POLKA LEGENDS AND ORIGINS One summer afternoon in the 1830's, a peasant girl in Bohemia improvised a simple tune and began to dance a two-step- what we now call a 'step ball-change.' She shared her dance with friends and family, and soon, school children were dancing the new dance. By the middle of the nineteenth century, this new musical form was all the rage in the capitals of Europe. Dance floors were filled with couples weaving the elegant and gracious polkas and waltzes. So popular was the polka music that several of the composers of the Romantic Period- such as Johann Strauss, Fredrick Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff incorporated polka style into their musical compositions. When immigrants came to America to work on farms, in factories and mines, they brought their musical instruments with them. As it became part of the American musical culture, polka music influenced mariachi music, bluegrass. jazz and even rock music. We hope you will be tapping your feet as you listen and enjoy the celebration of joyful music in the European-American tradition.