In this article I intend to describe some of the social processes that have led to the development of the sardana, a Catalan dance, to its present form. This is not meant to be a thorough description of the dance itself but rather a treatment of it as an expression of certain social and cultural processes which, although not of a strictly musical nature, have strongly influenced, and even determined, this dance and its music. My objective here is first to review the differentiated social perceptions of sardana in the course of its history and then to clarify the relationship between that dance and the phenomenon of folklorism. As a result, the interdependence of musical morphology, social customs, function and ideology in relation to the sardana should become apparent. Through this example, we can observe the function of music and dance as socially articulated elements within society.