Bush dance is a style of dance from Australia, particularly where the music is provided by a

bush band A bush band is a group of musicians that play Australian bush ballads. A similar bush band tradition is also found in New Zealand. Instruments In addition to vocals, instruments featured in bush bands may include fiddle, accordion, guitar, ...

. The dances are mainly based on the traditional folk dances of the UK, Ireland and central Europe.__TOC__

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 Bushy 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.

Dance formations

Dances can be grouped by the formations of the dancers.

Big circle dances

Alternate men and women in a circle or horse shoe (example ''Stockyards'')

Closed-couples dance .....

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 In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse (see Gallop), 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 popul ...

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'')

Quadrilles

Four couples arranged on the sides of a square (example ''Colonial’s Quadrille''). For more details refer to

Quadrilles The quadrille is a dance that was fashionable in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe and its colonies. The quadrille consists of a chain of four to six '' contredanses''. Latterly the quadrille was frequently danced to a medley of opera melodie ...

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 A reel is an object around which a length of another material (usually long and flexible) is wound for storage (usually hose are wound around a reel). Generally a reel has a cylindrical core (known as a '' spool'') with flanges around the ends ...

Jig The jig ( ga, port, gd, port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It is most associated with Irish music and dance. It first gained popularity in 16th-century Ireland and parts of ...

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March ...

Waltz The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position. History There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the w ...

and

Hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others ...

. Instruments – Fiddle,

Piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, Accordion both

and

Melodeon Melodeon may refer to: * Melodeon (accordion), a type of button accordion *Melodeon (organ), a type of 19th-century reed organ *Melodeon (Boston, Massachusetts), a concert hall in 19th-century Boston * Melodeon Records, a U.S. record label in the ...

Concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

; both English and Anglo,

Tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria ...

Bush bass The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses ha ...

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

, Banjo and all types of

Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

, including lagerphone. Electric amplified instruments, such as

electric bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and sc ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

have been used since the 1970s.

American connection

Bush dances are similar to American

line dance A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. These lines usually face all in the same direction, or less commonly face each other.Knight, ...

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 The drongos are a family, Dicruridae, of passerine birds of the Old World tropics. The 30 species in the family are placed in a single genus, ''Dicrurus''. Drongos are mostly black or dark grey, short-legged birds, with an upright stance when ...

The Bushwackers The Bushwhackers are a professional wrestling tag team who competed first as the New Zealand Kiwis and then as The Sheepherders during their 36-year career as a tag team. They wrestled in the WWE, World Wrestling Federation, Jim Crockett Promoti ...

)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.