Troika is a Russian performance dance based on Russian folk dances. The Russian word troika means three-horse team/gear, and the dancers imitate the prancing of horses pulling a sled or a carriage.[1]

The first version was created by choreographer Nadezhda Nadezhdina for her folklore dance troupe Beroyzka in 1948.[2] Since then this dance is included into repertoires of virtually all Russian ethnographic dance ensembles. Initially, it was a dance for a man and two women,[3] but later choreographies with other combinations were created, such as one woman and two men or three women.[4]

Other cultures

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Similar folk dances are known among other Slavic peoples, e.g., the Polish Trojak.

A Cajun dance of the same name, Troika, exists, similar to the Russian dance.[5] It has been suggested[citation needed] that the Cajun version of the dance originated at the times when Cossacks of the Russian tsar army were stationed in Paris.

There was a German contra dance triolet recorded in 1829 for groups of one man and two women.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Triolet" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 15 May 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  2. ^ Кузнецов, Е. А., Влияние творческого наследия мастеров народного танца на формирование эстетического вкуса у студентов хореографических специализаций
  3. ^ тройка, Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
  4. ^ Русский народный танец "Тройка" ] [4dancing.ru/blogs/200914/1883/][better source needed]
  5. ^ Cajun Dancing, 1993, ISBN 1455601764, p. 139
  6. ^ Контрдансы ХІХв./Контрдансы ХІХв. : Triolet, modern reconstruction based on the book, Eduard Helmke, Neue Tanz- und Bildungsschule, 1829
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