Trepak () or tropak () is a traditional East Slavic folk dance (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and Ukrainian). The dance is included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List of the

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC: previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country at the crossroads ...

, whose form is preserved in

Tacheng TachengThe official spelling according to (), also known as Tarbagatay, Chuguchak or Qoqek, is a county-level city and the administrative seat of Tacheng Prefecture, in northern Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. The Chinese name "Tach ...

.Russian culture abroad: Russian folk dance Trepak to be put on the list of Xinjiang intangible cultural heritage
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In music

The dance is a brisk

allegro Allegro may refer to: Common meanings * Allegro (music), a tempo marking that indicates to playing quickly and brightly (from Italian meaning ''cheerful'') * Allegro (ballet), brisk and lively movement Artistic works * L'Allegro (1645), a poem b ...

in time in a major key. Accompaniment is usually on two alternating chords; dominant and tonic. One of its best known representations is

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...

's "Trepak" (also known as the "Russian Dance") from the ballet ''

The Nutcracker ''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...

''. The dance music was also used in the last movement of his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35. The third of

Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (; ; ; – ) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five (composers), The Five." He was an innovator of Music of Russia, Russian music in the Romantic music, Romantic period and strove to achieve a ...

's ''

Songs and Dances of Death ''Songs and Dances of Death'' (, ''Pesni i plyaski smerti'') is a song cycle for voice (usually Bass (vocal range), bass or bass-baritone) and piano by Modest Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the mid-1870s, to poems by Arseny G ...

'' is named "Trepak".

In dance

The characteristic element is a simple walk with a

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat (music), off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of ...

stamp, often done to a quick

duple meter Duple metre (or Am. duple meter, also known as duple time) is a musical metre characterized by a ''primary'' division of 2 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 2 and multiples (simple) or 6 and multiples ( compound) in the upper figure of the ti ...

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

. On So You Think You Can Dance (Season 4), Joshua Allen and Stephen "Twitch" Boss performed a Trepak routine, interpreted as a dance duel, in Week 9 (August 6, 2008).

References

Russian folk dances Ukrainian folk dances {{DEFAULTSORT:Trepak