Maria, Debra, Ella, Diane, Caren, Natasha, Kym and Dorelle
from the Arid Zone dancers strike a mean pose.

Dancing up to Darwin

Lynette Lewis recounts the life of a dance troupe on the road

We left before the break of dawn on the 12th of May. I was late as usual. I didn't realise this until we made our way to Barkly Arts on Windley St and I saw parents and Arid Zone dancers bearing the freezing cold at the ridiculous time of 5 am.
We joked about how no one could sleep the night before and imitations of bug-eyed insomniacs arose. Excitement filled the air. Anticipation of our long awaited trip to Darwin to celebrate Ausdance week was as intense as the freezing cold weather. But the time was here - we were going to Darwin to dance - Woo Hoo!!!
After making sure we had enough food to last us to Renner Springs, we waved goodbye to parents and we were off. The Barkly Arts bus didn't fall apart once our bodies and luggage were on and I interpreted that as a good sign of our impending trip.
We got to Katherine some time midmorning and stopped to shop and eat, in that order. After prying my mum out of the supermarket, Mr Fitz suggested we continue on. Just as we passed the bridge out of Katherine, my mum thought she saw my brother on his bike, heading back to town. So we pulled up at the side of the road to chuck a U-ee and a hitchhiker nearby thought "Jackpot". Poor thing.
Anyway it wasn't my bro so we took a second take out of town and discussed whether we should pick up the hitchhiker or not. We asked the essential questions like "Was he spunky?" and "If he wanted to hijack the bus, could we kill him first?" There were 11 of us and 1 of him, so we thought we'd pick him up.
Before Antoine (that was his name) jumped on, there was a scurry to clean up that you wouldn't believe. He was a French student backpacking around Australia and he needed a lift to Darwin. The accent had us all slightly impressed and we got him to say our names over and over. He could even say "champignons" properly. Finally, we left him alone to read his book (in French) and settled down in relative quietness for the trip.
We arrived in Darwin with so many stops along the way and our speed limit adhered to, we thought we'd never get there. We dropped Antoine off at the backpackers and made our way to Casuarina Shopping Square. It was late night shopping. Tired or not, we were determined to make our appearance at one important stop before going to our apartments.
Our first performance was at the Multicultural Arts Festival at the Botanic Gardens. There weren't many people there as it was raining on and off all day. I don't think anything could have dampened our enthusiasm. Now Garrlgalyi and Gunbi, the actual script has spunkaramas (very good-looking males) written in it and we couldn't find any brave enough to join our show in Tennant Creek. Problem was solved when the girls met Junior and Paul, a couple of strong Arid Zone supporters. The socks we used in rehearsal didn't come close in comparison.
There was a Maori dance group, Fijian and a Capoeira group among others. The food was as diverse as the groups. I thought I was in heaven as I scurried to all the different food stalls. With my two samosas, chicken laksa and steak sandwich (I did share it), I made myself comfortable on the Botanic lawns.
Now I used to think 28 was a bit too young to have a heart attack. When Ella got bitten by a spider, who believed her neck a bit too juicy to be true, my heart went to my throat. Thankfully, it was a harmless one but we didn't know that.
We had to wake poor old Mr Fitz in a panic-stricken state and drove to the Emergency department at Royal Darwin Hospital. We waited till 1 am to hear that Ella would live to dance another dance.
Our interview with Snapshot (a five-minute arts segment on the ABC) was to take place at the Jingili Water Garden. We had a second of fame on prime time TV and maybe 10 whole seconds at the Stateline program.
We also did the daa daa daa ABC thingy. The water garden at Jingili - in terms of good value of performance was our best time spent in Darwin.
We were special guests of Tracks Dance Company, who presented their excellent production called "Two Fold Journey". The setting was a perfect outdoor one. There were candles similar to Chinese lanterns outlining the space that really set off the mood for a great night of dance performance. Arid Zone dancers, in my opinion, did their best show in that particular space.
Our last but certainly not least performance was at the Brownsmart Theatre in town. We were special guests of the Ausdance Week performances there as well. They had a number of different dance acts and we were on after the interval. It was an indoor theatre and it was pretty flash. The show was good and the audience was responsive.
I think that, because we were due to head back to Tennant Creek in the following 10 hours, there was a sadness among the group. We had such a great experience that it was hard to leave.
"Garrlgalyi and Gunbi - The Plains and Frilled Neck Lizard" had been a real success. Our group of dancers from the Barkly Region had shown the Northerners we had ripe talent in our little town and anyone who thought otherwise was proved wrong.