Dance in Australia

They play an important role in marriage ceremonies, in the education of Indigenous children, as well as storytelling and oral history.

Favourite dances include the Irish Céilidh "Pride of Erin" and the quadrille "The Lancers".

Traditional Aboriginal Australian dance was closely associated with song and was understood and experienced as making present the reality of the Dreamtime.

There are many songs about the weather; others about the myths and legends; life in the sea and totemic gods; and about important events.

[6] The second one was held in Adelaide in 1997, where cultural and intellectual property rights and copyright issues for Australian Indigenous dancers were discussed, and included a free outdoor performance in Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka.

[citation needed] NADCA was still in existence in 2007, when it was in the process of developing a document on "Cultural Protocols on Aboriginal Dance".

Its inaugural artistic director was the English-born dancer, teacher and repetiteur Dame Peggy van Praagh in 1962 and is today recognised as one of the world's major international ballet companies.

As of 2010, it was presenting approximately 200 performances in cities and regional areas around Australia each year as well as international tours.

The Nutbush is a classic Australian line dance—typically performed to the American song "Nutbush City Limits" by Ike & Tina Turner—was created in the 1970s disco era; it took off in Australia during the 1980s, and it has seen sustained success to this day, including gaining viral popularity internationally through TikTok.

[11][12] A common way of first hearing the song is when schools typically make students dance to it as part of a physical education.