The emergence of Surfdancing

Surfing by day, dancing by night titled a newspaper artice of my mum leaping through the air on the beach dated 1966. My mum (Sue) looked so beautiful, happy and elegant as a ballerina flying high above the ocean. This picture conjured up in me a sense of freedom and gave me an insight into what I thought my mum was doing at 19.

Wow, surfing and dancing, pretty cool I right?.

With lots of big wave body surfing experiences as a child in North Narabeen, I felt right at home when my mum remarried and we ended up in kiddies corner Palm Beach. With the rocks, waves and beach as a front yard, it wasnt long before I felt at home and become a little water woman.

Our next door neighbor ended up being former World Champion Nat Young and not far away was Midget Farrelly former first World Champion.

This meant a surf lesson from Nat, kicking round on a skateboard with Beau, and later dancing with Johanna Farrelly. Turns out that mums bridesmaid was Jane Farrelly (Midgets sister) and they had danced many years together. After begging my mum to send me to dancing for way too long, eventually I found out about her life as a dancer, scholarships won to the Australian Ballet company and what it all meant to her.

It wasnt long before mum was running the S.K. Altmann School of Dance in Avalon and I wanted a solo. As I hadn't quite learnt to dance yet but could ride a skateboard, I decided that my solo would be on a skateboard. So, there it happened in 1984 to smooth criminal the birth of "Skateboard Dancing".

When I look back on my skateboard dancing in the early eighties, my mothers surf dance connections and growing up in a time where Morning of the Earth really helped people look at surfing as an art, I can now see it was inevitable that I was going to become a Surfdancer.

By the time I finished University with a Bachelor of Business Mgmt, I thought long under a tree in Byron Bay about how to make a better world. I wondered if we could really follow our dreams and make money out of what we love. Imagine if we could inspire children to go into business for themselves with positive inputs, processes and outputs and do what we love.

Hmmmm

Well, I love to surf and I love to dance!

And the journey began.

In 2004, Noosa Council awarded Surfdancer a permit to teach Surfdancing and in 2005 and 2006 we Opened the Noosa Festival of Surfing.

While Surfdancing copped much ridicule and rejection in its launch years, it was this rejection of the new idea that attracted national and international media attention. People would paddle up to me in the surf and say "we dont agree with what you are doing; surfing has evolved and you cant go and just start dancing on the wave". Its funny how 15 years have now passed and Surfdancing doesnt seem as offensive. It is no longer difficult for people to see surfing as a dance. In fact, in recent years, very well known surfers have acknowledged the surf dance connection.

It’s very exciting to see more and more people investigate Surfdancings emergence and growth on the ocean. Surfdancing is about freedom. Freedom to express the joy of surfing through movement and to connect to the waves of which we are.