The Nutbush Dance Reframed: further analysis related to ‘Doing the Nutbush’

Abstract

This article supplements our earlier article on the Nutbush dance, ‘Doing the Nutbush’. After that was published, there was a media frenzy which resulted in many comments on The Guardian site and on the ABC Facebook site. We also received a number of emails. All these contributions have helped fine-tune the history of the dance that we have been examining. Two key things became clear. Around 1970 there was a push in state education departments across Australia to substitute the American line dance, the Madison, for bush dances as a way of updating and making more relevant dance for primary school children. Meanwhile, during the 1960s, another American dance, the Alley Cat, had been becoming popular mostly with children but to some extent also with adults. Around 1975 the Alley Cat started to be danced to Ike and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits in primary school physical education (PE) classes. As this was happening, a few more energetic steps were added to the dance. The result was a dance named after the song, the Nutbush. This then became a popular dance in state primary schools across the country. With the aid of the new information, we have been given, this supplementary article traces this history.