the schuhplattler is thought to date from neolithic times, about 3000 bc, but it is first of record in 1030 ad, when a monk in the tegernsee abbey of bavaria described a village dance containing leaps and hand gestures. over the centuries, the form gradually evolved as farmers, hunters, and woodsmen practiced it in the isolated towns and villages of the bavarian and tyrolean alps. sometimes it was performed as a partner dance, with couples doing a ländler and then splitting up so the girls could twirl in their colorful dirndls as the boys showed off their . at other times it was just the boys onstage, arranged in a circle, a square or a line, ing wildly for the audience. these two approaches are sometimes distinguished as the schuhplattlertanz and schuhplattler proper, but it is the "boys' dance" that is at the core of both forms and is most often described.