Dance encyclopedia

Jig

Folk dance and tune.

Jig
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About Jig

The jig (Irish: port, Scottish Gaelic: port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It first gained popularity across the British Isles in the 16th-century, and was adopted on mainland Europe where it eventually became the final movement of the mature Baroque dance suite (the French gigue; Italian and Spanish giga). It is most associated with Irish dance music, Scottish country dance, French Canadian traditional music and dance, and the Métis people in Canada. Jigs were originally in quadruple compound metre, (e.g., 128 time), but have been adapted to a variety of time signatures, by which they are often classified into groups, including double jigs (68), slip jigs (98) and single jigs (128).

From the Wikipedia article “Jig”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.