Contredanse
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Contredanse
an English folk dance that developed in the 17th and 18th centuries. It later became popular in other European countries as a ball dance and was replaced in the 19th century by the quadrille.
The contredanse originally had one figure and then five or six; it is written in 2/4 or 6/8 time. John Playford was the first to write arrangements of the contredanse in the dance collection English Dancing Master (1651). As a musical form, the contredanse was used by such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky.