In Stroudsburg, there aren’t many people that do professional dance. Competitive dancing is one of the hardest sports to play. Ballet, Ballroom, Contemporary, Hip Hop, and Jazz are some of the most popular dance styles today.
I have been dancing since I was 4-years-old. I do hip hop, jazz, modern, contemporary, ballet, musical theater, modern, and I just recently got on point. I have always been interested ever since I was a little girl. I remember the first time I went to see the Nutcracker in New York when I was 5 and fell in love with dance ever since.
Dance is a very complex sport. A professional dancer is an individual who has qualifications, skills and training in a particular form of dance.
For example, you can be very skilled in one style of dance like Ballet, Jazz or Tap but may struggle in others. In dance, you also need a lot of strength. For a male dancer their endurance can be up to 6,000 Newtons of landing a jump and for a female and can be up to 4,000. Mobility, strength and coordination are key when it comes to being a good dancer.
Dance is the kind of sport where no matter where you are in your dancing career, people are going to be supportive about your progress; no matter if you might not be able to do a lot of turns or high jumps or do the latest moves that are trending in the dance competition world. There are also so many dance schools out there for high school students around the world. The most elite ones are in Russia for ballet.
Everyone always talks about and shows support for other sports like soccer, Volleyball, softball, and especially football but, no one really talks about dance being recognized as a competitive sport. There is, however, a high school in Bethlehem called Charter art school for the arts. One of the programs that they offer is dance. They trained students for 4 hours of the day.
There is a lack of representation of dance at Stroudsburg and people’s knowledge of dance as well. Most people wouldn’t consider dance a sport but you are just as active as any other sport. I think dance should be a sport that every school should offer in some way, shape or form. In Stroudsburg, if there was a dance team, they could perform at every high school football game, every marking period event and every fun assembly. Throughout Christmas and Halloween they could do theme dances for the holiday.
In Stroudsburg, there are four dance studios: Gigi & Company Dance Studio, Notara School of Dance, C&K Dance Theater by Ms. Katy, and Fusia Dance Center.