The origins of the Nutbush dance are elusive, but it was clearly named after Tina Turner's place of birth.
[3] However, writing in the student newspaper of the University of Sydney, Honi Soit, in 2023, Lucy Bailey noted the similarities between the Nutbush and the dancing of Turner and her backup singers (The Ikettes) during the 1970s, most particularly in a 1975 clip from the television variety show Cher.
[4] A 2024 joint study by the University of South Australia and Edith Cowan University traced the possible origin of the dance to the New South Wales Department of Education, which reportedly developed the dance as a teaching aid in the mid-1970s; the study also found that the Nutbush may have been based on the existing Madison dance, or that the Nutbush may have evolved from schools initially attempting to teach students the Madison.
[2] The dance has continued to be implemented in some Australian states' curricula,[6] which has been given as the reason for its enduring popularity in the country.
[2] In 2019 and 2020, the dance gained widespread international attention when it was the subject of various viral TikTok videos.