Surfing: Sport Or Performance Art?

It’s a debate as old as The Duke himself, whether the act of gliding atop waves on a bouyant slab constitutes as a sport or performance art. 

For all the (currently unemployed) men and women around the world who sweat and toil in gyms and performance centers toward the end-goal of competitive domination, the answer is clearly sport. But it could be argued that an equal if not larger demographic of surfers see the act as a form of self-expression, which in certain specific cases, could be perceived as art. 

The video above—a slickly-produced number from our new-to-the-surf-game friends at Manera—makes it painstakingly clear which team Brendon Gibbens and Dion Agius play for, and frankly, theirs is a hard stance to argue. 

Here’s one of our favorite quotes from Dion: 

“I think surfing is absurd all the time…especially doing it for a job. All we’re doing is going out into the ocean and riding these weird little wet waves of energy toward the beach and wiggling around. It’s very absurd.”

Hard to argue!