Traditional Australian dance in English. Sacred dance of the Australian Aboriginals

The first members of the Bush Music Club in Australia, which formed in 1954, danced the Athlone Bridge (or Tory Waves, an Irish dance previously unheard of in Australia), the Polish Krakowiak and the Serbian Kolo. These dances were adopted at the Bush Music Club as lighter and adding variety to the Australian songs and dances that formed the main program. National "fitness camps" during this time promoted dances such as the Lott Dodd, the 3rd part of the Swedish Warsaw and some English folk dances such as the Strip Willow.

Due to the association of the name Bush Music Club, Australian dancing began to be mistakenly called "bush dancing". This concept was complemented in the 1970s by many British and Irish folk dances and music, which served as the basis for the new "bush dancing".

Given the lack of available sheet music (urban folk musicians tended to teach their successors from sheet music, as opposed to traditional rural bush musicians who taught by ear), the new book Begged, Borrowed and Stolen is a revelation as a source of tunes for British and Irish dances. The book's authors, Chris O'Connor and Suzette Watkins, could never have imagined that these tunes would become staples of Australian or bush dancing. It was just a collection of music for the Adelaide Celtic Club. In this context the book was excellent, proving that the dances had become extremely popular throughout the country and providing a more than sufficient repertoire for musicians performing Celtic music. However, in the same way that British and Irish folk dancing was wrongfully labeled "bush dancing", Begged, Borrowed and Stolen quickly became the bible for bush dance music.

The book Music for Australian Folk Dance by Max Clubal was used as a secondary source for the tunes. In both cases the main part was Celtic melodies, which were generally only suitable for Celtic dances and were completely inappropriate for the social folk dances that actually survived into the 20th century.

Most of the Irish tunes in these books were unknown in Australia and they caught on remarkably well in subsequent years. However, a few years later the Bushwackers (Melbourne), the Cobbers and a few others continued to perform indigenous Australian song and dance, rather than further strengthening Celtic music and dance. Although it was not without a certain amount of commercialism, they are to be thanked for allowing bush dancing to survive.

The most popular form of folk dancing in Australia is the bush dance, which was originally copied from the folk dances of England, Scotland and Ireland. After folk dancing, keili and square dancing began to take root in Australia. Thanks to the enthusiasm of immigrants and their families, traditional dances of completely different peoples appeared in Australia, and naturally, on the Green Continent one could hear music from all over the world, to which bush dances were performed.

The original sources of these tunes were very diverse. Many of them were popular tunes and tunes brought by various immigrants from their homelands. Other tunes for the bush came from concert halls, songs from minstrel shows and other dance shows that came to Australia. During the popularization of the bush in rural areas, sheet music and special children's editions of dance music, which were very easy to learn among ordinary rural people, were widely used. Some musicians sat outside dance halls for hours just to pick out snippets of new tunes.

One of the most popular tunes, which became perhaps the most famous among bush dance musicians, was the old Spanish waltz, known by several names, such as “My Father Was a Dutchman,” “The Mayflower Waltz,” and “Weeping Mary.” It was commonly used to accompany the waltz cotillion, Spanish waltz or Alberts quadrille. This melody is derived from a part of the Spanish castanet dance called the cachuca. The tune for this dance was widely available in periodicals for ballroom dancers and musicians in the nineteenth century. In the bush, the melody was slightly changed, because the dances themselves were different, compared to their European ancestors. But the fact remains that the Spanish waltz and cachuca became hits among bush musicians.

A wild dingo howls sadly at the great white moon that hangs low over the desert Australian land. Small fires are burning around, and men painted with strange stripes are dancing in a circle. They look strange, like ghosts in the moonlight, their bodies painted gray with ash and painted with white stripes and dots. They perform the sacred Corroboree, an Australian Aboriginal dance.

People move to the beat of music that sounds strange to European ears. Old men squatting by fires banging boomerangs and blowing didgeridoos. These are five-foot wooden tubes, which are usually laid at the end on forked sticks, because it is difficult to keep it suspended.

Throughout the night, naked except for the paint on their chocolate brown bodies, the dancers prance around in a ritual dance. Often their movements imitate animals, because animals, and even plants, are as important to them in folk legends as people. Sometimes they raise their long spears and jump, imitating battle.

Corroboree begins after sunset. Often the dance is considered so sacred to the tribe that women who see it, or even simply admit that they heard the echo of singing over the desert, face death.

There are many forms of dance, each with its own special meaning. It was often danced as part of a magical spell, and in its most extreme form the dance can be used to place a curse on someone. When this happens, a special bone points in the direction of the intended victim. The idea is that the bone will symbolically kill the victim. This spell, known as the "pointing bone", kept the natives at bay for countless generations.

Not all corroborees are so sinister. Some of them are quite good-natured; these dances are performed for entertainment and to remind the audience of the funny things that have happened in their lives. There are even dances passed down from generation to generation that commemorate the arrival of white people on the continent.

What is very remarkable is that while dancing, some of the dancers reach a trance-like state in which they believe that the spirit leaves their body and visits the world of heaven, where, in their opinion, all life comes from and where it returns after death. For the Aborigines, it is an important part of their religion to maintain a connection with this other world (they call this world “dreamtime”), and therefore they have special ritual dances to maintain such a connection.

When Europeans first arrived in Australia, all the Aboriginal tribes (it was estimated that there were about a third of a million of them at the time) regularly danced the corroboree. Since then, many tribes have died out, and today many of the remaining Aboriginal people live in populated areas or on large livestock farms. Only in remote areas known as the Outback, where some tribes still spend their lives like their ancestors, do they still dance the corroboree.

Given the lack of sheet music available (urban folk musicians tended to teach their successors from sheet music, as opposed to traditional rural bush musicians who taught by ear), the new book Begged, Borrowed and Stolen is a revelation as a source of tunes for British and Irish dances. The book's authors, Chris O'Connor and Suzette Watkins, could not have imagined that these tunes would become staples of Australian or bush dancing. It was simply a collection of music for the Adelaide Celtic Club. In this context, the book was excellent, proving that dances had become extremely popular through throughout the country and providing a more than sufficient repertoire for musicians performing Celtic music. However, in the same way that British and Irish folk dances were wrongfully labeled "bush dancing", Begged, Borrowed and Stolen quickly became a veritable bible for bush dance music. .