Welsh dance (Welsh: Dawns Gymreig), also known as Welsh folk dancing (Welsh: Dawnsio gwerin), is the collection of traditional dances originating in Wales. While Welsh dance shares similarities to traditional Cornish, English and Irish dances, Welsh dance has a reputation as more difficult and more athletic than its counterparts.

Often performed in traditional Welsh costume to Welsh folk music, Welsh dancing traditions were almost entirely lost in the nineteenth century as religious fervour took over the nation and such activities came to be viewed as immoral. However, traditions such as the Llangadfan Dances, the Llanover Dances and the Nantgarw Dances were recorded and revived by a small group of academics and enthusiasts. As such, Welsh dance once again regained its position as an integral part of Welsh cultural life in the twentieth century.

There is a lack of written records of Welsh dance before the eighteenth century with Gerald of Wales's description of a Welsh dance near Brecon on St. Almedah’s day, 1188 being a rare exception.

This lack of early documentation could exemplify how integral dance was to everyday life in Wales, while the lack of written sources can be viewed as a feature of the cultural changes enforced by the Penal laws against the Welsh and Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. These acts saw certain aspects of Welsh culture legally prohibited, as the Kingdom of England forbid any public assembly by Welsh people, banned them from holding property in English boroughs and prohibited Welsh men (and English men who married Welsh women) from holding public office. The affect of these changes was to replace Welsh culture within the affluent class with an anglicised gentry, who used the English language and English customs almost exclusively.

These prohibitions on Welsh culture had diminished by the seventeenth century, although the early century is notable for traditional Welsh dances being included as part of solely English collections under English translations of original Welsh names (Hoffedd ap Hywel becoming the English country dance Powell's Fancy). The English composer John Playford began collecting and publishing Welsh dances in the mid-17th century. These dances included Lord of Caernarfon's Jig and Abergenny while John Walsh also published a number of Welsh dances in the early 18th century, such as Evan's Delight (1718) and Meillionen (1726).

Written evidence of the popularity of Welsh dance is also more readily found by this time. The discoveries of William Robert’s poem Taplas Gwainfo (The Taplas of Wenvoe) and William Thomas’ diaries, provided historians with the earliest proof of the popularity of social dancing at outdoor festivals in Glamorganshire.

The eighteenth century saw a revival of interest in Welsh culture. Williams Jones was active in arresting the loss of Welsh dances and music. Wishing to revive the dance and music traditions from his own area, he interviewed the elderly members of his community and worked closely with his own father, William Sion Dafydd to revive the dances he had learned in his youth in the sixteenth century. Through his work, Jones rediscovered numerous dances together with the ancient airs, melodies and stanzas that accompanied them. The corpus of work is today known as the Llangadfan Dances.

In the course of this work, Williams Jones became a notable authority on manuscripts and printed collections. Jones actively corresponded with the London-based Gwyneddigion Society and other contemporary men of letters such as Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin), bard to King George IV, which in turn provided Edward Jones with valuable material for his own printed volumes.