Australian working-class culture has a long history of community dances, and they still exist today in varying forms, from the rural B&S balls and various alternatives amongst different ethnic groups, predominantly in more populated areas. All my grandparents went to community dances, my Pop would alternate who was able to wear the shared pair of shoes with his cousin, and I think my Grandpa had a similar arrangement. These were places where the working person could meet each other, but they could also be a way for young people from ethnic minorities to feel less isolated and meet up in a safe space.
Half my family is from Central Western NSW, while the other half is Jewish and lived across the South Eastern parts of Australia, from Launceston to outside Gosford, along with family in Melbourne and Sydney. While one set of grandparents were sheep and wheat farmers, the other spent much of their life in transportation along NSW’s Central Coast, with my grandfather facing homelessness in his youth. He used to say “We had no food, no shoes and then came the Depression”.
He went on to drive public trams and buses around Sydney before setting up the business with my grandmother. Community dances have changed a lot from the histories of both sides of my family and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Despite how they may be romanticised, the community dances that popped up across the country were not inclusive havens of entertainment, not everybody was allowed in and not everybody was made to feel welcome, one of the reasons ethnic minorities started having their own dances in the first place. However there was a more tangible exclusion. The restriction of First Nations cultural dancing, and the endorsement of Western standards of dance across the continent, is a part of Australia’s history of colonialism. In rural Australia, Bachelor and Spinster Balls run by local community organisations started showing up in the late 19th Century, their intended purpose was to reduce the number of unmarried people, while raising funds for charities. People would come from across the district to attend the well-known sites. Now, often more of a ute muster or bush doof, they are still no less important to rural communities now than they were then.
With the intended purpose of mingling eligible women in rural areas, not everybody was encouraged or allowed to attend and enjoy these dances. Aboriginal people were not full citizens until the referendum in 1967, over seventy years after the first B&S, and it is unclear when they were first granted attendance. This element is not alone to the B&S and singling out the rural dances would be wrong when there have been balls of varying standings in the city that would also have a history of exclusion.
Community dances also existed in the city, for the broader population, and catering for varying socio-economic groups, but also for a range of different ethnic groups, where they were able to feel a part of a community. As a volunteer cook and now chaplain in the Jewish community, I have talked to quite a few people of older generations who have either met their partner at these community dances or have relatives who did. They often reflected the music and culture of wider Australia, but they were safe spaces for minority groups to meet up, away from discrimination or prejudice they faced in the outside world.
The dances I have been to have been costumed Purim ‘balls’, similarly to the maligned B&S they have been events of music, drinking and strange outfits, fairly different from a costumed reading of the Haggadah that many grew up on.
Times change and both types of events fit a purpose, they all bring the community together, they just cater to that need differently. In the case of the B&S, people pour food dye on each other at a B&S and write V (for virgin) on the body of a first-time-ball-goer to initiate them into the event. Repeated activities, same locations, initiation through ritual, sounds like culture to me. When it comes to the difference between celebrating Purim through a costume party or a through a ‘ball’, it must be said, I don’t drink myself and never have, and frankly the times I have been to a club or bar, I just found them to be too loud, but I wouldn’t deny that they have a purpose in society, at least I am useful for handing out my unused free-drink-ticket at the ball.
Is it possible we are viewing the more formal occasions of the past through rose tinted glasses? The community-driven nature and romance can all be true, while still considering a more realistic viewpoint. Twice a year, New York's grid system lines up with the setting sun, giving rise to a phenomenon known as Manhatten-henge, residents and tourists position themselves on pedestrian crossings in awe over the perfect photo, while drivers on the road who consider themselves truer New-Yorkers beep at them for overstaying their time on the crossing.
If we take a step back from the phenomena of community dances and the debate of whether they no longer reflect the true culture or idea in which they were started, we can see that they are just evidence of a vibrant subsection of Australian culture, that unites people who may not see each other from months on end and raises funds for charities. A joy and experience that youth in Australia needs, whether that be rural, regional or in the cities.
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