Cakewalk

A dance in duple meter (2/4) set to music based on march form, and characterized by high stepping and leaning back of the upper body. The name comes from the prize given to the best couple of the evening - a cake. It became very popular on the stage and as a social dance in the 1890s to early 1900s. The music applied to the cakewalk became popular as a lightly syncopated multi-part march in the tonic and subdominant keys that strongly influenced and evolved into piano ragtime. The cakewalk as a music form had a minor resurgence of popularity in the mid-1910s.