What is "tropak"

The Tropak (; known in Russian as Трeпак - Trepak) is a traditional Ukrainian folk dance from the Slobozhan region of Ukraine (around the city of Kharkiv) settled primarily by descendants of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Also was popular in the Muscovy.

The dance is a brisk allegro in time in a major key. Accompaniment is usually on two alternating chords; dominant and tonic. The tropak differs from the better known Hopak in chordal use and also in that the tempo gradually speeds up throughout the dance.

The Tropak was one of the traditional instrumental dances played by blind itinerant musicians called kobzars on their banduras and kobzas. It was also one of the dances often included in the repertoire of village violinists in Eastern Ukraine.

The tropak went out of fashion in the 1930s during the major transformations in Ukrainian village society and culture that happened in Soviet Ukraine at that time.

One of its best known representations is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Trepak from The Nutcracker (which is also, confusingly, known as the "Russian Dance"). The dance music was also used in the last movement of his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35. The third of Modest Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death is named "Trepak".