Community & Business
28 October, 2024
Dancers in national spotlight
Local dance group Mura Biri Gururu Aboriginal Dancers performed at the Sydney Opera House finishing second in the national DanceRites competition at their first attempt.
The competition involved 18 teams from across the country, and was broadcast live on National Indigenous Television (NITV).
After successfully making it through the heats, Mura Biri Gururu competed against seven teams for the grand prize.
Group leader William Thira-Mayinj Haupt introduced the group to the watching crowds at the Opera House as his team performed its introductory dance in the finals.
“Our first song is to tell the ancestors that we are here for the right reasons,” he said.
“Shoutout to all our mob back home - our babies and our children who will be dancing right now.”
As the group performed the second dance, the cameras followed the intricate moves of the group as they moved smoothly across the surface.
“Our second one was a song and dance to pass knowledge on from the elders to the young generation," Mr Thira-Mayinj Haupt said.
After the final song, he thanked the Gadigal nation of Sydney for hosting the event on its country.
It was a nervous wait thereafter, as the group watched the other dancers perform on the Opera House forecourt.
At the end of the night, it was announced that they had placed second out of the eight teams behind Mackay’s Torres Strait Islander Cultural Group.
Mr Thira-Mayinj Haupt was interviewed by the MCs post the event.
“(Our group) has been going for 14 years,” he said.
“We nearly missed the plane coming down here!
“Half our dancers haven’t flown before, so yeah, getting on the plane, everyone was nervous.
“My mother even came all the way down from Queensland - she’s sitting down the front.
“She’s never been on a boat or a plane - we stayed on Cockatoo Island.”
Asked whether they’d be staying in Sydney to see the sights of the city, Mr Thira-Mayinj Haupt answered in the negative.
“We’ve got to get home to our babies,” he said.
“We’ve done all our exploring."
Fellow group leader Damon Miri Anderson paid tribute to the Noonuccal elders on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) who had mentored him and William Thira-Mayinj Haupt.
Mr Miri Anderson said that the elders’ teaching had laid the platform for Mura Biri Gururu’s success around the Darling Downs.
OTHER DANCERS
Amanda Troutman- Haupt
Ashleigh Haupt
David McCarthy
Milan Hooper
Megan Peterson
Taliesha Duncan- McCarthy
Jakaya McCarthy
Ezra Cubby
Ashley Cubby
