The rule is the same for all festivals – if you go, you gotta get the t-shirt.
And after travelling all the way to Laura in Cape York Queensland for their dance festival, there was no way I was leaving without one.
The Laura Dance Festival started in the 1980s and is believed to be the longest running Indigenous cultural festival in Australia.
Every couple of years, teams of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers from across the Cape come together to compete against each other for 3 days of traditional dance.
There’s a stage, but that’s not where the dancing happens.
The “dance floor” is an area of red dirt and dust surrounded by shady trees.
There’s no set program, no schedule. You just run to the dance area when you hear the drums signal the start of competition.
It is absolutely the most incredible event I’ve been to in my life.
Of course I had to have a t-shirt as a wearable souvenir of the great time I had there. Plus, it fits really well and is super cute.