Bush dance - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bush dance is a style of dance from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, particularly where the music is provided by a bush band

Bush band

A bush band is a group of musicians that play traditional Australian folk music or contemporary folk music played in a traditional Australian style...

. The dances are mainly based on the traditional folk dance

Folk dance

The term folk dance describes dances that share some or all of the following attributes:*They are dances performed at social functions by people with little or no professional training, often to traditional music or music based on traditional music....

s of the UK, Ireland and central Europe.

Eras of bush dance in Australia

Early European 1770–1850 settlers came with their local dance traditions.
Gold rush 1850–1860 miners brought dances from Europe some via the American gold rush.
Pastoral period 1860–1950 rural woolshed balls and dances in local halls.
Revival 1950–1960 collectors and enthusiasts document and perform dances.
Recent popularity 1970–1980 most areas and many social clubs have regular Bush Balls.

Dance styles

Bush dance – in general less emphasis on complex foot work and more about people being in the right place. Dress codes are relaxed.
Colonial dance – more concern for correct foot work. Many of the dances are unique to Australia. Dress code usually period costume.

Closed-couples dances

Men and women in a ballroom or similar hold arranged around the room (example Brown Jug Polka)

Longways sets

3 to 8 couples in two lines, ladies face the band, men face the ladies. Top couple on the band's left. If up and down the hall, ladies on band's left, top couple nearest the band (example Galop
Galop
In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...

ede)

Sicilian circle dances

Couples facing each other at right angles to the line-of-dance around the room. Usually a progressive dance, so half the dancers will progress clockwise and half anti-clockwise. Double Sicilian is 2 couples, facing 2 couples (example Cottages)

Trio dances

Lines of three, a man and two women or two women and a man facing a similar line. Sets arranged around the room (example Dashing White Sergeant)

Music

Tunes are mostly traditional UK and Irish tunes. UK, Irish and USA session players would know variations of most of the tunes.

Rhythms include – Reel, Jig

Jig

The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...

, March

March (music)

A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...

, Waltz

Waltz

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

and Hornpipe

Hornpipe

The term hornpipe refers to any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and elsewhere from the late 17th century until the present day. It is said that hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels...

.

Instruments – Fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

, Piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, Accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

both Piano

Piano accordion

A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more similar to that of an organ than a piano, as they are both wind instruments, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deiro in 1910—has remained the popular...

and Melodeon

Melodeon (organ)

A melodeon is a type of 19th century reed organ with a foot-operated vacuum bellows, and a piano keyboard. It differs from the related harmonium, which uses a pressure bellows. Melodeons were manufactured in the United States sometime after 1812 until the Civil War era...

, Concertina

Concertina

A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...

; both English and Anglo, Tin whistle

Tin whistle

The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...

, Bush bass, Guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, Banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

and all types of Percussion, including lagerphone. Electric amplified instruments, such as electric bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

or electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

have been used since the 1970s.

American connection

Bush dances are similar to American line dance

Line dance

A line dance is a choreographed dance with a repeated sequence of steps in which a group of people dance in one or more lines or rows without regard for the gender of the individuals, all facing the same direction, and executing the steps at the same time. Line dancers are not in physical contact...

s or American square dances, in that all dancers know certain steps and execute them together. Partners are often changed in the course of the dance. There are many standard dances that dancers are either taught or expected to know, such as The Ninepins Quadrille (nicknamed The Drongo

Drongo

The drongos are a family of small passerine birds of the Old World tropics, the Dicruridae. This family was sometimes much enlarged to include a number of largely Australasian groups, such as the Australasian fantails, monarchs and paradise flycatchers...

by The Bushwackers Band), in which one person is excluded from the group when they have no partner and are 'mocked' by the others. Another popular, simple, progressive dance, often used with children, is the Heel-Toe Polka (also known as the Brown Jug Polka), where partners slap their knees, hands and partners' hands.