Dance as school sport promoted by league
The DanceSport School League hosted a meeting at Ambiance Restaurant on 21 June, highlighting the importance of dance being accepted as a school sport.
POLOKWANE – Craig Bullock, the co-founder of Dancesport, is a five time Street Dance World champion choreographer and coach and an international adjudicator.
During the meeting, he gave a presentation to local schools’ representatives, highlighting the importance of having dance recognised as a sport in schools.
“It is important for teachers and principals to know that we are not taking away dance as a culture but we are presenting it as a sport because it’s an opportunity for job creation,” he said.
Dance at schools is a fast growing international initiative and other provinces within the country have picked up on it and learners participate and can even obtain colours.
Dancesport will take part at the same time as athletics on the school calender so as not to clash with other traditional sporting codes like soccer and rugby.
He explained that Dancesport follows the same format as traditional sport at schools.
“We don’t want to try to reinvent the wheel. We want to be a part of it. We follow the traditional sporting codes that have been in existence since the beginning and we follow the same age divisions,” he explained.
Dancesport has a curriculum: there are 60 steps as well as variations to those 60 steps. There are three levels, beginner, intermediate and advanced and each level is examinable.
The learners will be able to compete at school, before advancing to regional level, then provincial level before they can go to the newly introduced international level. Dancesport has been included as one of the sporting codes in the youth Olympics as of this year.
Schools are invited to be part of Dancesport and open a world of sporting possibilities beyond traditional sport. Interested schools can get in contact with Megan Henning on 083 277 7798 or Jouney Steenkamp on 072 875 5085
