Nicoletta Coppola
Life Lessons Individuals Learn Growing Up a Dancer
In today’s society, extra curricular activities are popular amongst many children and teenagers. Many of these activities include sports such as soccer or hockey, as well as arts such as visual design. An activity of growing popularity for youth is dance. Dance involves both physical activity as well as creative artistry. Despite dance challenging the body’s physicality and mentality, it teaches the youth many life lessons that will benefit any career path the chose to follow.
To begin, dance forces its participants to gain independence. Many dancers join competitive dance teams, or performance dance companies. These both require dancers to be in the space for several hours without their parents. The dancers must learn to keep their bodies hydrated and nourished throughout their hours of dancing to ensure they can meet the level of physicality required. They have to develop an awareness to judge when their body needs more fuel, without constant reminders from their parents. Due to the physical commands of the body, dancers are prone to injury. An outside eye can easily identify some injuries, such as fractures or breaks. However, the dancer must identify injuries such as muscle tears,
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Dance requires both mental and physical effort, as well as determination and persistence. Without those characteristics, dancers will find it difficult to be successful, since it is a popular, and therefore competitive, activity. Dancers must understand that the outcome they receive is a direct reflection of the work they do. To obtain a certain goal one must learn to motivate and challenge themselves. It is the dancers responsibility to utilize the information they are given by their teachers to their maximum potential. The ability to continuously push personal boundaries and focus themselves will benefit the individuals in any career path they
and in front of the whole school during spirit week and international week, without a bit of apprehension. Gaining this confidence was and is the key to victories in dance competitions. Confidence and my familiarity with a variety of dance forms such as hip-hop, jazz, and several Indian classical dances can be credited to my winning first place in a memorable competition, where, for the first time, my two friends and I choreographed the dance piece that we performed. This experience also helped as the same friends and I had 2 weeks to choreograph, perfect, and perform alongside a famous Indian singer as he sang live. These values specifically pushed me advance further into the art form, and were also extremely useful outside of the dance
By universal definition, "sport" is listed as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively." Football, basketball, baseball, soccer and other primary activities have always been concretely defined as sports in society. However, one of the most physically demanding activities is constantly forgotten when it comes to the realm of sports- dance. Dance requires a tremendous amount of training and creates an aura of competition in which people compete to be the best, win, and take home the trophy- just like in traditionally accepted sports. These sports, however, do not possess an element of psychological health threats that some competitive dancers unfortunately must account for due to the emphasis placed on physical appearance.
Ballet is an athletic art form that utilizes muscle control, flexibility, and physical strength. It requires extreme discipline from the dancers and takes an extreme amount of mental concentration. This discipline causes dancers to have success throughout life and specifically in academic studies. There are many ways that dance can affect the success of a person’s life; however, there are two in specific that make dancers generally more successful. To begin, ballet causes dancers to be self-motivated workers; dancers cannot rely on others to push them to be better, but must have the drive within themselves.
For the dancer, music and choreography are paramount. The music guides the dancer, and the moves express the music. However, the dance has to start from somewhere.
The typical idea of a dancer is that they are tall, slender, full of energy, and lucky because they dance with all of the “stars”. Much of this is true, however, what many people do not think of are the many hardships that a dancer goes through in order to achieve their high status in the dance world. It takes much hard work and determination along with good direction to become a dancer. However, nothing good comes without a price. Dancers often times have many pressures put on them which can lead to physical and emotional damages. These damages occur through the pressures from the media, parents, teammates, and the stereotype that society has placed on dancers.
Some values that make activities a sport would be that it’s time consuming, healthy, and also beneficial to emotional and physical requirements. However one concern that has been on people’s minds was why dance is not always considered a sport. There are various reasons to uphold both sides of agreeing or disagreeing the issue, but not all opinions support the fact with reasonable thoughts. “As knowledge about the body increases, dance training improves and the competition for excellence paired with innovation is greater, dancers bodies are pushed to the limits. The physical ability and disciplines expected of a dancer can be easily related to those
does our society fail to respect dance as a sport? Dancing as a career requires an incredible
Dance requires a large amount of time in order to be prepared for competitions/showings.You have to be there present ready to go while working your hardest so you won’t let your team down. Personally throughout the week not including weekends, I will typically spend roughly over ten hours practicing. As you can see you need to be very dedicated in dance just like any sport. If you compare dance to any sport like football, dance requires the same work ethic, if not more. “We condition every rehearsal, which includes a six minute plank, three hundred sit ups, fifty burpees, we run laps, and a lot more. We become complete athletes. I have practice for twenty hours a week in order to prepare for the competitions,”. In conclusion dance requires the same commitments as any other sport
...re of different dance cultures within the vocabulary of their scope, then the results would be so astounding as to give that dancer an unspoken quality distinguishing them from among their peers. Movement knowledge is cultural knowledge and remembering that each culture is beautiful and different in its own way can help create a dancer that will resonate with any audience member.
Dancing is a tremendously difficult task. That is why all dancers must have a mind mentally
If a dancer is injured, they will become aware through their nociceptors, which are receptors at the end of a sensory neuron axon that are activated by stimuli that cause tissue damage (Nida Gleveckas-Martens, 2013). Dancers also often perform with other dancers. In these cases, the dancer will need his or her sense of touch to feel the pressure of their co-dancer’s bodies against theirs when dancing together. There also may be stage props on the set that the dance will need to touch and interact with, and without touch the dancer would have great difficulty interacting or even the inability with the given props. Dancers also deeply rely on their eyes and vision in many ways while performing.
As for partnering, the job of female dancers is to be lifted and to be “shown off”. Nevertheless, hip hop ignores classical roles and demands equality in steps, lifts, and costuming, regardless of gender. Another key point in dancer gender roles is found in choreography; where unlike men, women find it much harder to obtain a job in this field. Some of the most revolutionary choreographers known today are Martha Graham, Anna Pavlova, and Isadora Duncan. However, even while forever shaping the dance world, very few will recognize their names, not mention the fact that these and other great female choreographers struggle to have their pieces performed on big stages and in front of large audiences.
Whether competition is important in a dancer’s life. The reason why I think competition is important in a dancer’s life because that person is the one who had chosen to be a
... middle of paper ... ... Dance has always served as a form of great exercise that allows people to express themselves through movement, and will continue to do so into the future. Dance education at the elementary level is a place that may need some help with child development, and the way to solve this problem is by getting classroom teachers who are skilled in dance and creative movement instruction.
To many, dance is only an art. In reality, dance is much more. It 's an art, a sport, a way to express one’s self, a way to exercise, a way to get feelings out. Since the beginning of time, humans have used different types of dance to express themselves. There are many advantages to dancing, however there are also some disadvantages. Dance is one of the most physically and cognitively demanding sports.