NAISDA Dance College Developing Artists proudly performed at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday 3 March 2018.
With this year marking the 40th anniversary of the Mardi Gras Parade, as well as the 30th anniversary of the First Nation Float, there was plenty to celebrate. Even more exciting, the event marked the first Mardi Gras after the YES vote!
2018 is the fourth year that NAISDA DAs have performed at Mardi Gras. The choreography is always developed by a Diploma DA and this year, was devised by the talented Neville Williams-Boney.
Neville had this to say about his pieces:
“I developed choreography to highlight the individualism of our culture and celebrate our culture. The brief I received was to make it a protest dance without any aggression, so I was stumped. Instead, I created a dance through celebration and joy.
The dancers all had so much pride – you could feel it! They all had extreme fun!
I am immensely proud of all the dancers that participated and would like to thank them all for their effort and for making my vision shine through.”
Check out a glimpse into rehearsals for the event below.
NAISDA performed three times throughout the event – during Welcome to Country, Inma (which means Dancing) and Don’t You Worry. Both ‘Inma’ and ‘Don’t You Worry’ were performed to the music of popular Indigenous band Electric Fields.
You can check out a live video of NAISDA’s DAs at the event here.