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
Polonaise (clothing) by means of interior or exterior loops, buttons or tassels to form swags of material. This style ... was known as "à la polonaise"." This style was characterized by ankle length petticoats that revealed high-heeled walking shoes. Due to this it served as a practical garment for walking because the skirts did not drag along the ground. Since the beginning of the 18th century, middle-class women had adopted various impromptu ways of kilting their overskirts up out of the muck of the streets. The "polonaise" was a fashionable variant of this style. The name "Polonaise" (or "polonese") derives "obviously from