What You Need to Know About the State Dance

Last week's post on state symbols, The Wisconsin State Bacterium and Other Blizzardy Thoughts, elicited a chorus of support for Wisconsin's' polka.

Wisconsin is one of thirty one states with an official dance.

Virginia has a named dance for itself, the Virginia Reel.

Twenty-one states celebrate with the Square Dance.

Three states have two or more official dances, such as the official folk dance, the square dance and maybe a 'regular' dance with California's West Coast Swing.  North Carolina classifies clogging as the folk dance and the Carolina Shag as the official popular dance. Neighboring South Carolina has not only the official folk dance, the square dance, the official waltz, the Richardson Waltz, and the official dance, yes--the Shag.

Give credit to New York for the Lindy Hop and of course they Clog in Kentucky and Hula in Hawaii.

Wisconsin, and you guessed it, Pennsylvania  Polka. Why is the Pennsylvania Polka more popular than the Wisconsin Polka?

In each state, go out on the weekend and it will be tough to find a majority of the denizens doing the official dance other than Texas where they Two-Step.

Comments

[anon]

I don't know if they had a lot of people dancing to it or not, but there used to be a radio station out of Columbia, S.C., that broadcast "The Shag Show" once a week. I think it was on Sunday nights. The host was Woody Windham. Great show.

[Ty O'Mara]

I used to listen to that show all the time; I thought it was a great broadcast, also. Its possible I didn't understand it completely, though.

Mark Sanford

[Elaine O]

The State dance, of course a polka. One of the most famous was the "Beer Barrel Polka' sung and recorded by the former Mayor of Milwaukee, Henry Maier. A signature song of Milwaukee's own, Liberace.