Country dance

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.^[1]

As a musical form written in ²
₄ or ⁶
₈ time, the contredanse was used by Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven's 6 Ecosaises WoO83 are dated to 1806.^[2] Mozart's 6 Ländlerische Tänze, K.606 are dated to 1791. ^[3]

Introduced to South America by French immigrants, Country Dance had great influence upon Latin American music as contradanza.

The Anglais (from the French word meaning "English") or Angloise is another term for the English country dance.^[4][5] A Scottish country dance may be termed an écossaise. Irish set dance is also related.