The polka, from Bohemia to the beer tent

The polka is a quick couple dance in 2/4 time, with three steps and a little hop. It was born in Bohemia in the 1830s, swept through Europe and America in the 1840s and became a fixture of the Bavarian dance floor and the brass band. This guide explains where the polka comes from, how it reached Bavaria and the Oktoberfest, why the tune known in Germany as Rosamunde is a Czech polka, and how the dance became a state symbol in Wisconsin.

What is the polka?

The Duden, Germany's standard dictionary, describes the polka as a round dance in lively to fast 2/4 time with an eighth note rhythm, in which each group of three steps is followed by a hop.

The name is Czech. Polka means a Polish woman. According to the Duden, the dance was given that name in Prague around 1831, in honor of the Poles, who were then suppressed. The etymological dictionary by Wolfgang Pfeifer puts it in context: dance and name arose in Bohemia in the 1830s, during a wave of sympathy for the Poles who had risen in vain against tsarist Russia, and German borrowed the word in the middle of the 19th century, probably by way of Prague and Vienna. So the polka is Czech in origin, not Polish, even though its name points to Poland.

A dance craze of the 1840s

According to March, the polka began as a fashion that raced across Europe and reached the United States in the 1840s. On June 10, 1844, the New York Daily Tribune reported on the new dance from Europe, a little mockingly. Polite society was shocked by a fast dance in which couples held each other close, but young members of the elite took to it, and so did the middle and working classes. Polka titles were taken from current events.

Polka in Bavaria

In Bavaria, the polka arrived as a newcomer and stayed. In 1845 the crown prince, later King Maximilian II, commissioned the writer and painter Josef Friedrich Lentner to travel the kingdom and record its customs; he handed in his descriptions of Upper and Lower Bavaria in 1849. The folk music researcher Ernst Schusser has summarized what Lentner noted about carnival dances. Lentner regretted that older forms such as the Ländler and the Langaus were being pushed aside by new dances like the Schottisch and the polka. Writing about the Shrove Monday dances of the farmers between the Isar and the Inn, he noted that even the fashionable polka had tentatively crept in among the waltzes and the Langaus.

Today the city portal muenchen.de, describing the Kocherlball, names the polka among the Bavarian folk dances, alongside the Landler, the Boarischer and the Zwiefacher. Some Zwiefacher tunes even mix in polka steps, as our German page on the Zwiefacher explains. More on instruments, tunes and dances is on our page about Bavarian folk music (in German).

Polka at the Oktoberfest

The city of Munich, which organizes the Oktoberfest, sets the musical rhythm in its operating rules for the tents. For 2026, they allowed only traditional brass band music before noon on every day of the festival in the large and medium tents, and no music meant to whip up the crowd before 6 p.m. How the rules work in detail is explained on our German page about Oktoberfest music, and the toast that interrupts the program is covered in Ein Prosit.

In the historic section of the festival, the Oide Wiesn, polka is part of the program. The city portal muenchen.de says that small brass and dance music groups play traditional waltzes, polkas and marches on the music stage of the museum tent there. In the Festzelt Tradition, according to oktoberfest.de, the tent band plays only traditional Bavarian dance music, and both folk dance groups and children take to a raised dance floor set up at the center of the tent. The Oktoberfest 2027 runs from September 18 to October 3, according to muenchen.de. Our English guides cover the Oktoberfest as a whole and its beer tents.

Rosamunde: the Beer Barrel Polka

One polka melody is known around the world under different names. According to Radio Prague International, the Czech composer Jaromír Vejvoda wrote it in 1927. It was first played without words as Modřanská polka; Czech lyrics followed seven years later under the title Škoda lásky, Wasted Love. In Germany the tune became a hit as Rosamunde by 1936, and three years later it caught on in the United States, with a further boost in World War II. In English it is known as the Beer Barrel Polka or Roll Out the Barrel. Vejvoda died in 1988, so the song is still protected by copyright, and no lyrics are printed here.

Polka in America

In the 1850s and 1860s, according to March, the polka belonged to the American mainstream. Only later, as immigration from Germany grew, did it become linked to ethnic communities: Germans, Poles and other Central Europeans kept the dance alive after the wider public had moved on, and came to see it as part of their European heritage. The Wisconsin Historical Society traces the polka in that state to German, Polish and Czech immigrants.

In Wisconsin the polka became the official state dance after second graders in Madison proposed it. According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the bill passed in 1993; it was enacted on April 21, 1994, and Governor Tommy Thompson signed it in Pulaski on April 29, 1994.

Where to dance polka in Munich

One chance to join in is the Kocherlball (page in German), an early morning dance at the Chinese Tower in the English Garden. According to muenchen.de, the Kocherlball 2027 takes place on Sunday, July 18, 2027, from 6 to 10 a.m.; the program includes Bavarian folk dances such as the Landler, Zwiefacher, Boarischer and polka, and the dances are explained and demonstrated on stage, so beginners can join. The organizers write that the ball is called off only in severe weather or thunderstorms, and they point to dance classes at the Hofbräuhaus for those who want to practice. For a party at home, our guide How to throw an Oktoberfest party has tips on music and food. The Schuhplattler, a very different Bavarian dance, has its own page: Schuhplattler.