Spain is one of the European countries where folk dance is most alive: people dance at village festivals, fairs, dance schools and great theatres. Here are the main ones.
Andalusia
- Flamenco: flamenco dance, with its zapateado, arm and hand movements and the bata de cola dress with its train, is the best-known Spanish dance in the world.
- Sevillanas: a couple dance in four parts with set steps that everyone in Andalusia can dance, filling the casetas at the fairs, starting with the April Fair. It is accompanied by guitars, castanets and handclaps.
- Fandango: a couple dance in triple time, widespread across the peninsula in the eighteenth century, with variants in many regions; those of Huelva merged into flamenco.
Aragon and the Castiles
- Jota: Aragon's national dance, leaping and fast, danced in couples with castanets and accompanied by guitars, bandurrias and song. There are jotas in Navarre, Valencia, Castile and Galicia too. The great occasion to see it is the Pilar festival in Zaragoza in October.
- Seguidillas: a Castilian dance, especially from La Mancha, ancestor of the sevillanas.
- Chotis: Madrid's typical dance, derived from the Scottish schottische that arrived via Germany in the nineteenth century, danced in couples turning on a single tile, by chulapos in traditional dress during San Isidro.
The north
- Sardana: the circle dance that symbolises Catalonia.
- Muiñeira: Galicia's most popular dance, lively and leaping, to the sound of the gaita, the bagpipe.
- Basque dances: the aurresku, a solemn dance of homage, the fandango and arin-arin, and sword dances performed by groups of dantzaris.
- Danza prima: an ancient Asturian circle dance with linked hands.
Balearics and Canaries
In the Balearics the ball de bot is danced in couples in the squares during summer festivals; in the Canaries the isa and folía are danced, with American influences.
Classical Spanish dance
From the meeting of folk dance, flamenco and ballet came stage Spanish dance, with the bolero, an eighteenth-century couple dance with castanets, and the escuela bolera. The Ballet Nacional de España, founded in 1978, takes this repertoire to theatres around the world. See also Spanish folklore and Spanish music.