Character Dancing

Character Dancing, Danse de caractère

Dance of character, or character dance. It can be any national or folk dance, or a dance based on the movements associated with a particular profession, trade, personality or mode of living that is not the standard French or Russian. Slightly racist, but it is what it is.

Csárdás
Pronunciation: CHAHR-dahsh
The national dance of Hungary. It consists of two movements, lassú (slow) and friska (fast). It was first introduced in ballet as a character dance in the first act of Arthur Saint-Léon’s Coppélia in 1870.

Gigue
Pronunciation: zheeg
Translation: An early eighteenth-century dance in 2/4 time

Mazurka, Mazurek
A Polish folk dance in ¾ time which has been introduced into a number of ballets.

Polka
A dance in 2/4 time from Bohemia in the 1830s, now it is national dance of the Czechs.

Tarantella
A fast Italian dance in 6/8 time

Waltz
A ballroom dance in ¾ time, introduced into ballet by Pierre Gardel in his La Dansomanie of 1800.