Sussex Inlet dance teacher Jenny Landsberry was an integral part of a successful world record attempt on Thursday, July 13.
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Jenny and her daughters taught 1800 people to dance the nutbush in the lead up to the Birdsville Big Red Bash.
The ladies “took over the pub” in Birdsville Sunday night when they arrived to help punters learn the dance.
“The Nutbush is a line dance,” Jenny said.
“It’s easy, everyone can do it, and we’ll help them learn.”
The world record attempt on the Tina Turner dance song, Nutbush City Limits was the highlight of the event. The previous record was 522 people doing it simultaneously in Victoria.
At the Bash, over 1800 people paid $10 to the Royal Flying Doctors charity to take part though Guinness Book of Records judge Pete Fairbairn warned that if he and his scrutineers disqualified more than 10 per cent in the five minute dance for not doing the steps properly, the record would not count.
“I’d be the most unpopular man in Birdsville, but I’m just doing my job,” he said.
He need not have worried.
After 15 minutes tallying up the results, Mr Fairbank announced that 91 people were disqualified but that left 1719 still standing, smashing the previous mark.
Birdsville Big Red Bash had a world record to add to its ever-growing collection of great memories.
Normally home to beef cattle, a few kangaroos and not much else, last week this remote wilderness was transformed by 6000 ticketholders, 2000 volunteers and possibly another 1000 workers, making it a 9000-strong camping ground for three days, and all set against the jawdropping beauty of Big Red Dune, 40km from Birdsville, in the middle of the Simpson Desert.
Organisers called it the world’s most remote music festival and everyone was having a good time, not least the performers with the calibre of John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite, the Angels, the Black Sorrows, Kate Ceberano and many others joining the Hoodoo Gurus for a festival of song and sand.