Country Dance
Also known as: English Country Dance, Contredanse, Longways Dance, Contradanza
History & Cultural Context
References to country dancing appear in English sources in the late sixteenth century, but the form becomes concrete with John Playford's The English Dancing Master of 1651, which set down tunes and figure instructions for longways, square and round sets and ran through many enlarged editions into the eighteenth century. The essential mechanism is progression: a short figure sequence matched to the length of the tune, danced with one neighbouring couple, then repeated with the next, so that over the course of a dance every couple meets every other. It crossed to France as the contredanse, where the square-set version was elaborated into the cotillon and then the quadrille, and it travelled with British and French settlers to North America and with Spanish and French colonial society to the Caribbean. In fashionable English ballrooms it was displaced through the early nineteenth century by the quadrille and then by the couple dances, surviving in villages and in Scotland. The twentieth-century revival, driven in England by Cecil Sharp and in North America by the living contra tradition of New England, returned it to regular practice.
Cultural Significance
It was danced both at court and in villages, and the printed manuals made it a commodity: a dancing master's living depended on supplying new figures each season. Because the sets mixed dancers, the form suited assembly rooms and public balls where people of different rank and unfamiliar acquaintance shared a floor, and much of the social business of courtship happened inside it. Its export followed trade and empire, which is why the same structural idea surfaces in Havana, Paris, Copenhagen and rural Massachusetts under different names.
Characteristic Movement & Technique
The travelling step is a light springy walk or a skipping step taken to the beat, with the body upright and the movement carried in the legs and feet rather than in torso rotation. There is no rise and fall in the ballroom sense and no sustained turning; the shaping comes from paths through the set, casting, weaving heys, and figures that face partners across or along the line. Hands are taken briefly for turns, stars and poussettes and released again. Setting and turning single are done on the spot as small ornamental figures that mark the phrase.
Partnering Dynamics
There is no closed hold and no continuous physical connection; contact is intermittent, by one hand or two, and often with someone other than the partner. Direction comes from the memorised figure and the musical phrase rather than from a leader signalling a follower, so both dancers carry equal responsibility for the shape. Eye contact does the work that a frame does in later couple dances.
Competitive Context
Not a competitive form in any period. Its present life is in English country dance and contra dance clubs, Playford and Regency-themed balls, and historical dance societies; the Scottish branch has an organised teaching and examination structure through the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, but that is certification rather than competition.
Regional Variations
The English longways set is the baseline; the French contredanse française favoured the square and became the quadrille, while the contredanse anglaise kept the lines. Scottish country dance developed its own step vocabulary and was formalised in the twentieth century, and the American contra tradition kept the longways progression while simplifying the step to a walk and adding a caller. Danish, German and Cuban lines each adapted the figures to local music.
Common Misconceptions
The name does not mean the dance was rustic, nor is it a corruption of the French contredanse; the English term is the earlier one and the French word is the borrowing. It was never confined to peasants, and the printed figures represent what dancing masters sold rather than a complete record of what people actually did.
Peak Popularity
Signature Figures
- Hey
- Set and turn single
- Cast off
- Right and left
- Back to back
- Hands across (star)
- Siding
- Arming
- Poussette
Notable Codifiers
- John Playford
- Thomas Wilson
- Cecil Sharp
What to Wear
Attire guidance for Country Dance and other Historic Gilded Age Ballroom dances. Each card below is sized to the moment — class, practice, social, or competition — because the wardrobe shifts as the stakes do.
Reading the cards
In Class
Regular practice wear with smooth-soled shoes.
Social Dancing
Victorian/Edwardian ball events: women in corseted gowns with trains, men in white tie or period suits. Some events are less strict and welcome Edwardian-inspired modern formalwear.
Competition
Not competed; performed at Victorian balls and historical society events in period costume.
Shoes
Women: pointed-toe shoes with French heels (2"). Men: patent leather shoes or period boots. The era bridged between flat dancing and the heeled Latin shoes of the 20th century.
In Practice
Many Gilded Age groups practice corset-management — modern dancers underestimate how much the corset changes posture and breath.
Price Range
- Budget: Repurposed modern formalwear with period-adjacent silhouette; entry French-heel shoes $80–140.
- Mid: Reproduction Gilded Age gowns and white-tie pieces $400–1,500.
- Premium: Hand-tailored Edwardian costume $2,000–8,000+.
Quick Tips
- •Suede-soled shoes allow controlled sliding and pivoting — essential for most partner dances.
- •Avoid rubber soles on dance floors; they grip too much and can cause knee injuries.
- •Bring a separate pair of clean shoes for the dance floor to keep it in good condition.
Recommended Gear for Country Dance
Essential equipment and apparel selected for dancers learning Country Dance.
Women's Cheetah Print Sequin Top Y2K Tie Back Corset Halter Going Out Crop Tops
Verdusa
Under $50
As an Amazon Associate, LODance earns from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure
Sources & Further Reading
Cultural & Historical Context
Country Dance emerged from England during the 1600s—present day. Understanding the cultural roots, musical traditions, and social circumstances of this era enriches appreciation for the dance's characteristics and significance.
Formative Influences
Codifiers & Standardizers:
John Playford, Thomas Wilson, Cecil Sharp
Signature Movement Vocabulary:
Hey, Set and turn single, Cast off, Right and left, Back to back, Hands across (star), Siding, Arming, Poussette
Primary Source Documents
The Library of Dance contains public-domain primary sources for dance history. Copyrighted modern syllabi are indexed with purchase links to their respective copyright owners. Search by dance name or codifier to discover primary source documents.
Last reviewed: August 2026 — This dance profile synthesizes historical research, cultural documentation, and contemporary practice knowledge to provide authoritative context.
More in Historic Gilded Age Ballroom
Polka
The Polka was a lively, bouncy couple dance from Bohemia that became enormously popular across Europe and America during the 19th century, featuring characteristic hop and turn.
Mazurka
The Mazurka was a lively Polish couple dance with syncopated rhythm and characteristic accent patterns, becoming popular in European ballrooms during the 19th century.
Schottische
The Schottische was a moderate-tempo couple dance with a distinctive step-hop pattern, becoming popular in Victorian ballrooms and remaining part of folk traditions.
Galop
The Galop was a rapid, energetic couple dance with a distinctive galloping action, becoming a popular finish to Victorian ballroom evenings.
Victorian Waltz
Victorian waltz variations including the Redowa combined elements of waltz and polka with elaborate choreography, representing Gilded Age innovation in ballroom dancing.
Laendler
The Laendler was an Austrian peasant couple dance with turning action that influenced the development of the modern waltz and remains part of Alpine folk traditions.
Breakdown
A fast solo percussive dance created by enslaved African Americans, danced to fiddle and banjo tunes in quick duple time and often performed as a challenge between dancers. It carries one of the core movement vocabularies from which buck dancing, flatfooting and American tap descend. Its commercial spread in the 1840s and after ran through blackface minstrelsy, which took the material from Black dancers and sold it as caricature.
Clog
A percussive step dance performed in wooden-soled clogs, developed among mill and mine workers in northern England and built largely on hornpipe rhythms. It moved onto the music-hall stage as a championship solo turn in the nineteenth century and crossed to North America, where it fed both Appalachian step traditions and the variety stage. With African American percussive dance it is one of the two roots of American tap.
Hornpipe
A solo percussive dance in duple time, closely tied to a tune type of the same name and strongly associated with sailors through its long life on the theatrical stage. It is one of the three principal hard-shoe dances in Irish step dancing and the rhythmic basis of English clog. Its dotted, swung rhythm gives it a distinctly heavier and more deliberate feel than a reel.
Jig
A lively step dance in compound time, the central solo form of Irish dancing and a staple of Scottish and English fiddle repertoire. It exists in several distinct meters and shoe types, from the light 6/8 double jig to the slow, heavily percussive treble jig in hard shoes. The word has also served, in England and America, as a loose and sometimes derogatory label for percussive dance generally.
Reel
A fast dance in even duple time built on an alternation between an interweaving travelling figure and setting steps danced on the spot. It is one of the oldest continuously danced forms in the British Isles and the structural ancestor of a great deal of Scottish, Irish and North American social dance. The name refers at once to a tune type, a floor figure and a whole family of dances.
Strathspey
A Scottish dance and tune type in 4/4 distinguished by the Scotch snap, a short note on the beat followed by a longer dotted one, which gives it a jagged rhythm and a stately, sustained movement quality. It takes its name from the strath, or broad valley, of the River Spey. In both Highland and country dance it is conventionally paired with a reel, the slower dance setting up the faster one.
Habanera
A slow duple-time couple dance from Cuba, and the rhythmic cell that carries its name — a dotted first beat pulling against an even bass. It was made by Black and mixed-race Cuban musicians and dancers out of the imported contradanza, and it travelled back across the Atlantic into Spanish salons and stage music while also feeding Argentine tango and Brazilian maxixe.
Maxixe
A fast, syncopated close-hold couple dance from working-class Rio de Janeiro, built by Afro-Brazilian musicians and dancers who put the syncopation and body movement of lundu into the step patterns of the polka and the Cuban habanera. It was the first urban popular dance Brazil made for itself, and its rhythmic language runs directly into samba.
One Step
One step to each beat of a brisk two-four, with nothing else that has to be memorised. That simplicity made it the entry point for the social dance boom of the 1910s, and it is the direct ancestor of the American Peabody as well as one of the strands feeding the foxtrot and the quickstep.
Redowa
A turning couple dance in three-four from the Czech lands, taken up in Paris ballrooms in the mid-1840s on the back of the polka craze. Its step leaps rather than glides, which gives it a springing, pursuing quality quite unlike the smooth continuous swing of the waltz.
Varsovienne
A slow triple-time couple dance in the mazurka family that appeared in Parisian ballrooms in the early 1850s and took its name from Warsaw. It is recognisable by the pause: the couple glides, then holds a pointed foot on an accented beat, so the dance alternates between travel and arrest.
Viennese Waltz
The rotary couple dance of nineteenth-century ballrooms: continuous turning in a closed hold at speed, danced socially and improvised rather than assembled from a syllabus. It emerged from alpine Ländler and Deutscher turning dances in the 1780s and defined social dancing through the Strauss era, and the modern competition dance of the same name is a twentieth-century codification of it rather than the same thing.
Continue Exploring
Lineage of Dance
Explore 500 years of dance evolution
Champions of Dance
Winners of marquee national & world titles
Language of Dance
400+ dance terms & translations
Listening of Dance
Tempo, timing & musicality tools
Gallery of Dance
1,200+ public domain artworks
Attire of Dance
Evolution of dance dress across eras
Keep the thread going
Dance history, technique, and the occasional rabbit hole — in your inbox. Thoughtful, infrequent, unsubscribe anytime.
Free. No spam. One click to leave.