page_title: Country dance
section_title: Influence
hierarchical_section_title: Country dance / Influence
caption_attribution_description: Rather lively dancing of the "La Trénis" figure of the Contredanse, an illustration from Le Bon Genre, Paris, 1805. Both the women have flowers in their low necklines...
context_page_description: A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, performed by a group of people, usually in couples, in one or more sets. The figures involve interaction with your partner and/or with other dancers, usually with a progression so that you dance with everyone in your set. It is common in modern times to have a "caller" who teaches the dance and then calls the figures as you dance.
  Country dances are done in many different styles.
  As a musical form written in 2/4 or 6/8 time, the contredanse was used by Beethoven and Mozart.
  Introduced to South America by French immigrants, Country Dance had great influence upon Latin American music as contradanza.
  The Anglais or Angloise is another term for the English country dance. A Scottish country dance may be termed an Ecossaise. Irish set dance is also related.
context_section_description: 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 mid-20th 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. One such is the Virginia Reel, which is almost exactly the same as the 'Sir Roger de Coverley'.
  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. Haitians fleeing the Haitian Revolution of 1791 brought to the Cuban version a Creole influence and a new syncopation.
  The Engelska (Swedish for "English") or Danish Engelsk is a 16-bar Scandinavian folk dance in . Its name comes from the adoption in Scandinavia of English country dances and contra dances in the early 19th century. In Denmark the description "Engelsk" was used for both line and square dances of English origin.
caption: The "La Trénis" figure of the Contredanse, an illustration from Le Bon Genre, Paris, 1805
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