Convict Dance

Australian convict life made more bearable by colonial dance and music
By Heather Blasdale Clarke
Article

One of the aims of historical research is to provide new perceptions and illuminating insights. The notion of convicts having a life which included music and dance is strikingly at odds with the prevailing image of convict heritage. Historians were aware that vernacular culture had quickly become established and then flourished in the English penal colony in Australia, but little was known about the details.

Dance was an integral part of everyday life in the ‘lower orders’ and one of the most popular forms of recreation in the early colony. Convicts danced to escape the drudgery and harshness of their existence; it provided social cohesion, a sense of belonging and a cultural identity in a strange, new land. They were encouraged to dance on the long voyage to the colony for their good health and some danced to the music of their jangling chains. In the settlement the authorities commented on their rowdy, disorderly dancing in the proliferation of public houses. Even in punishment convicts referred to dance, where the treadmill became known as the ‘dance academy’, and on the hangman’s noose, in their death throes, the condemned were said to dance the ‘gallows jig’. This research offers a range of unexpected perspectives on the cultural life of early Australian convicts.

http://www.colonialdance.com.au/convict-research