circus ringmaster<\/a> and current Dunedin city councillor Mandy Mayhem-Bullock has organised Dunedin\u2019s Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever for the past seven years, after a friend reckoned the event would be \u201cright up her alley\u201d. To Mayhem-Bullock, this is more than just a dance \u2013 it\u2019s a vital burst of colour and community in the middle of a long, dark southern winter. The Dunedin performance raises funds for local mental health charity Weka, and Mayhem-Bullock sees the event as supporting the health and wellbeing of the wider Otago district. \u201cWe make this dull, concrete jungle vibrant for the day,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody\u2019s cheeks are glowing, and everyone\u2019s smiling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nLast year, dancers came from as far as Blackball on the West Coast; this year, one dancer travelled all the way from Nelson. Mayhem-Bullock reckons the anticipation has been building for weeks, and Saturday\u2019s turnout is the biggest yet. \u201cPeople come in their groups, they\u2019ve got their outfits ready and they\u2019ve obviously been practising. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d One group of enthusiastic Kates made the five-hour car journey south from Christchurch, and as the clock ticks closer to noon, they practise their Wuthering Height moves with their Dunedin friend Kate (not an alias).<\/p>\n
\u201cKate Bush brought us here,\u201d one of the Christchurch Kates explains. After the friends attended a Kate Bush tribute concert, they saw a YouTube video of the most southern Wuthering Heights Day and decided Dunedin was where they wanted to be. \u201cLife\u2019s about whimsy,\u201d a second Kate adds, wrapping her coat tightly around her. The Christchurch Kates were determined not to let the freezing conditions affect their day, no matter how \u201cfucking cold\u201d it was. \u201cWhere else can you come together with all your mates like this and just enjoy each other\u2019s company?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\")
Mandy Mayhem-Bullock (far left, with microphone) awards the prize for the three best-dressed Kate Bushes (Photo: Mart\u00ffn Buyck)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the first time that Dunedin woman Sylvia has ever danced in public dressed as Kate Bush. \u201cI thought, why not give it a try? I have no dance experience, but I\u2019m actually having fun.\u201d Not only is there the novelty of dancing in the Octagon, but Sylvia has discovered that spinning and kicking alongside 129 other Kate Bushes is the perfect ice-breaker. \u201cEveryone\u2019s so cold to start, but once we did the first run-through and a few people knocked into each other, it\u2019s just really inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
That inclusivity is important to Mayhem-Bullock, who holds the event in the city centre rather than in a local field because the Octagon is a flat, accessible space. It\u2019s also important that the Wuthering Heights moves are adaptable for everyone, and dancers are encouraged to participate however they can. \u201cI can\u2019t do the great big kicks or the deep back bends that Kate Bush did in her youth,\u201d Mayhem-Bullock chuckles. \u201cWe\u2019re not about shaming people \u2013 we\u2019d rather have people join in and just dance their own moves than miss out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo: Tara Ward<\/p>\n
Mayhem-Bullock leads the group in a final rehearsal, reminding them of some of the more iconic actions (though Bush probably didn\u2019t call them \u201clicking the dinner plates\u201d or \u201cbig slalom\u201d back in 1979). A group of curious onlookers watches on with smiles, drawn in by the unusual scene. \u201cI love it when some unsuspecting person is casually walking through the Octagon and stops in their tracks, like, \u2018what is going on here?\u2019\u201d says Mayhem-Bullock, who always brings a dress-up box of spare red shirts and scarves for any random passers-by who get caught up in the Kate Bush moment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After one last run-through of plate-licking, zombie walks and big slaloms, Mayhem-Bullock checks the time on the town hall clocktower behind her. It\u2019s finally noon, and Bush\u2019s delicate, eerie voice floats out from the speakers for the final time. The dancers move together like a crimson tide, swaying and pulling, the red wigs and flower crowns and long capes rising and falling as Bush\u2019s voice soars above the Octagon\u2019s historic buildings. They lunge, they lift, they sing along, this gothic song in this gothic city. Their joy is contagious. It\u2019s not so cold any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What makes a group of strangers dress in red and dance together in public on a cold winter\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6788,156,161468,111,139,69,1066,13536],"class_list":["post-547233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dunedin","tag-entertainment","tag-kate-bush","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pop-culture","tag-wuthering-heights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}