Sites related to the polka as a dance. Polka music has its own category. The polka is a lively "close" dance or round dance for couples, in 2/4 time. The origin of the polka is in dispute: some say it was Bohemian (Czech), others, that it was originally Polish. In any event, there was a polka craze in Europe in the 1840s. Emigrants took the newly-invented accordion and the then-rebellious polka to America. There was a second polka mania in the 1930s and '40s, almost exactly a century after its introduction. Among some ethnic groups in North America (Germans, Polish, Czechs), the polka has never gone out of style.