ROBERT Dance has taken his stunning show-skiing act all around the world, efforts that are set to earn him a place in the Australian Sports Museum. Dance, a Frankston resident, has been a presence in Australian water-skiing for 50 years. His love of the sport was born during precious childhood moments with his father on the Mornington Peninsula.
“With my father I skied at Dromana for many years. We had a caravan at the foreshore and my brother and I skied there with the old man,” Dance said. “He was the sort of person to say ‘you never give up, even if your legs and back are aching. If you fall off you get up again’. He was our driving spirit – he has passed away but it still sticks in your head.”
Dance found plenty of success in skiing; he was a winner in the Southern 80 water ski race and completed and won 100-mile races. He has a passion for show-skiing, which has taken him global as far as Seoul and Dubai.
“Going to the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games was really good,” he said. “At the Olympics we were part of the Opening Ceremony with one million people on the banks of the river to watch our ski show. It was unbelievable to fit so many people across four kilometers of river bank. We had 58 skiers – half went one way and the other went the opposite from the middle of the river before coming back to the center point to turn and then do another act.
“We had an act where there was a trapeze under the skier, which was unheard of. We did that at Moomba too, and I’d forgotten I’d even done that at the Olympic Games! To do that with so many people watching was incredible.”
Earlier this month, Dance donated some of his most valued memorabilia to the Australian Sports Museum at the MCG for future display. He said he donated medals and uniforms. “I gave them medals I’ve had in the past, things from 50 years of Moomba, my first ever water skis. I also started the Dromana Water Ski Club, and they wanted the tracksuit top with badges of the achievements I had earned. They wanted that one by hook or by crook. “I handed it over last Wednesday. They’ll be putting them in a glass cabinet, and I’ll be the second person in water-skiing to be featured in the sports museum.”
Dance is a past president and life member of the Victorian Water Ski Association, with a connection lasting 40 years, and received an OAM for his contributions to the sport in 2020. “I never got money, there was nothing like that involved,” Dance said. “I did it because I loved the sport.”
First published in the Frankston Times – 9 September 2025