten minutes. In order to begin, I called her over asking if we could do the interview real fast, just to pick at her brain and get the process started. This was not the best situation because there were girls running in and out of the dining room while we were trying to talk about her life with dance. We had to rush through the interview because we had our chapter meeting in five minutes and we had to make it time so that we could take attendance. She seemed a little out of breath and frazzled when we were talking. Kristen was feeling this way because she just got out of class and ran all the way from her class to make it in time for meeting. However, when I started asking her about her life with dance, she seemed to calm down and relax. When she talked about life in the dance community, she seemed confident and proud to be part of this community.

Kristen spoke about how she got started in dance. She said, “I’ve been dancing since I was three and I am still dancing to this day.” She told me her mom put her in dance and other achieves like every other parent did with his or her children. Kristen’s mother wanted her to learn about soccer, softball and other sports, but Kristen kept turning back to dance.  She explain saying that dance was “The only thing I liked doing after doing it for

so long and couldn’t stop.” Kristen was involved in a lot of different types of dance styles, such as tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, gymnastic, hip-hop and clogging.  She was willing to try anything, which she showed when she said, “my teachers offered to teach us how to clog, so we took it up.” She told me when I asked her why she took clogging. “My favorite style is tap; I just love the way it makes me feel.” In order to show my connection with her, I told her that tap was my style of dance too. The love of tap connects to one of the artifacts that define the community: shoes.  Shoes define this community because most types of dance require a specific type of shoe.  These range from tap to ballet and all forms in between.  Also, as a girl I know that me and most of my friends also just love shoes.

Almost every girl loves shoes, but that love can quickly change to hate when you have to wear shoes to perform in. Any dancer can tell you that shoes prove how much you love to perform.  Dance shoes cause blisters and calluses that last for years after your last performance.  No matter what type of shoe you wear there is some kind of pain.  This is a perfect representation of dance because not matter what the performance must go on. These dance shoes also have different personalizes that you would think they would have. The tap shoes have an up beat lifestyle that does not stop moving. The ballet points shoes are prim and proper personalize that always strive to work hard and do their best. The Hip-hop sneakers are more low key but still have the “street” attitude edge. Then you have no shoes, the bare feet. That strips you bare and truly express what you are feeling.

All of these different shoes and more all have a main part apart of dance. They give the dancer and structure

and format to hold them up when they are dancing. It gives them frictions when shoe meets floor so they would not hurt themselves. These shoes help complete the dance routine and the outfit. As every girl knows, you need a great shoe to complete the outfits. Shoes are sometimes overlooked in the dance world. I cannot tell you how many times I forget my tap shoes, hip-hop shoes or ballet shoes. But when I tried to dance with out those shoes, it made everything that much harder. Trying to tap in bare feet is pretty mush impossible. We take so much for granted in the dancer world. We have to be the best at everything thing. This is especially true for Tap. That is why Kristen’s dedication to tap is so impressive.

 

Kristen kept dancing throughout middle school and then was a member of the competition dance squad until she graduated high school. Competition dance is when you learn a hard dance routine and practice it until it is perfect, and then you go to a competition to try to win all of the awards you can and try to make it to the national level. Kristen told me that “with competition you need to learn how to do your make-up and hair” because you’re clothing and style are judged along with your dance skills. When she was talking about this, I could not help but remember the article “Strike a Pose” by Karen Downing. I remember the part in the article where the Photo Phantasies were getting the narrator ready for her “close up”. “They ‘glitzed her up,’ but Robin was already comfortable wearing a fair amount of makeup.”  These girls have to get all “glitzed up” and ready to go on stage so they can perform their hearts out.

Kristen told me that during the summer she still helps out at her old dance studio because she misses dance so much. When Kristen came to the college she knew she wanted to keep up with dancing, so she joined the Dance Ensemble.  In order to better understand her I asked, “Why do you dance?” Her response showed how a person could really connect to a certain activity.  She stated that it “Is something I have grown to love, stay active, fit and healthy. Without dance I don’t feel myself. When I dance I feel at home.”

 

Behind the dancer 2

The next girl (Jordan) I wanted to interview was actually my roommate from my sophomore year.  All sophomore year, she would talk about dance and how much she loved being part of the UK Dance Ensemble. She was hardly ever at the apartment for us to hang out, but I knew she was doing what she loved to do: dance. Because Jordan is a Chemistry Major and involved with sorority and lab work, it is difficult for us to sit down and actually talk face to face. We would try to schedule times to talk, but something kept coming up with her

schedule or my schedule. So we just decided the best way for us to talk to each other was for me to email her questions and then for her to email me her answer back to me. If I happen to see her in the hallway, I would ask her questions about her answers so I could understand them better.

 

I have known Jordan for two years, and I know one thing is for sure; dance will always be in her life. Jordan started dancing when she was three, so she has been involved with dance for eighteen years. This shows her dedicated to dance.  Jordan’s mother put her in dance so she would be active at a young age.  As she grew older, she continued dancing because she found the majority of her friends in her dance classes.  She began competing when she was in second grade, but dance was just something to do in her spare time (she failed at all other sports).  “I had a huge change of heart when she was twelve.  I discovered how important dance was in her life” explain Jordan to me with so much passion.  This was the time in which Jordan discovered her talent in tap dancing, which soon became her passion and consumed her entire life.

From then on, Jordan took every dance class available to her, even traveling every weekend to take from the best dance teachers around her area.  She gave up a typical high school social life in order to take ballet classes at 9:00 am on Saturday mornings.  Her summers were spent inside various studios, taking classes from some of most well known dancers in the world.  She did not mind giving up her time because she loved dance. “Dancing has let me travel all over the country, taking classes from (now) Emmy nominated teachers. I have countless

stories, from being singled out in master classes, to dancing in an Off-Broadway Theatre in Hell’s Kitchen, to being remembered by teachers years after taking class from them.” She still loves dance.  Dance is her outlet; the one time she is truly herself.  I loved how Jordan told me what dance meant to her. “I dance because I truly feel like myself. It is my source of stress relief. Anxiety relief. Anger relief. I am the happiest when I dance. Dancing makes me feel like the world has stopped turning for a moment and I don’t have a care in the world.”

 

Behind the dancer 3

The last person I interviewed was Sam. Sam is a senior at the University of Kentucky and she dances in UK’s Dance Ensemble. With her graduation around the corner and being in charge of the entire dance activities in her sorority, it was hard to actually sit down and talk to her about her dancing career. Just like Jordan and I, we have tried to set a time to sit down and just talk, but our schedules would get changed and rearrange and we would have to change our plans. We decided the best way for us to talk to each other was through email. Even though we both did not want to do the interview this way, it was the only way to make it happen.

Just like Kristen and Jordan, Sam started dancing at a young age. However, as soon as she stepped into her dance class, she knew that was where she belonged. “Ballet was the first style of dance I learned” she explained to me, “and then I eventually started pointe, jazz, tap and hip hop.” Sam hopes to continue having

dance in her life somehow. She truly enjoys dancing because it clears her mind and it is a great form of art where she and others can express any emotion through the movements of the body. “It is also a fun and great way to stay in shape!” she told me when I asked why else she dances.

She told that there are so many different styles of dance out there and she enjoys learning new things. “Being a part of the UK Dance Ensemble we have many opportunities to learn new styles of dance with guest choreographers that teach classes and dance numbers for our show.” Last year, for example, Sam learned salsa. Sam takes pleasure in lyrical and jazzes the most. “When I was younger I focused on ballet/theatrical (stage recitals) dance and then around high school I enjoyed competitive hip hop and jazz. Before high school I was involved in many ballet/dance companies, camps and intensives mostly in advanced ballet and jazz.” Later on Sam made her dance team in high school. At the time, Sam had to adapt to a different style of dance that was more uniformed/competitive.

Now as a member of the UK Dance Ensemble Sam has gone back to more theatrical dancing and has developed a passion for lyrical and jazz dance. These styles express a lot of emotion and tell stories which Sam find as a neat aspect of dance. Unlike Debra in the article “Along for the Ride: A Profile on Debra Bernstein”, Sam knows what she wants to do with dance and she has been working hard all her life to get to that goal. But Debra on the other hand was not so focused. “ ‘I think I slacked off in high school—I just assumed that I was going to come here, so I just wanted to get above an eighty-five average….or whatever,’ Debra said and gave a short laugh” ( P# 2). As you can tell, Debra really did not care.

She did not worry about how good her grades were, because she already knew where she was going to college, but this attitude is not for Sam. Sam is still working hard and trying so hard to achieve her goals in life. She is inspiring me to do my best in all I do.

Even though none of these young women have any eating disorders or are badly injured, they still stand to prove my point; dance is just not another activity. It is a sport just like every other sport. Dance has the same stress level, commitment level and sadly the same eating disorders as any other sport does. I have found several research paper the support this agreement.

 

DDISCUSSION: COMPARING AND CONTRASTING EXAMPLES, WHAT DO THEY SUPPORT OR CHANGE ABOUT THE MACRO PICTURE?

The first article I examined was “Eating Disorder Symptomatology Among Ballet Dancers.” This research article talks about the struggles of being a ballet dancer. There is so much pressure on these girls to be perfect and skinny.  For many of them the only way they believe that they can have this is through starvation and purges which leads to the development of an eating disorder. They have all of this pressure from their ballet teachers, the ballet students and sometime even their parents. This article shows this by stating that; “Ballet dancers are a high-risk group for the development of eating disorders… [because] body dissatisfaction is present among 37% to 84% of ballet dancers” (Ringham, 503). It is not just their bodies that these dancers worry about these individuals have a “…desire to achieve weights

below 82% of ideal” (Ringham, 503).  This is dangerous because at this weight there is a higher risk of injury and a chance to do permanent damage to your body. Ringham states “the major findings of this investigation are that ballet dancers report extremely high rates of disordered” (508). The most culturally relevant aspect of this article is that it establishes the wide spread nature of eating disorders among dancers and that it is a problem that is based on image and a need to fit in that goes beyond being a normal person.  By showing this it helps the researcher see the need to ask subjects about their perceived body image and would argue for the use of picture to let the audience see what these performers see as being large or over weight.

In order to see if this issue went beyond the most elite dancers, I decided to research issues on nonprofessional dancers.  In Laura Herbrich’s article “Anorexia Athletica in Pre-Professional Ballet Dancers” she stated that “competitive sport has been under increasing discussion as a possible favorable factor in the development of eating disorders among children and adolescents” (1115).  This showed me the need to look at all levels of dance communities in order to see how big a problem this really is and opens the door for future researchers to look at a wide range of different types of dance also. The article further stated that “a higher prevalence of eating disorders has been reported in athletes than non-athletes in recent years. Those primarily affected are female athletes involved in aesthetic sports” (1115).  This explained the need to realize that dance is an aesthetic sport and needs to be included in the monitoring systems used to maintain healthy athletes in other sports because of the importance place on body image.   The reasons behind these disorders are: “a combination of sociocultural pressures and pressures

inherent in the dance profession itself (e.g. idealization of a certain body composition, physical and technical demands, expectations of high performance) make ballet dancers at risk of eating disorders. Accordingly, research has reported a higher risk of anorexia nervosa and more anorexia nervosa-like characteristics among ballet dancers than controls.” (Herbrich, 1116).

Through out this process of watching these dancers, I see this coming true. I say this because, even through all of these girls are beautiful in their own way, they do not see that.  All they see is what is wrong with them; they do not see their true beauty. They get these silly ideas that to be a dancer you have to skinny and have the perfect everything. It is because of their teachers and social media that they develop these false ideas. This article helps researchers understand the pressures on this community and the need to focus on questions of body image to understand what bothers these girls and why they need to be studied to help others understand body image issues. To understand this at the most basic level I decide to look at an article about women that just take dance classes for fun and were members of an informal community.

In the article, “Perfectionism and Learning Experiences in Dance Class as Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Dancers” Penniment and Egan state that “women who engage in dance training have been reported to be at risk for eating disorders, and it has been hypothesized that expectancies about thinness and restricting food intake are formed partly as a result of exposure to thinness related learning experiences in this environment” (13).  There article is important because it shows that these problems exist at all levels and helps researchers into the dance community realize that to

understand what is affecting the community that you must look beyond just the professionals and realize that anyone who dances could have this problem The authors believe that this happens because “dancers spend innumerable hours practicing in front of mirrors where their bodies are closely scrutinized by self and others. If they apply high levels of perfectionism to dance and body shape, then the combination of sociocultural pressures for thinness inherent in the dance profession combined with expectations of high performance produce the ideal social climate for development of eating disorders.” (13-14).

Conclusion

Dance is a misunderstood sport that forces the participants to risk their health in order to achieve their hopes and desires.  However, until it is better understood it will be impossible for these individuals to get the help they need to maintain healthy practices while performing the activity they love.  Furthermore, dance is something that a person can do for a lifetime as long as they realize that in order to achieve their dreams they do not have to sacrifice their health or perform with injuries that can prematurely end their ability to do what they love.  However, until further studies have been performed on the dance community it will be impossible to develop a plan to protect these individuals from the destructive behavior that run through this sport.  As a member of a dance community, I now realize that the first step is, for those of us that have went from competition to just dancing for fun and relaxation, to become mentors for the young people just starting to dance so that we can teach them healthy habits.  Furthermore, it is vital that they realize that to love the sport does not always require you to sacrifice your

health, and that success is not about how you look, but is about doing what you love for a long time.

 

Work Cited

“Best Seller Dance Shoes, Jazz, Dancewear & Pointe Shoes.” Best Seller Dance Shoes, Jazz, Dancewear & Pointe Shoes. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.

Downing, Karen “Strike a Pose” FieldWorking Reading and Writing Research.

Fuhrmann, T  , and A  Brayer. “Injury Prevention for Modern Dancers: A Pilot Study of an Educational Intervention.” Journal of Community Health 35.5 (2010): 527-533. PubMed. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Herbrich, Laura, Nora Schneider, Ulrike Lehmkuhl, and Ernst Pfeiffer. “Anorexia athletica in pre-professional ballet dancers.” Journal of Sports Sciences 29.11 (2011): 1115-1123. tandfonline.com. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Jordan. Personal Interview. 9 October, 2012

Jordan’s Black and White Picture and Her tap shoe

Kristen. Personal Interview. 8 October, 2012

Penniment, K, and S Egan. “Perfectionism and Learning Experiences in Dance Class as Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Dancers.” European Eating Disorder Review

20.1 (2012): 13-22. Pub Med. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Richardson, Mark, James Green, and James Leeper. “Knowledge of Eating Disorders Among Collegiate Administrators, Coaches, and Auxiliary Dancers.”  Perceptual And Motor Skills 112.3 (2011): 951-958. Ammons Scientific. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Ringham, Richard. “Eating disorder symptomatology among ballet dancers.” International Journal on Eating Disorders 39.6 (2006): 503-508. Pub Med. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Sam. Personal Interview. 12 October, 2012

“Stage Makeup for Young Dancers.” About.com Dance. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.

Steinberg, Nili , Smadar  Peleg, and Israel  Hershkovitza. “Injury patterns in young, non-professional dancers.” Journal of Sports Science 29.1 (2011): 47-54. tandfonline.com. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Trukhin, Max “Along for the Ride: A Profile on Debra Bernstein” http://ukyethnography205.wordpress.com/readings/  Oct 13, 2012.

“Tying Your Pointe Shoes » 4dancers.” RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.

“UK Dance Ensemble.” UK Dance Ensemble. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.