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In the 1780s, the cossack was even performed by young nobles during the most formal of balls in the capital, while also making it to the Warsaw ballet stage ( Kozaki czyli Zezwolenie wymuszone, Kozacy i Węgrzyni, Krakowiacy i Kozaki, Cztery kadryle ), no doubt influencing the form of the krakowiak dance which was performed along the polonaise in such performances, much in the manner in which Hungarian dances had an impact on the formation of the mazur. Still, it was the cossack that was considered as the exemplary Polish dance on account of the co-existence of Poles and Ukrainians within the same political entity. It was most likely at that time that side steps were added to the polonaise which referred to the pas de bourree steps, along with highly systematised bows and complex spatial arrangements, whose character had previously been improvisational.ĭanced several times more often than the mazur, the English contredanse or the French minuet, the polonaise remained the principal Polish dance throughout the second half of the 18 th century. Refined by the French dance masters, the polonaise and the mazur entered the curricula of convent schools, cadet corps and boarding schools during the reign of Augustus III, becoming part and parcel of theatrical performances staged at such institutions. Also important was the role of exaggerated gestures, which expressed the mutual respect between dancers. The basic step in both of these dances, which the German masters referred to as the Polish step, was very similar at the time, with the only major differences in their tempos (slow in the polonaise, fast in the mazur), and character (the latter dance featured a slight jump step). Apart from still more foreign accounts (Johann Bernoulli, William Coxe, Karl Heinrich von Heyking, Friedrich Schulz, Elise von der Recke, Johann Joseph Kausch) the 18 th century also saw the first descriptions of the polonaise and the mazur by German dance masters (Gottfried Taubert, C. By the early years of the Saxon reign of Poland, these dances had firmly established themselves in the country, and their performances during court ceremonies became an emblem of Polish culture. The first descriptions of Polish dances which may be considered as the prototypes of the polonaise and the mazur were included in the 17 th century accounts of foreign courtiers (including Gaspard de Tende, Jean Le Laboure, Bernard O’Connor) and diplomats (Galeazzo Maroscetti). A similar phenomenon may be observed in various notations of dances performed throughout Europe and known as the Polnischertantz, chorea polonica or ballo polacco. Also applied was the denotation “Polish dance”, although it did not indicate any specific dance genre, but rather referred to all dances of Polish origin. The latter are commonly thought to have laid the foundation for Polish national dances. In the 16 th and 17 th century, French, German, Italian and Spanish dances were distinguished from the local walking dances, as well as the various types of “goniony”, “gęsi”, “skoczny”, świeczkowy”, “mieniony”, “spiewany”, “wielki”, “mały” and “wyrwany”. The awareness of national distinctiveness of dances was present in Poland as soon as during the reign of Władysław Jagiełło in the late 14 th century, in the sermons of preachers who pointed to the negative influence of German and French dances. The national dances were chosen in the course of the process of selection and reinterpretation of social dances of various classes between the 16 th and the 20 th century. Polish national dances are a group of dances selected based on national tradition and ideology.