I have started a petition for UK based dancers and anyone else involved to get Dancesport included in the 2012 olympics.
We hope you will sign this as if we work together we could be a powerful force!
http://dance104.valuehost.co.uk/Mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=199&Itemid=66

Where's the petition to free dancing from the influence of the IOC?

Not everyone has to agree with people who are narrow minded with regard to dance as a sport. If you dont aggree, dont sign :)
I am trying to raise awareness and the olympics, even as a demonstration event will do that. Regardless of your feelings on that, several million people being aware of something you supposedly enjoy is a good thing I think.
The IOC aggree that it fulfils the criteria of an olympic sport, it just hasnt been included, supposedly due to timetable restrictions. As far as I am concerned, if its ok with the IOC they know what they are talking about.

Caroline, the Olympic dream is over! The IOC recently made the decision that dance would NOT be included. 40 years ago we started chasing the olympic vision, perhaps things were not really handled correctly, as all we ended up with was a lot of burocracy and political problems. Even if you try to package the Art of Dance as sport, there is still going to be a high level of creativity, individual artistic interpretation, which can't give a clear cut judging decision which can be made if running a race where the first person across the line is the winner. Put Bill & Bobbie & Peter & Brenda on the same floor, they are both the best but totally different in their interpretation. That is what happens in Dance (and always will). Some will be unhappy about the IOC decision, some will see it as a benefit to the future of Dance.

Beyond the appeal to those who haven't been around in dancing long enough to become aware of the severe tradeoffs involved, the whole "get dance in the olympics" movement and it's related organizational infrastructure is really about trying to borrow legitimacy for dancing by hitching it to the olympics.

"We are important because we are recognized by the IOC" - but really, what natural authority does the IOC to say what is important for dancing?

The true legitimacy in dancing is that which is conferred from recognition by the dancers ourselves.

Fortunately, dance is unlikely to EVER get in the olympics, because the IOC is playing the same game - they don't want to give the small opportunities for expansion to sports that seek to take something FROM the games to enhance their legitimacy, they want sports with an excess of legitimacy in the public eye (and advertising budget) which can be lent TO the games in order to strengthen them.

I think it might be a little idealistic to want ballroom dancing in the Olympics. I think in Principal it would be great but what that would actually mean as it worked out on paper-I am nervous about that.

Look what the olympics has done to so many other sports and people claim that it will popularize whatever sport it is that goes in...but it doesn't. It just makes it more prone to scandal and intrigue.

We'll get the performance enhancing drugs and the dumbing down of movement. The individuality will disappear and everything will become formulaic. Extra points for an oversway in the second half, three turns in the first half of the routine, and x number of heel leads to toe leads with a certain number of arm extensions. You must end with a chasse cape to a drop and each body must have x degrees of turnout for this move or that move. For full points the foot must be x degrees on the final rotation.

No thank you....I love that dance is an art as well as a sport. I don't want to see that part of it dead.

Coroline. It wont work. How can you overcome the fact that so many top couples are of a mixed nationality. Nobody is going to break up a partnership just for a couple of days.
Also one of the former best Latin male dancer has danced for at least 3 different countries, the last being Germany.

"Coroline. It wont work. How can you overcome the fact that so many top couples are of a mixed nationality. Nobody is going to break up a partnership just for a couple of days."

While there are many reasons why it's a bad idea, this is probably not one of them.

A dance event in the olympics would be known of as a possibility 8 to 12 years in advance. The people who would dance in it would barely be in their teens at the point of announcement, and so would form partnerships consistent with that constraint if they wanted to work towards that goal.

But it's moot anyway, as the chances of it happening are effectively nil.