CHICAGO, Ill. — A new documentary was uploaded to social media platforms in Sept., highlighting what collegiate dance teams throughout the Midwest experience because of not being credited as a “sport” at their institutions.
Former dancer at DePaul University, Torin Jade Ives, directed the film titled: Call Them Athletes – A Collegiate Dance Documentary. Ives is hopeful that the short film will bring awareness to the work that collegiate dancers put in without receiving anything in return for their schools.
Ives had this to say at the opening of the documentary:
“No matter how many national championships a team seems to win, they will never get as much funding as the school’s football team that hasn’t won anything in 20 years,” Ives declared.
Because dance is not known as a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sanctioned sport, many universities do not provide practice spaces, athletic trainers, sponsored trips, free uniforms or scholarships to dancers.
Grand Valley State University head coach, Rael Orao, detailed how the dance team won 15 national championships over the program’s duration and the team attends 90 percent of the institutions athletic events but still struggles to be recognized by the university.
“With a season budget of 70K dollars, we fundraise 95 percent of the funds so that we can attend nationals, clinics, practices and competitions, but the university will cap their support at 5 percent annually,” Ives mentioned while video of the team’s dancers stretching, running and performing rolled.
Lack of monetary support is the biggest strife when it comes to the lack of support that institutions provide their dance teams with. At the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), the dance team experienced their coaching position being cut, forcing alumni to step into the roll without any compensation.
Graphics flashed against the screen, displaying what the NCAA reported as the salaries for the UNI men’s basketball coach and football coach with both salaries exceeding more than $400,000, in 2022. Disturbingly, a few seconds later the number zero appeared under the dance coach position in the video.
Senior dancer on the UNI’s dance team, Addison Flynn, spoke of how the team has become a financial burden to most of its dancers.
“Being on the team, we each must pay $250 dollars monthly so that we can attend nationals in January, but it does not cover the amount for all of us to attend,” Flynn detailed, “it is up to us to fundraise every penny for us to even compete.”
At the end of the documentary not much resolution is spoken of. If dance can never meet the requirements to be named a NCAA sport, injustice will continue to happen to teams across the country.
The last few seconds of the documentary display how if more universities would step up and support their dance teams, it would be a chain reaction among institutions. The end goal would be that teams can thrive and do what they are winning at, with support from their institutions.
To watch the documentary, it is available for free on YouTube and is titled Call Them Athletes – A Collegiate Dance Documentary.
To donate to the filmmakers of this documentary visit: https://gofund.me/b297deaa.
