Bring Your Community Together with a Country Dance!
It’s a difficult thing to work out how to bring a community together– something that involves everyone, something that’s fun and memorable, something that hasn’t been done before, and something that can work for all ages so can work for families.
Well– you’ve landed in the right place!
Your community might be somewhere outside of the major cities– we’re always up for a roadtrip! Or it might be a community group based around your school or your sporting club. Whatever your community is– we know how to help bring them together. Communities can be incredibly diverse and the called dancing, and simplicity of country dance or bushdance never fails to create the environment for people to come together.
So let me tell you about a few community events we’ve done that show how a bushdance, barn dance or family country dance can bring your community together.
Barcaldine, Central Queensland
Barcaldine is 100km east of Longreach and 300km west of Emerald. It’s got a population of around 1,300 and is known as the birthplace of the Labour Party. It’d had eight years of drought when in May 2019 I got a phone call from Amanda who was a teacher at St Joseph’s Primary School. The school had 36 students and Amanda wanted to do something not just for those students and their families, but for the broader community, to bring them together and just have a great, fun, memorable night.
With the help of funding from the school, council and the Queensland Arts Development Fund– the raised enough money to fly us up and to play. Over 150 people came together at the school for the bushdance where one of the highlights was the students singing a song that we’d written with them in a songwriting workshop that afternoon.
It was an amazing weekend for us and such a satisfying gig to have done– to have been part of bringing together the kids, their families and others from around town was pretty special.
One of the particularly special things about the trip to Barcaldine is that we did a song writing workshop with the children from the school and we wrote a song together about Barcy! It was a special moment and a fantastic weekend with the Barcy community.
AN INJECTION OF LAUGHTER & HAPPINESS!
“In June 2019, the local residents of Barcaldine in ‘Outback’ Western Queensland championed the help of Sydney’s Best Bush Band ‘Swamp Dawkins’ to host a Community Bush Dance. It was time to have a bit of fun so Michael, Max, Andrew and the beautiful Cara, took up the challenge and packed their bags leaving the city lights of Sydney behind to visit the ‘Wild West’ in the dead centre of Queensland- Barcy.
From the moment they hit the dirt they sniffed it- tasting Barcy’s famous meat pies for lunch followed by ‘Happy Hour’ at The Union Hotel. This Outback experience was about bringing a fresh positive energy to a place burdened by many years of drought.
With the theme of ‘Giving Back’ to the Community, Michael and the Swamp Dawkins band members generously gave several hours of their afternoon to local school children in a workshop about writing music. It was here that we witnessed Michael’s true talent and passion for music surface as together the group wrote lyrics to an original song ‘When the River Runs Dry, the River Runs Deep’, all about their home town of Barcaldine. The group proudly performed the song later in the evening in front of the 200 strong crowd of emotional locals. The song has been generously recorded and gifted to our community as an everlasting reminder of our resilience and strength in tough times.
From the Brown Jug Polka to Stripping the Willow, Michael confidently called and taught each dance with humour and precision with the entire crowd up on their feet. The afterglow and success of this event is attributed to the enthusiasm, professionalism and generosity of Michael and the Swamp Dawkins Crew- Andrew (Terry), Cara and Max. This was more than just a night to remember. This was an injection of laughter, happiness and connection which transported each and everyone in our community to a place of pure joy. We are truly grateful. Thanks you Swamp Dawkins!”
Amanda, on behalf of St Joeys & the Barcaldine Community – June 2019
East Gresford, Upper Hunter Valley, NSW
I got a call from Louise one day.
Along with some of the other women around town, they decided that too many people from around the area never got together to enjoy the community that they had right there.
And so she got a committee together and they put together the Gresford Family Country Dance. With help from ticket sales and a whole lot of support from local businesses– the event went off like a cracker.
They sold out of tickets and ended up with over 230 people coming along. The marquis was set up at the local showground and for a stage we had a Bedford flat bed truck from the 1960’s (with the handbrake firmly on!). There was line dancing, boot scootin’, barn dancing and plenty of heels kicking up the dust. It was a memorable night indeed and fantastic seeing the community enjoy coming together. And here’s what Louise sent to us after the gig….
FABULOUS NIGHT! THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME!
O’Connell, Central West NSW
O’Connell is one of many small villages around Central West NSW and sits about half an hour outside of Bathurst. It’s a genuine one pub town. With just the one pub. The O’Connell Hotel.
In late 2014 I got a call from Michelle– the licensee– as the pub was coming up to it’s 150th Anniversary. No mean feat for a pub to have continuously run that long west of the Dividing Range. Michelle wanted to have an event that harked back to those times and something that would suit families and would draw people together. Well– she certainly made that happen and we had a fantastic night playing for the people of O’Connell and here’s what Michelle had to say afterwards…
COULDN’T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER NIGHT!
“Couldn’t have asked for a better night! The village of O’Connell came out in force – and wasn’t disappointed. Great time was had by all. A month after the event customers are stoping me in the street wanting to know when Swamp Dawkins will be back?!”
