Waltz (dance)

Waltz Music

An early moving picture demonstrates the waltz
Genre	Ballroom dance
Time signature	3 4

The waltz (from German: ) is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in  triple  time, performed primarily in closed position.

There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th century Europe, including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim. The French philosopher Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless Weller or Spinner". "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, utilises his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the bar, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing".

The peasants of Bavaria, Tyrol, and Styria began dancing a dance called Walzer, a dance for couples, around 1750. The Ländler, also known as the Schleifer, a country dance in 3
4 time, was popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria, and spread from the countryside to the suburbs of the city. While the eighteenth century upper classes continued to dance the minuet, bored noblemen slipped away to the balls of their servants.