Troika (dance)

Troika is a Russian folk dance, where a man dances with two women. The Russian word troika means three-horse team/gear. In the Russian dance the dancers imitate the prancing of horses pulling a sled or a carriage.

This dance is included into repertoires of virtually all Russian ethnographic dance ensembles.

Similar folk dances are known among other Slavic peoples, e.g., the Polish Trojak (Wikipedia link in Polish).

A Cajun dance of the same name, Troika, exists, and is very similar to the Russian dance. It is hypothesized that the Cajun version of the dance originated at the times when Cossacks of the Russian tsar army were stationed in Paris.

See also: partner dance, dance basic topics.