seguidilla

seguidilla, Spanish folk dance with many regional variants; also, a verse form widely used in Spanish folk song. The dance is a courtship dance of proud demeanour, with small springing steps, light foot stamps, and varied ground patterns. The song consists of coplas—improvised verses of love or satire—in quatrains with the syllabic pattern 7–5–7–5 and assonantal rhyme on the second and fourth lines. A copla is frequently followed by an estribillo, a tercet with the syllabic pattern 5–7–5, rhyming assonantally on the first and third lines.

Particularly prominent among the regional variants of the dance is the seguidillas sevillanas, or sevillanas. Most typically the dance is preceded by an instrumental introduction and a sung section. In the sevillanas, and in some other seguidillas, the dancers stop suddenly (bien parado) at the end of each copla, resuming dancing only after an instrumental interlude. The steps of each copla usually increase in intricacy. The music is in 3/4 or 3/8 time, and the dancers’ castanets create complex counterrhythms to their foot movements.

The seguidilla verse form occurs also in other dances and folk songs and has variant forms. In written poetry it appears as early as the 15th century. The basic verse form became established during the 16th century and appeared often in the dramas of this period, Spain’s Golden Age.