In music, the sarabande (Sp., zarabanda; It., sarabanda) is a
dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each
measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of
quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation.[vague] The
quarter notes are said to correspond with the dragging steps in
the dance. The sarabande is first mentioned in Central America:
in 1539, a dance called a zarabanda is mentioned in a poem
written in Panama by Fernando Guzmán Mexía. Apparently the dance
became popular in the Spanish colonies before moving back across
the Atlantic to Spain. While it was banned in Spain in 1583 for
its obscenity, it was frequently cited in literature of the
period (for instance in works by Cervantes and Lope de Vega). In
the Baroque era the suite typically included a sarabande, as the
third of four movements in the standard 18th-century form:
allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue. Johann Sebastian Bach
sometimes gave the sarabande a privileged place in his music
even outside the context of d