The Schuhplattler

The Schuhplattler is the slapping dance of the Bavarian Alps: men strike the soles of their shoes, their thighs and their knees with flat hands in time to the music, adding jumps and stamps, while their female partners spin beside them. It began as a courtship dance and became a showpiece of the costume clubs. This guide explains how the Schuhplattler works, where it comes from and where you can see it in Munich.

What is the Schuhplattler?

The name says it all: Schuh means shoe and platteln means to slap. According to the Bavarian costume federation, the Bayerischer Trachtenverband, the dancer strikes his shoes, or more precisely the soles, with his hands. The federation counts it among the most distinctive forms of Bavarian expression and names its originators as ordinary people: farmers, hunters and woodcutters.

There is no single Schuhplattler. The federation counts about 150 different Plattler dances, each with its own sequence of slaps and figures, spread over an area from the Königssee in the east to Lake Constance in the west and from the Danube down to the Tyrolean border. Regional styles differ, too:

• Southeastern Upper Bavaria, roughly from Rosenheim to Bad Reichenhall: exact, strict platteln with a loud slap and an upright posture.
• The Oberland and the rest of southern Bavaria: a more relaxed style, danced on the heel, with rounder and looser slaps.

The women's part: Dirndldrahn

The slapping is the men's part, but the dance grew out of a couple dance, and the women have a role of their own. While the men slap, their partners turn in circles to the beat, a figure called Dirndldrahn. In the southeastern regional associations, a good dancer turns on her toes so fast that her skirt flies out almost horizontally; elsewhere she turns mainly on her heel and the skirt forms a bell. A performance that combines dancing, slapping and turning is called a Dirndlplattler.

Where the Schuhplattler comes from

The exact origins are hard to trace, because a dance of ordinary country people was rarely written down. An essay on the federation's website describes the Schuhplattler as a boys' dance with a courting character that grew out of the couple dance: a young man wanted to catch a girl's attention by showing off strength, skill and a sense of rhythm. A source from 1879 quoted by the federation describes exactly that scene: the girl turns quietly on the spot while the boy circles her, stamps and claps his thighs, knees and heels.

Some milestones from the federation's account:

• 1838: locals at Wildbad Kreuth honored the visiting Empress of Russia with a dance that came very close to the Schuhplattler. The boy moved freely to the Ländler tune, jumping and slapping, while his partner kept turning. This free style was known as dancing "bairisch."
• From the mid-19th century: the movements became standardized, and group platteln emerged, with several couples dancing the same sequence together.
• 15 July 1858: a Schuhplattler was performed in the Bavarian highlands during a journey of King Maximilian II.
• 1883: in Bayrischzell, the schoolteacher Josef Vogl set up the first costume club. From then on, platteln developed within the costume clubs.

The Historisches Lexikon Bayerns names a Schuhplattler society in Miesbach, which it dates to 1859, as one of the inspirations for that first club; the federation's own account has the Miesbach club founded in 1861 and renamed Schuhplattler-Gesellschaft in 1866. In the clubs, short leather trousers and the Schuhplattler went together from the start. One special cut, the Plattlerhose, ends just above the knee to make the slap louder, according to oktoberfest.de. More on the trousers is on our page Lederhosen.

Competitions: the Preisplatteln

Practice breeds competition. Costume clubs measured their dancers against each other early on: at contests in Traunstein in 1892 and in Bad Reichenhall in 1893, the winners received laurel wreaths. The first official association contest of the Gauverband I, the oldest regional association, took place on 19 August 1906 in Endorf, with a jury judging individual and group platteln.

Today there are club, district and regional contests, known as Preisplatteln, judged by trained referees. They pay particular attention to complete and correct costume as well as to exact slapping and turning. Since 2002, several regional associations have also held a joint contest called "Preisplattln um den Bayerischen Löwen."

Where to see the Schuhplattler in Munich

The Schuhplattler is a club dance, rehearsed for many evenings, and mostly performed on a stage or dance floor. A few places to see it:

• At the Oktoberfest: in the Festzelt Tradition, one of the tents in the historic Oide Wiesn section on the south side of the grounds, folk dance groups perform on a raised dance floor in the middle of the tent, and oktoberfest.de highlights the appearances of Schuhplattler dancers and whip crackers. The Oide Wiesn charges a separate admission, according to oktoberfest.de. See our guides to the Oktoberfest and the beer tents.
• At the Oide Wiesn Bürgerball: since 2014, the Festring München has held this ball in the Deutsches Theater as the annual opening of Munich's carnival season. Couples from the regional costume associations present Plattler and dances there.
• At costume club events: home evenings (Heimatabende), festive evenings and Preisplatteln are where the dance is shown in its own setting. Dates are announced by the clubs and regional associations.

The costume federation also organizes performances at major events. Plattler and dance groups took part in the opening ceremonies of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Munich. For more on Bavarian folk music and dance in German, see Musik und Tanz and our detailed German page Der Schuhplattler.