Square dance in the context of Country dance

Hyangak (Korean: 향악; Hanja: 鄕樂; lit. domestic music) is a traditional form of Korean court music with origins in the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC – 668 AD). It is often accompanied by traditional folk dances of Korea, known as hyangak jeongjae. These dances are performed in front of audiences—as opposed to the square dance more familiar to Westerners, which is primarily for the participants' enjoyment.

One important hyangak piece is Yeomillak (hangul: 여민락; hanja: 與民樂). Few hyangak pieces are performed in Chinese style; these include Pollyeong, Haeryeong (hangul: 해령; hanja: 解令), and Poheoja

Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dancing and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination of fiddle (see old time fiddling) and plucked string instruments, most often the 5-string banjo without a resonator pan, guitar, and mandolin. Together, they form an ensemble called the string band, which along with the simple banjo–fiddle duet have historically been the most common configurations to play old-time music. The genre is considered by some to be a precursor to modern country music, but it is also has a contemporary active subculture of musicians in various parts of the United States. Old-time music can generally be distinguished from the more widely known bluegrass genre by the use of cross-tunings on the fiddle, by all melody instruments playing in unison, by a lack of individual instruments taking breaks to improvise, by sessions remaining in one tuning or key for an extended period (because fiddles and banjos are tuned especially for that key or even for one tune), and by banjos being frailed instead of finger-picked and lacking resonators to make them louder.

The cotillion (also cotillon or French country dance) is a social dance, popular in 18th-century Europe and North America. Originally for four couples in square formation, it was a courtly version of an English country dance, the forerunner of the quadrille and, in the United States, the square dance.

It was for some fifty years regarded as an ideal finale to a ball but was eclipsed in the early 19th century by the quadrille. It became so elaborate that it was sometimes presented as a concert dance performed by trained and rehearsed dancers. The later "German" cotillion included more couples as well as plays and games.

Traditional square dance is a generic American term for any style of American square dance other than modern Western. The term can mean (1) any of the American regional styles (broadly, Northeastern, Southeastern, and Western) that existed before around 1950, when modern Western style began to develop out of a blend of those regional styles, or (2) any style (other than modern Western) that has survived, or been revived, since around 1950. The term Traditional Square Dance is also used in England to refer to dances collected from villages in the first half of the 20th century.

Traditional square dance can be distinguished from modern western square dance by the following characteristics:

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.

This is a list of dance terms that are not names of dances or types of dances. See List of dances and List of dance style categories for those.

This glossary lists terms used in various types of ballroom partner dances, leaving out terms of highly evolved or specialized dance forms, such as ballet, tap dancing, and square dancing, which have their own elaborate terminology. See also: