“In every country people have always affirmed the sacred bonds which link them in terms of kinship or community thanks to ritualized forms encompassed by dances. Dances have a deep symbolic impact. Dancing together is a way to step together in this word. Moving together under the rhythm of music, holding each other on our hands, is the best way to celebrate our brotherhood in this world. In our workshop we have found out common features in all the different dances of different countries.

A strong religious and spiritual value was attributed, to the most ancient kind of dances, the primitive ones, which were emphasized by typical clothes: through them people thought that they could come in contact with the gods. Dance in the Greek civilization was very significant and was performed for sacred rituals, military and public occasions. The Christian Church didn’t accept the dance because of its erotic and vulgar characteristics and between the III and IV centuries the Church banned the dance out of the sacred ceremonies.

In the XVI century dance became a public event, and was performed by professional dancers in theatres During the XVII century dance started to decline because of the arrival of the Protestant reformation but also the “Catholic Counter-Reformation”. The XIX century represented the triumph of the couple dance which became a kind of entertainment.

The “Romagnolo” folk dances started around 1850 thanks to the violinist Carlo Brighi, also known as Zaclèn. He opened the first “house of the folk dance” in Gatteo, near Rimini. Folk dance is connected to the song “Romagna mia” which was written by Secondo Casadei ( ), named the “Strauss of Romagna” who in 1928 founded orchestra “Casadei” which became famous all over Italy. The “Liscio” gave the opportunity to the middle class to enjoy themselves after a long week of work. This joyful and solar music became the leit-motif of Romagna and it is an important dance for the people of Romagna like the country music for Americans or the samba for Brazilians. Let’s dance with the “motto”: go with liscio! And then: zum-pa-ppa, zum-pa-ppa!

The word “Valzer” come from the German verb “walzen”, that means whirling. Between the populations of south-central Europe, dances with ternary beat existed from the beginning of the 2nd century. In the 19th century, Waltz was danced almost all over Europe, but the centre of the expansion was Vienna, thanks to J. Lanner and J. Strauss, Austrians composers

Mazurka was originally a Polish folk dance, from Mazur, a village in Moravia in the 16th century. The popularity of mazurka declined in the 20th century with the arrival of the Afro-American dances, but it continue to be danced in the “liscio” repertory.

Originally is a Czech-Bohemian folk dance. It is characterized by three quick steps and a hop and it is danced to music in 2/4 time. The couples need a lot of space as they circle about the dance floor. The popularity of polka declined in the first decades of the 20th century because of the arrival of the American dances. This dance is quite popular in the “liscio” repertory.