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Polka is a dance style and musical genre of dance music in originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though generally associated with Czech and Central Europe, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
This name has been changed to "Polka" as an expression of honour and sympathy for Poland and the Poles after the November Uprising 1830-1831. "Polka" meaning, in both the Czech and Polish languages, "Polish woman"."polka, n.". Oxford University Press. (accessed 11 July 2012). The name was widely introduced into the major European languages in the early 1840s.
By 1835, this dance had spread to the ballrooms of Prague. From there, it spread to classical music hub Vienna by 1839, and in 1840 was introduced in Paris by Johaan Raab, a Prague dance instructor. It was so well received in Paris that its popularity was referred to as "polkamania.""Polkamania ... has raged very fiercely amongst us, indeed all over London this year." Letter by E. J. Knox,14 August 1844: quoted in A. E. Blake, Memoirs of a Vanished Generation ..., London (1909) viii, 217 The dance soon spread to London in 1844, where it was considered highly fashionable, and was also introduced to America. It remained a popular ballroom dance in America, especially with growing Central, Northern, and Eastern European immigrant groups until the late 19th century.
It may also be responsible for an increase in domestic popularity since the end of the 19th century, starting with the birth of recorded music, at first thanks to the many recordings provided by Emile Berliner's Gramophone company, which provided several examples of popular music. Some of the more desired American recordings include Berliner 230 ("Commodore Polka", played by W. Paris Chambers) and the Berliner 3300s series (which include recordings like "The Signal polka" (BeA 3307) and "Exposition echoes polka" (BeA 3301), played by Arthur Pryor), though most early records are extremely scarce or nonexistent anymore due to their fragile nature.
The 2/4 meter polka merged well with Belarusian traditional dance, which had a similar meter. For example, "Trasucha" (Belarusian: "Трасуха", "Trasucha" or "Пацяруха", "Paciaruchais") a symbol of a typical folk dance, from which it received its name, and polka. Most often in Belarus, the polka is performed in pairs, moving half a step with turns in a circle. The dance is decorated with a variety of small pas, often accompanied by .
Belarusian polkas are extremely rich in their choreographic and musical patterns, and are distinguished by great modal and intonation diversity. Polka demands both skill and physical endurance from the dancers., Finland in 2006]]
Like the square dance, the polka also has many local variants: "Віцебчанка, Viciebčanka", "Барысаўская, Barysaŭskaja", "Ганкоўская, Hankoŭskaja", and the names were also given according to the peculiarities of the choreography: "Through the leg", "With a podkindes", "With squats", "On the heel", "Screw" and others.
Polka is popular in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the "Beer Barrel Polka" is played during the seventh-inning stretch and halftime of Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks games. Polka is also the official state dance of Wisconsin.
The United States Polka Association is a non-profit organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland is associated with North American "Slovenian-style polka", which is fast and features piano accordion, chromatic accordion, and/or diatonic button box accordion. North American "Dutchmen-style" features an oom-pah sound often with a tuba and banjo, and has roots in the American Midwest.
"Conjunto-style" polkas have roots in northern Mexico and Texas, and are also called "Norteño". Traditional dances from this region reflect the influence of polka-dancing European immigrants from 1800s. In the 1980s and 1990s, several American bands began to combine polka with various rock styles (sometimes referred to as "Punk rock polka"), "alternative rock polka".
Comedy musician "Weird Al" Yankovic is a fan of polka, and on every album since 1984 (with the exception of Even Worse), Al has taken bits of famous songs and modified them to fit polka style.
The Grammy Awards were first presented for polka in 1985. The first award went to Frankie Yankovic, known as "America's Polka King", for his 70 Years of Hits album on Cleveland International Records. Cleveland International Records had another polka Grammy winner with Brave Combo's Polkasonic in 1999. Other polka Grammy nominees included Frankie Yankovic's America's Favorites (1986), Songs of the Polka King Vol. I, Songs of the Polka King Vol. II (1997), and Brave Combo's Kick Ass Polkas (2000). Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra is one of the most popular polka bands in America, having won 18 of the 24 awards for Grammy Award for Best Polka Album.
Polka Varieties was an hour-long television program of polka music originating from Cleveland, Ohio. The show, which aired in several U.S. cities, ran from 1956 until 1983. At that time, it was the only television program for this type of music in the United States. A number of polka shows originated from the Buffalo Niagara Region in the 1960s, including WKBW-TV's Polka Time, which was hosted for its first half-year on air by Frankie Yankovic, and cross-border station CHCH-TV's Polka Party, hosted by Walter Ostanek. Forgotten Buffalo featuring Polonia Media. Retrieved 16 May 2013. In 2015, when Buffalo station WBBZ-TV launched the weekly Polka Buzz hosted by Ron Dombrowski, who also hosts the Drive Time Polkas radio show on WXRL Mondays-Saturdays from 5pm-7pm and on WECK Sundays from 8am-11am.Herr, Jim (14 April 2017). WBBZ-TV’s “Polka Buzz” hosts fun dance parties in Cheektowaga. Cheektowaga Chronicle. Retrieved 14 April 2017.)
Beginning with its inception in 2001, the RFD-TV Network aired The Big Joe Show, a television program that included polka music and dancing. It was filmed on location in various venues throughout the United States from 1973 through 2009. RFD-TV replaced The Big Joe Show with Mollie Busta's Polka Fest in January 2011; after Big Joe's death, of The Big Joe Show returned to RFD-TV in 2015.
In 2009, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Grammy Awards, announced that it was eliminating the polka category "to ensure the awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape". A declining number of polka albums were considered for the award in previous years.
While the polka is Bohemian in origin, most dance music composers in Vienna (the capital of the vast Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was the cultural centre for music from all over the empire) composed polkas and included the dance in their repertoire at some point in their careers. The Strauss family in Vienna, for example, while better-known for their , also composed polkas that have survived. Joseph Lanner and other Viennese composers in the 19th century also wrote polkas to satisfy the demands of the dance-music-loving Viennese. In France, another dance-music composer, Émile Waldteufel, wrote polkas.
The polka evolved during the same period into different styles and tempos. In principle, the polka written in the 19th century has a four-theme structure; themes 1A and 1B as well as a 'Trio' section of a further two themes. The 'Trio' usually has an 'Intrada' to form a break between the two sections. The feminine and graceful 'French polka' (polka française) is slower in tempo and is more measured in its gaiety. Johann Strauss II's , Op. 114, "Demolirer-Polka, Op. 269, the "Im Krapfenwald'l", Op. 336, and the "Bitte schön!" polka, Op. 372, are examples of this type of polka. The polka-mazurka is also another variation of the polka, being in the tempo of a mazurka but danced in a similar manner as the polka. The final category of the polka form around that time is the Polka schnell, which is a fast polka or galop. Eduard Strauss is better known for this last category, as he penned the "Bahn Frei" polka, Op. 45, and other examples. Earlier, Johann Strauss I and Josef Lanner wrote polkas designated as a galop (quick tempo) or as a regular polka that may not fall into any of the categories above.
The polka was a further source of inspiration for the Strauss family in Vienna when Johann II and Josef Strauss wrote one for plucked string instruments (pizzicato) only, the . Johann II later wrote the "Neue Pizzicato Polka" (New pizzicato-polka), Op. 449, culled from music of his operetta . Much earlier, he also wrote a "joke-polka" (German scherz-polka) entitled "Champagner-Polka", Op. 211, which evokes the uncorking of champagne bottles.
Other composers who wrote music in the style of the polka were Jaromír Weinberger, Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky.
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