Maybe there is confusion here because of RATTER's provocative title in the OP question. If you consider dance to be an art form then it is. I don't think dancers care what you call it, they call it dance and it requires a fitness not paralleled in any other activities including most sports.
It is neither attempting to be funny nor serious, it is about movement of figures in space, and has a long tradition through the 20th cent. to the present day. The great German artist, Oscar Schlemmer created the Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet) a century ago. It premiered in Stuttgart, on 30 September 1922, with music composed by Paul Hindemith, after formative performances dating back to 1916. 'The ballet became the most widely performed avant-garde artistic dance and while Schlemmer was at the Bauhaus from 1921 to 1929, the ballet toured, helping to spread the ethos of the Bauhaus using its amazing geometric costumes;
http://50yearsindance.com/2012/05/11/costumes-of-the-bauhaus-and-the-triadic-ballet-for-jacques-garzon/
The dance in question here uses a very minimum of props; a few pieces of tubes, but belongs to the same tradition.
Stuttgart (nearby) remains today a hub of modern dance and ballet after, following in the footsteps of Schlemmer, john Cranko did so much in developing an exciting dance scene here.
To call it "bloody load of total nonsense" says more about you than them.