Dancing is a popular pastime and an important facet of Polish culture.

The Mazurka is one of the most famous Polish dances. This film clip discusses its significance:

W Moim Ogródeczku. This is one of my all-time favorite dances:

Ada’s Kujawiak is a beautiful, graceful couples’ dance:

Goscie Jada was choreographed by Ira Weisburd. The name means “the guests are coming.” Ira calls it the Polish Dance of Welcome:

Trojak. You’ll notice in this dance that each male has two female partners. Tradition has it that in the province where the dance originated (Silesia), females greatly outnumbered males because so many men perished in the mines. This performance appears to be a dance competition, judging by the numbers on the men’s backs. There are many variations of this popular dance; not all of the competitors are doing the same patterns.

Klapok is a mixer that alternates between two patterns—a polka and a hand-clapping pattern. At the repetition of the clapping pattern, you quickly turn and find yourself a new partner. As you can observe, it’s a lot of fun:

Krakowiak is a performance dance from Krakow. There are many different versions. This performance starts with the folk song:

Swir Swir Mazur. This performance occurred at the Pulaski Day Parade in Philadelphia, October 1999:

Varsovienne originated in Warsaw:

Zbójnicki is the Hatchet Dance. You don’t dare zone out during this one: