The Dancers
Folk dance is sometimes defined as dance performed by agricultural peoples who live in close-knit communities–a definition that reflects the division of preindustrial Europe into a peasant class and an aristocracy. People in modern industrialized cities, however, participate regularly in what are called folk dances, which were brought to the city by immigrants from rural areas or, sometimes, from other nations. Although the dances of rural Europe are called folk dances, in Africa–which has no peasant-aristocracy division comparable to that of 18th-century Europe–rural dances that in function and complexity are comparable to European folk dances are instead often called tribal dances; confusingly and inconsistently, African traditional stories are often called folktales.