Yes there was (is) a bogan dance. It was all the rage in 1975.
With the resurgence of our fascination with bogans: 'The bogan in all of us', 'What is a bogan', 'Is 'bogan' an insult any more'?, it's timely to revist the dance moves immortalised and satirised by Magda Szubanski and Alan Pentland as 'Michelle and Ferret' in the TV comedy series Fast Forward in the late 80s.
'Bogan' was accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary last year, validated in part by a bogan culture (the term 'culture' is used with extreme prejudice). There was a bogan lifestyle, there was bogan music ... and there were bogan dance moves. Check the vid, but be warned you can't unsee these moves.
Daddy Cool performing "Eagle Rock" at the Australian Concert for Bangladesh in April 1975 — lots of Sharpie action.
The Melbourne Shuffle was similar to skanking and was donated to history by the Sharpies, a popular and predominantly Melbourne urban sub-culture of the 60s and 70s.
Forty years on, as we sashay into 2014, we hang our heads; we've got nothing to offer the gods of dance moves for posterity — twerking doesn't count.
Hipsters are shopping online, eating mexican and walking into lamposts, so now what? Does the hipster have to die so the next Michelle and Ferret can live again?
