Furlana

The furlana (also spelled furlane, forlane, friulana, forlana) is an Italian folk dance from the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. In Friulian, furlane means Friulian, in this case Friulian Dance. In Friuli there has been a Slav minority since the Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps (Maniacco 2002, 56), and the furlana may well have originated as a Slavonic dance. It dates at least to 1583, when a "ballo furlano" called L'arboscello was published in Pierre Phalèse the Younger’s Chorearum molliorum collectanea and in Jakob Paix’s organ tablature book, though its chief popularity extended from the late 1690s to about 1750. It is particularly associated with Venice because, at the time of its popularity, Friuli was a part of the Republic of Venice (Little 2001).