About this time came to us “that sweet boon,” the Polka. Originally a Bohemian Peasant dance, it was imported into fashionable saloons of Berlin and St. Petersburg. It was, at this time, the rage in Paris, as the Times observes: “The Paris papers are destitute of news. Our private letters state that ‘politics are, for the moment, suspended in public regard, by the new and all-absorbing pursuit—the Polka—a dance recently imported from Bohemia, and which embraces in its qualities the intimacy of the waltz, with the vivacity of the Irish jig. You may conceive how completely is ‘the Polka’ the rage, from the fact that the lady of a celebrated ex-minister, desiring to figure in it at a soirée dansante, monopolised the professor, par excellence, of that specialité for three hours, on Wednesday morning last, at 200 francs the hour.’”
On its first importation into England, it was used as a ballet, on the stage, with very fancy Bohemian costume, as we may see in the three following illustrations of Mdlle. Carlotta Grisi and M. Perrot, dancing their idea of it at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1844.
But it soon became a Drawing-room dance, and it is edifying to know exactly how it was danced then. It was found too elaborate, and the number of steps had to be reduced in quantity, and curtailed in quality. But this is the dance as given in the Illustrated London News of 11 May:
“THE DRAWING-ROOM POLKA.
We are much gratified in being enabled to lay before our readers an accurate description of the véritable, or Drawing-room Polka, as danced at Almack’s, and at the halls of the nobility and gentry of this country.
La Polka having appeared amongst us under so many different guises, we determined to spare no pains to procure a true description of its danse; for which we are indebted to Mrs. James Rae, who has been fortunate enough to secure the details from M. Coralli, fils, the instructor of the young noblemen and gentry in Paris.
La Polka, like its predecessors, the waltz and galop, is a danse à deux, couples following each other in the salle de danse, commencing at pleasure, and adopting, of the following figures, that which pleases them most at the moment. All those anxious to shine in La Polka, will dance the whole of them, returning from time to time, by way of rest, to the first figure.
The measure, or time, is 2–4; but, to facilitate our definition, we subdivide each measure, or bar, into one—two—three—four; the accent on the two, etc., to be played not so fast as the galop.