Why Is Australia the Only Country That Does the Nutbush Dance?

For someone who’s as native to Australia as the sport of curling, Tina Turner has certainly left her mark on our culture.

She appeared alongside Jimmy Barnes singing ‘Simply The Best’ to promote the 1989 and 1990 NRL seasons, as well as performing at the 1993 grand final, but her biggest impact on our nation came completely unbeknownst to the singer herself.

In 1973, Turner released “Nutbush City Limits,” her last song with husband and collaborator Ike Turner, and despite it being the title track of the album, it failed to reach the heights of her other hits.

While most countries took little notice of the song, Aussies took to it like Dribblers to margaritas on a sunny Saturday arvo.

Remarkably, Australia is the only country in the world that performs the Nutbush dance to accompany the song, and unfortunately, no footage exists of the first time Tina witnessed Aussies bust out the jig at her concert, although it’s not hard to imagine her confusion.

Turner grew up in the town of Nutbush Tennessee, which is actually an unincorporated rural community and therefore doesn’t even have city limits, although the song details her experiences as a poor child growing up in the small town.

The earliest reports suggest that the dance moves were the brainchild of primary school teachers in the late 70s, although there are no concrete reports of how the dance originated.

By the 1980s the Nutbush had taken the nation by storm, performed by dribblers in discos, dances, weddings, barmitzvahs, and school classrooms around the country.

The Nutbush followed the trend of line dancing that was gaining popularity in the US, with easy-to-remember moves, individual dancers performing in a grid formation, as well as long intros which allow people time to take their positions on the dance floor.