Sports in high school are a pretty common after-school activity, but one specific activity that combines both athleticism and artistry is the art of dance. Dance in all forms- ballet, ballroom, or your typical jazz class, require a certain mastery of technique that can take years to achieve. It is in a dancer’s blood to never be satisfied with his or her achievements in technique, and to always find flaws and ways to improve.
This combination is rare and only found in dance, where the emphasis in the studio is on achieving aesthetically pleasing lines movement and working to shape the right muscles in the body to be able to perform these tasks. All the while, as a dancer works toward perfecting technique, he or she must give off a sense of ease in the movement, because no audience wants to watch a dancer with a look of pain spread across his or her face.
Michael Shaponick, a senior at Scituate High School, has been dancing since the age of 12. He practices Latin Ballroom dance four to five hours every day. Dance isn’t a seasonal sport, either; it’s never “over” in the way high school sports seasons are. For Shaponick, every day of the week is used to work towards becoming a professional ballroom dancer after high school. Shaponick finds inspiration for his dancing in people like Sergei Surkov, a professional ballroom dancer.
Ballroom, like other types of dance, isn’t always respected outside people in the dance world. People see the frills- the hair, makeup, and costumes- but what they don’t see behind the performance is the hard work it takes to arrive there. Performances don’t just happen, and technique doesn’t just come to a person. It isn’t like running a mile, where the only rule is to move from one place to another as fast as you can. The technique of running isn’t criticized right down to the position of the hands, the position of the head, and the grace of the entire sequence. Dance is like trying to run that mile with a soft smile on your face, paying attention to every position of every part of the body, and making it all appear effortless.
Shaponick credits his discipline and hard working characteristics to ballroom, and says there needs to be “more respect for dance. It’s hard work.” The hard work he’s referring to is the hours of training and years it takes to achieve success in any field of dance.
Shaponick’s proudest accomplishment, he says, was “placing ninth in the country in the Youth Championship.” Not many people have the discipline and driven attitudes to accomplish this kind of success in any field, let alone the competitive world of dance. So let it be known that among the masses of students that participate in sports of all kinds, there are a few that practice other activities that generally go unrecognized. There is an under appreciation for dancers- especially male dancers- and all the work it takes to truly master the art form.