Webfeet: The Italian Polka

The Italian Polka, the Snake Schottische and quite likely under other names as well.

The annotated Italian Polka

It's the final polka and a bit of a mellée but amazingly in the middle of the hurtling bodies there are couples dancing a suicidal variation which stops, starts, gallops on and then picks up on 4 step-hops in the music.

The Dance ...

It's a couple dance and you start with a ball-room hold. You can think of the dance in 4 parts, there's indeed a snippet of polka in there and the step-hop-step-hop-step-hop-step-hop of the schottische

The rhythm is a one-two-three-hop, at least for the first three parts, just as you'd dance a polka to....

A Music
Bars 1 to 4 ...: In ballroom hold, side-by side facing forward. Rock forward onto your outside feet. Rock forward on your inside...

For 'forward', think Ballroom Direction and face anticlockwise round the room, the man is on the inside and the woman is on the outside. For the first move you stand a little as if you were going to start a Tango.

In this dance, it matters which foot you start off with...

• The 'rock' is as if you were going to step forward, put weight on the outside foot but then step back again, repeat the step forward and hop. It's more than tapping your foot on the ground in front of you, it's lively and you'll find yourself kicking up the heel of your inside foot.
• Do the same with the inside foot.

... Bars 5 to 8: Cross your outside foot over your inside and repeat the step, on the hop swing your inside foot back and repeat.

This is where you see the Snake Schottische bit. The move is quite pronounced..

• The step is the same - but your swing your outside foot across your inside as if you are turning round 180 degrees and rock onto it, back, forward and hop. As you are both doing this together, you'll find yourself turning to face your partner (and quite likely looking down to see how your feet are doing)
• You make use of the hop to swing the inside foot back to where it should be and repeat... (as in step on it, rock back, step forward again and hop).

B Music
Bars 1 to 4 ...: Polka....

• With a one-two-three-hop, one-two-three-hop... galloping off into some free space

... Bars 5 to 8: 4 hops around, schottische style.

• a one-hop, two-hop, one-hop, two-hop round

Variations: Mixing it...

Given the right music you can mix some normal schottisches, some polkas, some Ideal Schottisches and some Italian Polkas. The only caveat being both Ideal and the Italian Polka benefit from a little extra space.

In a final polka, take care not to stop just in front of some galloping polka-ers if you decide to change to the Italian.

More information: Tunes...

As with the Ideal, the music is an eight-bar hornpipe or schottische and this dance works better to something a little crisp. 16-bar tunes can work but the 'typical' 4-bar French/Breton schottische tune won't help you enough with the phrasing; the music needs to drive the hops in the B2 part.