Electric Fields br br br A CELEBRATION OF FIRST NATIONS DANCEbr Witness the powerful coming together of traditional customs and contemporary culture, with hundreds of First Nations dancers from around Australia and performers from around the world.br Join us on the Forecourt, a First Nations meeting place for thousands of years, to share in this free festival of live dance, music and community.br Abc Nitv br Dance Rites 2018 Playlist br br Dance Rites – Australia’s First Nations dance competition – is a free, two-day celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island dance and cultures on the Sydney Opera House Forecourt each Spring.br br Dance Rites draws together performers representing nations from across the country from Far North Queensland to Victoria, and Tasmania to Murray Island, the most easterly inhabited island in the Torres Strait.br br Groups travel to Sydney to showcase their unique cultures in one of the world’s most spectacular outdoor performance spaces: Bennelong Point. Formerly known as Tubowgule, Bennelong Point has been a meeting place for ritual celebration and dance for tens of thousands of years.br Each group will present three dances: a welcome and a farewell dance – one of which must include a chant in local language – and a ‘wildcard’ dance of the group’s choosing. These will be judged by an expert judging panel for their technical skill and engagement with language, skin-markings and traditional instruments.br “Dance Rites provides a national platform for the transmission of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next and from one community to another ... It has become a significant national event, demonstrating how the world’s oldest living culture continues to flourish, thrive and evolve.