Country/western dance, also called country and western dance, encompasses many dance forms or styles, which are typically danced to country-western music, .
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The dancers execute a succession of varied patterns of figures. Round and longways dances predominate in the folk tradition. Longways and geometric sets are more frequent among courtly dances. The patterns of the English country dances are similar to those of Irish set dances and of Scottish country dances such as reels and strathspeys. The step work of English dances, however, is simpler and the styling less formal. Country dances from England were assimilated into the traditional dance of other countries— e.
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Courtly dances also were exported from England. Longways and geometric sets appeared in Italy by the 15th century. The 18th-century French contredanse was at first based on English country dances and later evolved into independent varieties; by the 19th century it had spread to Germany and back to England. Although country dance originated as folk dance , the historical sources for its figures and music are urban and courtly: Italian 15th—16th century , English 16th—19th century , and French 18th century.
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Cecil Sharp — , founder of the English Folk Dance Society, made extensive collections of rural country dances at a time when they were in danger of dying out and was largely responsible for their 20th-century revival. The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society has published traditional dances dating back to the 17th century and modern dances in traditional style. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval.
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Country dance | British dance | leondumoulin.nl
Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Square dance , dance for four couples or groups of four couples standing in square formation, the most popular and widely known type of folk dance in the United States. It was called the square dance to distinguish it from comparable dances called the contra, or longways dance, for a double….
John Playford, English music publisher and bookseller whose popular and frequently expanded collection of music and dance steps remains the principal source of knowledge of English country dance steps and melodies. His book, The English Dancing-Master , but dated ; critical ed. The country dance was introduced to the court of Louis XIV of France, where it became known as contredanse , and later to Germany and Italy.
By the s the term contradanse had come to refer to longways sets divided into groups of three or two couples, which would remain normative until English country dance's eclipse. These usually require a group of eight people, a couple along each side. Dancing in square sets still survives in Ireland, under the name "set dancing" or "figure dancing". For some time British publishers issued annual collections of these dances in popular pocket-books. Jane Austen , Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy all loved country dancing and put detailed descriptions into their novels.
But the vogue for the waltz and the quadrille ousted the country dance from English ballrooms in the early 19th century, though Scottish country dance remained popular. The English country dance and the French contredanse , arriving independently in the American colonies, became the New England contra dance , which experienced a resurgence in the midth century.
The quadrille evolved into square dance in the United States while in Ireland it contributed to the development of modern Irish set dance. English country dance in Scotland developed its own flavour and became the separate Scottish country dance. English Ceilidh is a special case, being a convergence of English, Irish and Scottish forms.
In addition certain English country dances survived independently in the popular repertoire. The contradanza , the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the French contradanse , became an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century. The contradanza was popular in Spain and spread throughout Spanish America during the 18th century, where it took on folkloric forms that still exist in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.
In Cuba during the 19th century the contradanza became an important genre, the ancestor of danzon , mambo and cha cha cha.
Country–western dance
Haitians fleeing the Haitian Revolution of brought to the Cuban version a Creole influence and a new syncopation. In Denmark the description "Engelsk" was used for both line and square dances of English origin. Only due to the efforts of Cecil Sharp , Mary Neal and the English Folk Dance and Song Society in the late 19th and early 20th century did a revival take place, so that for some time schoolchildren were taught country dances. In the early 20th century, traditional and historical dances began to be revived in England.
Neal, one of the first to do so, was principally known for her work in ritual dances, but Cecil Sharp , in the six volumes of his Country Dance Book , published between and , attempted to reconstruct English country dance as it was performed at the time of Playford, using the surviving traditional English village dances as a guide, as the manuals defined almost none of the figures described. Sharp and his students were, however, almost wholly concerned with English country dances as found in the early dance manuals: Sharp believed that the Playford dances, especially those with irregular forms, represented the original "folk" form of English country dance and that all later changes in the dance's long history were corruptions.
The first collection of modern English country dances since the s, Maggot Pie , was published in , though only in the late 20th century did modern compositions become fully accepted. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Country Dance disambiguation. Not to be confused with Irish set dance. For the language, see English language. An Overview of the Collection. Archived from the original on 17 December An Analysis of Country Dancing. A Companion to the Ballroom. An Historical Survey of Dancing in Europe.
Archived from the original on 1 February Retrieved 19 January New York University Press. Novello and Company, Ltd.
Retrieved 18 November Cornwall Northumbria Somerset Sussex.