Many people like to announce that they don’t believe that dance is a sport, but dancers are working just as hard as other student-athletes.

An average week of dance is 12-20 hours long according to inmovementdance.com. This does not include Saturday rehearsals. Saturday rehearsals at The Dance Center, located in Winchendon, can last up to over 8 hours. Saturdays are full of 30-45 minute rehearsals for the competition team. Luckily, almost all dancers have Sundays off, but some are not as lucky.

According to Skyd Magazine, most high school athletes typically practice 10-12 hours a week, which is around the least amount of time a dancer is in practice. Dancers and most student-athletes have around the same amount of days of practice. 

A regular day of dance consists of an hour and a half ballet class, another hour and a half core class, a 30-minute break (most people eat their dinner during this), and an hour of competition rehearsals. A core class would be a class that is usually an hour and a half long. For example, ballet, jazz, contemporary, and modern are core classes.

During February, April, November, and December breaks, dancers are still in practice. The last day of rehearsals for dancers before Christmas break is usually the day before Christmas Eve. During November breaks, the dancers at The Dance Center have a long 3+ hour production rehearsal. Production is the dance with all team dancers and lasts about 7 minutes long. 

Some student-athletes only do 1 or 2 seasons of sports, but dance is all year long. In the fall we start our normal season again, in winter we are focused on competition dance and wrapping them up, in spring we start competing every other weekend, and in summer we have our recital and nationals. We also do summer camp to ensure we keep up with our techniques and not lose them. 

Many times dancers have to miss out on school activities. Since so many dancers go to different schools, it is impossible to keep up with all school activities to ensure that they can. During homecoming season, many rehearsals are cut short due to students needing to leave and prepare. It would be very difficult to keep up with everything and miss out on rehearsal times. 

Now onto school work. Most of the time dancers get out of their class around 6, waiting for their next class. During their short break, dancers need to go out and get their dinner. This usually takes up all the time they had available for homework. They now have to wait until they have free time again to try and finish all of their homework in 30 minutes. Luckily, most of the dancers I had talked to said their amount of homework was very small. 

Gianna Caforio, an Oakmont senior, said she dances 22.5 hours a week. Caforio is an intern at The Dance Center and also a student. Caforio also mentioned that during the week she doesn’t have many breaks and sometimes none at all. She is also taking honors and AP classes and is a part of NHS. 

Abigail Kaehlert, an Oakmont junior, mentioned how dance makes her feel like she is missing out. Kaehlert said, “Dance gives me FOMO.” This means dance is making her very upset that she is missing out on important events in high school. 

Dancers are truly just like all other student-athletes and would like to start being treated as such.