<
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/04/common-people-dance-eisteddfod-dancing-competition-snowballed-into-juggernaut>
"Growing up in Brisbane, Bryony Walters asked her mum if she could do ballet.
“She just straight up said, ‘You’re too fat for a leotard’,” she recalls. “I
know that’s a reflection of her relationship with her own body, but that kind
of thing had me pretty fucked up for a pretty long time around body and food.”
It also affected her relationship with exercise, and movement in general. “It
always seemed like a punishment that I was inflicting upon myself,” Walters,
now in her late 30s, tells the
Guardian. “It wasn’t a thing you were engaging
with to have fun or to feel good.”
But when she saw a post in her community Facebook group about dance classes for
a DIY eisteddfod, Bryony’s curiosity was piqued. “It was [this woman] saying ‘I
auditioned for the Rock Eisteddfod in high school and I got rejected, and I’ve
never let that go – and so I’m starting my own’,” she recalls.
The woman was Neridah Waters – and her Facebook post set off the amateur dance
revolution known as Common People Dance Eisteddfod. Now in its seventh year,
the project invites people of all ages, abilities and bodies to dance together
– to 80s and 90s music, while wearing leotards, sequins, sparkles and glitter –
culminating in a dance-off as part of the Brisbane festival, which opens this
year on Friday 5 September.
Waters, a stalwart of Brisbane’s alt cabaret scene, describes the project as a
mix between
Young Talent Time, sports carnivals, 80s gameshow
It’s A
Knockout – and, of course, the Australian Rock Eisteddfod Challenge: a
nation-wide high school competition that was popular in the 80s and 90s.
Bryony, who has performed in five Common People Dance Eisteddfods, says it’s a
“rare and special” opportunity to “engage in really joyful movement in
circumstances where the concern isn’t how you look”.
Amanda Dell, another one of the inaugural “class of 2019” participants, calls
it “dickhead dancing”.
“What we’re aiming for is to just get up there and be silly and leave it all on
the stage.”"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
