It is believed that the dance grew out of a program combining creative arts with physical education at primary schools in New South Wales and Queensland.
Some say that it never formed part of Australia’s curriculum and that individual teachers copied what they saw in other schools.
Kay Armstrong, an interdisciplinary artist from England who moved to Western Australia in the late 1970s, first encountered the Nutbush when she was a student at a Western Australian primary school.
She told Sydney Morning Heraldin 2018, “We learned the Nutbush at primary school and then in high-school, and I’ve done it probably at every wedding since.”
Nutbush enthusiasts from across the country have broken world records by performing the dance in large numbers.
The previous record of 4,084 dancers was broken at the Birdsville Big Red Bash, Queensland.
Another 3,700 people attended the Mundi Mundi bash in Broken Hill (New South Wales) a month later, but they failed to break the record.
