About

The Nutbush refers to an Australian line dance typically performed during physical education classes, parties and weddings to the song "Nutbush City Limits" by Ike & Tina Turner. Although this dance has been performed since the mid-1970s in Australia, the dance became known throughout the world due to TikTok and Twitter posts in 2019.

Origin

In 1973, Ike & Tina Turner released the track "Nutbush City Limits." Soon after, according to Sydney Morning Herald,^[2] Australians created a line dance for the song. On July 10th, 2001, Anne Marie Mordecai posted the dance steps to TurnStep^[1] (shown below).

This can be used as a warmup, or as a part of the class. The idea is really simple, remember "Nutbush City Limits", and the dance that we called "The Maddison"? All you need to do is adapt it to fit your class.

Right side tap x2
Left side tap x2
Right back tap x2
Left back tap x2
Right knee x2
Left knee x2
Right kick***
Left kick
2 Starjumps with a 1/4 turn right
Then begin again.

Spread

On December 19th, 2009, Twitter user @padre969^[3] tweeted, "OH: 'Does Australia have any folk dances?' 'No honey we don't have any folk dances'. 'What about the nutbush dad?'" (shown below, left). Many other Twitter users reminisced about performing the dance while in school. On February 2nd, 2016, Twitter user @Brocklesnitch^[4] tweeted, "do australia’s children still gather to learn a dance to nutbush city limits, or was i actually in some kind of weird cult not a school" (shown below, right). The tweet received over 70 likes in three years.

On July 16th, 2019, Nine New Australia posted a news report "Big Red Bash breaks world record for most Nutbush dancers" to YouTube which received over 9,800 views in five months (shown below).

In 2019, Many Australians began to discuss the fact that the dance is not typically performed outside the country. On July 16th, Twitter user @Maxquinn retweeted a Nutbush Dance video with the caption "I’ve just learned that they don’t do the nutbush anywhere else other than in Australia which is at the same time completely baffling and also makes all of the sense in the world" (shown below). The tweet garnered over 150 likes in five months.

On September 11th, 2019, TikTok user @tekkerstan posted a video of Australian students performing the dance (Shown below, left). The video gained over 15,900 likes in three months. Since then, more Australians began uploading videos of themselves dancing the Nutbush to TikTok. On October 3rd, @benhorn3 uploaded a video in which three friend perform the dance on a roof (shown below, center). The video accumulated over 37,800 likes in two months. On November 4th, TikToker @kizzza21 also uploaded a rendition which gained over 8,500 likes in a month.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References