Cultural Dance Essay

The Northern Territory is known for its culturally diverse population and some would say it is the ‘multicultural hub’ of Australia. With all of these cultures comes distinctive customs and traditions. Throughout history dance has been used to help people develop a sense of identity, the younger generations are also taught social patterns and values through the different dances. The significance of these traditional dances was to reinforce and celebrate cultural law and practices including the celebration of the passage from child to adulthood or spiritual worship. The predominantly Western culture in Australia often causes minority groups to struggle for recognition regarding their beliefs and traditions. This is parallel to the Australian dance industry, where many cultural dance groups feel they have to justify who they are and are often

Tracks ensures that the dancers involved are from a range of different cultural circumstances, this allows more diverse choreography, performances and audiences. McMicken describes the diverse environment, “If you just had one plant growing everywhere, its bland and not interesting, and not healthy… I often use [the] image that a healthy environment has maximum diversity in it”. This concept is parallel when regarding the education of cultural dance in schools, “maximum diversity builds respect and understanding” of traditions and beliefs.

The benefit of cultural diversity in schools is evident in the dancers at Darwin High School, where they are naturally exposed to multicultural dance, expresses Newth. In a survey that was conducted in Darwin, mainly to students at Darwin High School, a student responded, agreeing that “exposing dancers to different cultural dances will help deepen this understanding”. Another participant responded that the experience “builds tolerance and understanding and provides new