Melbourne Reviews

Ballroom and indigenous dance are not an obvious combination, but Burn The Floor, in collaboration with Mitch Tambo and a cohort of esteemed artists, give it a red hot go in brand new show Walanbaa Yulu-Gi. 

Burn The Floor is the little Australian show that could. It started 25 years ago from the desire to showcase ballroom in a theatrical, rather than competitive way, and grew into a huge touring bemouth that travels the world and always remembers to drop back home to Oz to say G'day. The shows are brassy and loud, appealing to large audiences with fast and furious footwork, brassy sex appeal and soundtracks of familiar music, performed by live musicians and vocalists. 

For this special anniversary, Burn The Floor has gone back to its Australian roots, with an all-Aussie soundtrack - remixes of rock and pop classics like Highway to Hell and Absolutely Everybody, alongside indigenous content, much of it written by Tambo.  

Ballroom dance is traditionally external – showy, flashy, full of exaggerated gendered posturing and big movements. Indigenous dance often has a more internal motivation, driven by inspiration from land and personal relationship to country. The styles are fundamentally different on so many levels – kinesthetically, historically, intentionally… yet somehow Walanbaa Yulu-Gi comes together overall and will continue to evolve as it settles into itself and tours around Australia. 

It has the upbeat, infectious vibe of the Burn The Floor brand. The indigenous content gets swept up in that dominant aesthetic, but still stands out, bringing a distinctly different texture to proceedings. There are still the big and fast numbers in which a rumba-base becomes a jive, a mix of aerial tricks and a quick nod to salsa, with dancers flying on and off stage at top-speed. There are emotional contemporary duets – also ballroom based, but heavily influenced by contemporary dance, with the male dancer in an unbuttoned, clingy shirt, the female in a light shift dress and lots of sensuous, floor-bound intertwining of bodies. 

But other sections step out of that formula – finding emotion away from the male/female power plays and histrionics of partner dance. Away from swiveling hips, pouty lips and frenetic footwork. 

The indigenous dancers – Tambo, the legendary Albert David and Sermsah Bin Saad (himself a contestant in the first ever Australian So You Think You Can Dance) bring a different emotional perspective – one more rooted in family and country. In numbers like Native Tongue, West Papuan singer (and Tambo’s wife) Lele sings “they don’t speak their father’s native tongue,” with a contemporary choreography of David, Bin Saad and ballroom dancer and show choreographer Robbie Kmetoni all expressive in their own styles as men separated from their roots and navigating loneliness and loss – literal and metaphoric. 

After such heart-tugging serious stuff, it’s straight back to shirtless men dipping and swirling svelte women to a pounding Aussie rock soundtrack. That’s how Burn The Floor rolls and it never misses a beat. 

Tambo is a magnetic performer/storyteller/dancer and is an emcee of sorts, from Welcome to Country (and performing his hits Yaama and Yugal Yulu Gi) through to an intimate conversation with the band where he jokes with musical director Tyler Azzopardi about being single. He brings even more light to an already sparkly production.

In an ambitious finale Tambo sings John Farhnam's You're The Voice in native language while the ballroom dancers waltz around him in a circle with the women's swishing white dresses sculpting kaleidoscopic patterns. David and Bin Saad do their own choreography around the ensemble and the entire musical team accompanies. 

On paper, such a mix doesn't seem like it should work. But in practice it hits an uplifting and emotional chord. 

In Walanbaa Yulu-Gi, as a whole, the parts are disparate,  but they unite for an optimistic evening of lively and relatable entertainment, enhanced by the incredible technical skill of all the dancers, musicians and singers.