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folk dance

(Encyclopedia)folk dance, primitive, tribal, or ethnic form of the dance, sometimes the survival of some ancient ceremony or festival. The term is used also to include characteristic national dances, country dances...

dance

(Encyclopedia)dance [Old High Ger. danson=to drag, stretch], the art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment. Dancing ...

folk art

(Encyclopedia)folk art, the art works of a culturally homogeneous people produced by artists without formal training. The forms of such works are generally developed into a tradition that is either cut off from or ...

folk drama

(Encyclopedia)folk drama, noncommercial, generally rural theater and pageantry based on folk traditions and local history. This form of drama, common throughout the world, declined in popularity in the West (althou...

folk medicine

(Encyclopedia)folk medicine, methods of curing by means of healing objects, herbs, or animal parts; ceremony; conjuring, magic, or witchcraft; and other means apart from the formalized practice of medical science. ...

folk music

(Encyclopedia)folk music: see folk song.

folk song

(Encyclopedia)folk song, music of anonymous composition, transmitted orally. The theory that folk songs were originally group compositions has been modified in recent studies. These assume that the germ of a folk m...

Sharp, Cecil James

(Encyclopedia)Sharp, Cecil James, 1859–1924, English musician, best known for his researches in English folk music. In 1911 he founded the English Folk Dance Society. In the United States he collected (1914–18)...

Dance, George

(Encyclopedia)Dance, George, the elder, 1695–1768, English architect. Among his public buildings in London, the most important is the Mansion House (1739–52), an example of the neo-Palladian style. He built the...

charleston, dance

(Encyclopedia)charleston, social dance of the United States popular in the mid-1920s. The charleston is characterized by outward heel kicks combined with an up-and-down movement achieved by bending and straightenin...