“Okay ladies, one more time.”

I barely register her voice as I heave myself up off the worn out, scratched up floor. My jello-like legs force themselves to support my aching upper body and somehow move me across the room to my beginning pose. I try to ignore the beads of sweat dripping carelessly down my forehead as I suck in my rib cage, straighten my back, and point my bruised toes.

As I stand there, stiff and gasping for air, I wonder how I can possibly do this again without collapsing. I’m just so tired.

“Everyone ready?” she says, her hands hovering above the play button.

“No!” I want to scream with all my might, but I stay quiet and poised. The familiar music begins to pump through my ear drums and the girls around me go silent, waiting for their cues.

“5, 6, 7, 8!”

Almost mechanically, my legs begin to move, executing the steps I had done numerous times before. My body screams in protest, but the dance flows out of me ignoring the sore muscles and tired limbs. I simply let go, and enjoy the feeling of “one last time”.

Since the age of two, I have spent almost every week night repeating the above scenario. For 3-4 hours, I voluntarily take part in some of the most excruciating forms of physical movement known to man. As a dancer, I need the correct precision, training, and technique in order to sufficiently tell the audience a story using my body rather than words.  It is a hard, often overlooked process that many people do not take into consideration.

Because I knew firsthand what it felt like to truly push myself to the ends of the earth for the perfect performance, I had always considered dance a sport. Even though the fields were replaced by stages, and the referees with their obnoxious whistles were pushed aside for dance instructors with deafening voices, I had never seen dancing as anything other than a physical activity that involved exertion and skill.

This all changed though when, four years ago, as I sat on a crowded stage with hundreds of other hair sprayed, blue eye shadowed dancers waiting to receive their ribbons, a man stepped up to the podium.

At dance competitions, in order to make everyone forget they’ve been dancing for eight plus hours and simply want to go home, they have the slightly annoying habit of blasting cheesy music and throwing t-shirts to get everyone “hyped”.

As the man cleared his throat and adjusted his headset, everyone expected the normal competition spiel which usually goes along the lines of, “You did fabulous today guys! Now, who wants to PARTYYYY?!”  followed by Uptown Funk blasting through the entirely too loud speakers, and the screams and laughter of about a million little girls.

So, of course everyone was shocked when, instead of cueing the music and furiously throwing t-shirts at our faces, the man said he wanted to give us some advice before we started the awards ceremony.

He introduced himself as the director of the competition and explained that he had been dancing since the age of two and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Like us, he said, he sat on stages for hours on end waiting for his award, and continued to grace stages for the rest of his life because it was his true passion.

The director stressed that we, the tired, worn out, overly made up dancers sitting on that stage were not simply athletes, we were artists. He said, “Dance is both a sport and an art form. It is physically and mentally challenging like a sport, but beautiful and abstract like art.”

His words struck something inside of me and, as neon colored t-shirts flew through the air, I realized how right he was.

While dance falls into the category of a sport, it has also proven to be so much more.

“Dance is a sport, but it’s not just a sport,” states freshman Sam Willoughby. “It is athletic because of the high stamina, strength, and precision required, but also extremely artistic as it requires the dancer to dig into his or her creativity and make the choreography come to life.”

The reason people have been in the dark for so long is because the artistry outshines the physical activity. Dancing seems easy because we, as dancers, are trained to mask our pulled muscles and sprained ankles with elegance and grace so unmistakable, it is impossible to tell how hard we are truly working.

Dancing combines sport and art, two completely opposite forms of self-expression, into a truly beautiful mold full of poise and determination.

“I think dance is a sport because…dancers are in class just as much as other athletes are in practice,” says sophomore Ashley D’Esposito. “You’re competing against yourself by trying to be a better dancer in any and every way possible.”

To make my point clear, yes, I absolutely 100% believe dance is a sport because it contains the proper physical exertion and stamina involved in one. But, because dance is unique and awesome in its own right, it is also considered an art form due to the exquisite way dancers interpret their body movements.

So, to all the dancers who are currently on the brink of death while performing your dance “one last time”, simply know that you are amazing.

As you spend your free time perfecting your pirouettes and straightening your arabesques, people will constantly try to convince you that dance, your passion, is simply a hobby, not an activity to be taken seriously.

My advice? Ignore them. They are blind to the beauty of our sport and I feel bad that they will never see how wonderful dancing can truly be. Because that’s what dancing is, a beautiful sport.