Waltz, (from German walzen, “to revolve”), highly popular ballroom dance evolved from

the Ländler in the 18th century. Characterized by a step, slide, and step in 3/4 time, the waltz,
with its turning, embracing couples, at first shocked polite society. It became the ballroom
dance par excellence of the 19th century, however, and tenaciously maintained its popularity in
the 20th. Its variations include the rapid, whirling Viennese waltz and the gliding,
dipping Boston. Composers of famous waltzes include Frédéric Chopin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
and Johann Strauss and his sons, especially Johann Strauss the Younger, who was known as
“the Waltz King.”

Polka, lively courtship dance of Bohemian folk origin. It is characterized by three quick steps
and a hop and is danced to music in 2/4 time. The couples cover much space as they circle about
the dance floor. Introduced in Paris in about 1843, it became extraordinarily popular in
ballrooms and on the stage, sweeping across Europe and the Americas from Scandinavia
to Latin America and developing many varieties. Still popular in the 20th century both as a folk
dance and as a ballroom dance, polkas also appear in stage works—e.g., in Jaromir
Weinberger’s opera Schwanda the Bagpiper and in Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered
Bride.

Tango, ballroom dance, musical style, and song. The tango evolved about 1880 in dance halls
and perhaps brothels in the lower-class districts of Buenos Aires, where the Spanish tango, a
light-spirited variety of flamenco, merged with the milonga, a fast, sensual, and disreputable
Argentine dance; it also shows possible influences from the Cuban habanera. In the early 1900s
the tango became socially acceptable and by 1915 was a craze in fashionable European circles.
The first tango music by known composers was published in 1910. The early tangos were
spirited and lively, but by 1920 the music and lyrics had become intensely melancholy. The
tango step likewise evolved from early exuberance to a smoother ballroom step, and the
prevailing duple metre (2/4) into 4/4, 4/8, or other tempo.

The list of names of those most strongly associated with tango is long, but among the best-
known are Juan d’Arienzo, Anibal Troilo, Osvaldo Pugliese, Carlos Di Sarli, Francisco
Canaro, Astor Piazzolla, and Carlos Gardel.
Fox-trot, ballroom dance popular in Europe and America since its introduction around 1914.
Allegedly named for the comedian Harry Fox, whose 1913 Ziegfeld Follies act included a trotting
step, the fox-trot developed less strenuous walking steps for its ballroom version. The music,
influenced by ragtime, is in 4/4 time with syncopated rhythm. The speed of the step varies with
the music: half notes (minims) require slow steps; and quarter notes (crotchets), fast steps.

The fox-trot consists primarily of walking steps, chassés (step side, close step), and quarter
turns. Couples usually hold each other in the traditional ballroom position, but numerous
variations are done in other positions. Fox-trots for fast music include the one-step (one
walking step to each musical beat) popularized by Irene and Vernon Castle shortly after
the dance’s inception and the peabody (with a quick leg cross).

Swing, in music, both the rhythmic impetus of jazz music and a specific jazz idiom prominent
between about 1935 and the mid-1940s—years sometimes called the swing era. Swing music
has a compelling momentum that results from musicians’ attacks and accenting in relation to
fixed beats. Swing rhythms defy any narrower definition, and the music has never been notated
exactly. Swing is sometimes considered a partial dilution of the jazz tradition because it
organized musicians into larger groups (commonly 12 to 16 players) and required them to play
a far higher proportion of written music than had been thought compatible with the
fundamentally improvisatory character of jazz. Nevertheless, it was the first jazz idiom that
proved commercially successful. The swing era also brought respectability to jazz, moving into
the ballrooms of America a music that until that time had been associated with the brothels
of New Orleans and the Prohibition-era gin mills of Chicago.

Rumba, also spelled rhumba, ballroom dance of Afro-Cuban folk-dance origin that became
internationally popular in the early 20th century. Best known for the dancers’ subtle side to side
hip movements with the torso erect, the rumba is danced with a basic pattern of two quick side
steps and a slow forward step. Three steps are executed to each bar. The music, in 4/4 time, has
an insistent syncopation.

The ballroom version is based on the Cuban son, itself a less vigorous form of the uninhibited
Cuban rumba danced in taverns and similar places. The word rumba occasionally refers
generically to other Cuban dances with similar rhythms.