Square dance
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A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances are part of a broad spectrum o
Appalachian square dancing at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina
A square dance in Montreal, Quebec in 1941
Quadrille variation involving five couples dancing at a Colonial Ball in the Albert Hall, Canberra September 2016 (sepia)
American-style square dancers performing outdoors in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany in 2014
Cotillion
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The cotillion is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and North America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner
Square dance
…numerous traditional dances including English country dances, which were first documented in 17th-century England, and 18th-century French quadrilles and cotillions; square dancing travelled to North America with the European settlers and developed significantly there. Square dancing is done in many different styles…
The Cotillion Dance by James Caldwall (1771)
Cotillion figures demonstrated in the Festsaal, Hofburg, Vienna, in 2008
A mid-17th century painting by Jacob Duck, called The Cotillion, is the earliest possible reference to a dance with this name.