Monferrina is a lively

Italian folk dance Italian folk dance has been an integral part of Italian culture for centuries. Dance has been a continuous thread in Italian life from Dante through the Renaissance, the advent of the tarantella in southern Italy, and the modern revivals of fol ...

in time named after the place of its origin,

Montferrat Montferrat ( , ; ; , ; ) is a historical region of Piedmont, in northern Italy. It comprises roughly (and its extent has varied over time) the modern provinces of Province of Alessandria, Alessandria and Province of Asti, Asti. Montferrat ...

, in the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

region of

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

. It has spread from Piedmont throughout

Northern Italy Northern Italy (, , ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four Northwest Italy, northwestern Regions of Italy, regions of Piedmo ...

, in

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli-Venezia Giulia () is one of the 20 regions of Italy and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The regional capital is Trieste on the Gulf of Trieste, a bay of the Adriatic Sea. Friuli-Venezia Giulia has an area of and a ...

and even into Switzerland. It also became popular in late 18th-century England as a

country dance A country dance is any of a very large number of social dances of a type that originated in England in the British Isles; it is the repeated execution of a predefined sequence of figures, carefully designed to fit a fixed length of music, perfo ...

, under the names monfrina, monfreda, and manfredina, being included in Wheatstone's ''Country Dances for 1810''. In Piedmont, it is usually accompanied by singing and it is danced by several couples. The dance goes under several different names: , , , ''giardiniera'' (or ) and ''baragazzina''.

Execution and background

The dance starts with two circular promenades by couples arm-in-arm using a lively march step. The individual couples then join both hands for a

cross-step Surfing terminology {{Short pages monitor