Inaugural dance festival will get all ages grooving: organiser

The inaugural Dubbo Old Time and New Vogue Dance Festival will begin on Friday night with a welcome dance. The event will run until Sunday night and includes a workshop by former international DanceSport champions John and Andrea Barwick.

Old Time and New Vogue, as well as Freestyle Ballroom, Latin, and Rock ‘N’ Roll dances will all be included in the program.

Before it has even begun, one of the organisers Doug Moorby said he already considered the event a success. There had been at least 90 tickets sold to each of the festivals events, he said.

Mr Moorby said he knew of at least one couple who would be travelling from outside the country for the event, as well as others who were coming from areas such as the Gold Coast and Victoria.

“I suppose the biggest thing is that we’ve tried to promote dancing as a general pastime to people,” he said.

It was already a popular activity, Mr Moorby said, from ages 20 to 90. There were so many people who after beginning dancing said they had wish they started it 30 years earlier, he said, including himself.

“I think because it’s something couples can do together. It’s fun, it feels good. It’s a great form of exercise both physical and mental. Supposedly it’s great for holding off Alzheimer’s,” he said.

Musicians Patti Bond and Tony Gilbert will be providing the music for the main festival events. The inaugural festival was very lucky to be able to secure such high calibre performers, Mr Moorby said. 

Holding the event has been a long time coming, the organiser said. He often travelled to areas in Queensland and down to the border for dance festivals, Mr Moorby said, and knew Dubbo was perfectly situated to hold something similar.

There are already plans for the festival to be held again.

A limited number of tickets will be available at the door for most of the weekend’s events, including the Grand Ball, which will be held at the Dubbo College Senior Campus main hall from 7.30pm on Saturday.