AustLit

'In 2011, the Indigenous Research Network (IRN) at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia brought together a team of playwrights and researchers to tell the story of the Boathouse dances as its firs community-driven research project. The Boathouse dances were held in the late 1950s and early 1960s and were a significant meeting place for Aboriginal people of Brisbane and the greater South East Queensland region. The dances were organized by an Aboriginal man, Uncle Charlie King, to fund the first Aboriginal football team in Brisbane and an Aboriginal women's virago team. The Boathouse dances were a time of celebration, reconnecting, establishing new relationships and falling in love.Te dances were also a focal point of significant social change in the lives of many Aboriginal people and were driven by Aboriginal people who were experiencing a new agency. To date, this story is untold; it is a part of Australia's hidden histories.' (83)