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Formation dance

type of dance

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ1416037
Source-derived summary

Formation dance is a style of ballroom dancing. It is pattern or shadow team dancing by couples in a formation team. The choreography may be based on a particular dance or a medley of dances. Formation dancing may be done for exhibition or for competition between teams. There is also a type of formation in Bhangra.

International style ballroom: dance sport

History

Formation dancing originated in 1932 in London's Astoria Ballroom. It was Olive Ripman who introduced it under the name "pattern dancing". Soon it became a competitive dance form.

Formation team contests began in the 1930s in England, and spread to many other countries. International matches have taken place.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Formation dance” as type of dance. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Formation, dance and type.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1932—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Formation, dance and type providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Formation dance”, the useful work is to connect “type of dance” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1416037. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1932.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Formation dance”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Formation dance primary sources, Formation dance archive and Formation research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Formation dance”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Formation dance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.