Quadrille in the context of Cotillion

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.

A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances are part of a broad spectrum of dances known by various names: country dances, traditional dances, folk dances, barn dances, ceilidh dances, contra dances, Playford dances, etc. These dances appear in over 100 different formations, of which the Square and the Longways Set are by far the most popular formations.

Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances including English country dances, which were first documented in 17th-century England, and 18th-century French quadrilles and cotillions; square dancing travelled to North America with the European settlers and developed significantly there.

Bomba is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of musical styles and associated dances originating in Puerto Rico. It was developed during the 17th century by enslaved Africans and their descendants on sugar plantations along coastal towns, most notably Loiza, Mayagüez, Ponce, and San Juan. It is the island's oldest musical tradition.

Bomba reflects a syncretism of Puerto Rico’s many cultural groups. It incorporates Taíno instruments such as maracas; characteristics from traditional European dances like rigadoons, quadrilles and mazurkas; and drum ensembles and drummer–dancer interactions that bear close resemblance to a number of West African musical styles. The music also evolved through contact between enslaved populations from different Caribbean colonies and regions, including the Dutch colonies, Cuba, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), and Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and it has notable roots in Congolose and Afro-French cultural expressions.

Johann Baptist Strauss II (/straʊs/; German: [ˈjoːhan bapˈtɪst ˈʃtʁaʊs]; 25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (German: Johann Strauß Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas, as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet.

In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", as he played a major role in popularizing the waltz in the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.

Les Lanciers or The Lancers is a square dance, a variant of the Quadrille, a set dance performed by four couples, particularly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a composite dance made up of five figures or tours, each performed four times so that each couple dances the lead part. It exists in many variants in several countries.

Widespread though it was throughout Europe, Les Lanciers became less fashionable by the beginning of the 20th century. It has survived as a popular dance in Denmark to the present day, having been introduced from England in 1860. The Danish dance took its current form before the 1st World War. From the bourgeoisie of Copenhagen it spread through dancing schools in provincial towns and through the landed gentry. It is danced at court, at many university and school gaudies, and at private functions. Les Lanciers is also taught in most of the high schools in Denmark, where it is often performed at the school's gala/prom.

In French Caribbean culture, especially of the Lesser Antilles, the term kwadril is a Creole term referring to a folk dance derived from the quadrille.

Danzón is the official genre and dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in USA and Puerto Rico. Written in
₄ time, the danzón is a slow, formal partner dance, requiring set footwork around syncopated beats, and incorporating elegant pauses while the couples stand listening to virtuoso instrumental passages, as characteristically played by a charanga or típica ensemble.

The danzón evolved from the Cuban contradanza, or habanera (lit. 'Havana-dance'). The contradanza, which had English and French roots in the country dance and contredanse, was probably introduced to Cuba by the Spanish, who ruled the island for almost four centuries (1511–1898), contributing many thousands of immigrants. It may also have been partially seeded during the short-lived British occupation of Havana in 1762. Haitian refugees fleeing the island's revolution of 1791–1804 brought the French-Haitian kontradans, contributing their own Creole syncopation. In Cuba, the dances of European origin acquired new stylistic features derived from African rhythm and dance to produce a genuine fusion of European and African influences. African musical traits in the danzón include complex instrumental cross-rhythms, expressed in staggered cinquillo and tresillo patterns.