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) draw up the skirt, and on the topic of the "polonaise" says: Though this term is often applied to any eighteenth-century dress with back drapery, it belongs, strictly speaking, to an over dress that appeared c. 1775. This was cut like the man's coat of the same period, with centre back and two far-back side seams all terminating in inverted pleats, the front being in one piece with an underarm dart. It was caught to the top of the bodice centre front ... Aileen Ribeiro describes the "polonaise" as "cut in four parts, two at the front and two at