Polonaise through the White House receiving line. Sousa wrote it in 1886 at the request of President Chester A. Arthur who died before it was performed. Tchaikovsky's opera "Eugene Onegin", an adaption of Alexander Pushkin's novel in poetry verse, includes a famous polonaise. The polonaise is a Polish dance and is one of the five historic national dances of Poland. The others are the Mazurka (Mazur), Kujawiak, Krakowiak and Oberek, last three being old folk dances. Polonaise originated as a peasant dance known under various names – "chodzony" ("pacer"), "chmielowy" ("hops"), "pieszy" ("walker") or "wielki" ("great"), recorded as early as the
Polka Wisconsin also is the home to multiple large Polish festivities where people from all over the country come to stay and listen to multiple bands on multiple days of music. These festivals usually take place in the summer, but there are a few in the winter months. The United States Polka Association is a non-profit organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Polka Hall of Fame is in Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Walter Solek was one of the early Polka pioneers starting in the late 1930s. Recognition expanded when the Grammy Awards were first presented for polka in 1985.