The can-can (also spelled cancan as in the original French /kɑ̃kɑ̃/) is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day.[1] Originally danced by couples, it is now traditionally associated with a chorus line of female dancers.[2] The main features of the dance are the vigorous manipulation of skirts and petticoats, along with high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.
cancan
In 1850, Celeste Mogador, a leading light of the Mabille Ball, embraced the cancan phenomenon and thereby lent it a patina of respectability that helped it increase in popularity. Developing rapidly, the new dance now lasted for about ten minutes, during which the row of female dancers would high kick, lift their skirts and perform various other energetic moves to up tempo music while facing the audience like a chorus line. The long, frilly dresses were kept but now the panties beneath them were, shall we say, less revealing. Still considered scandalous, the dance was at least acceptable by the authorities, and became known as the French cancan.
The popularity of the cancan was taken to new heights by dancers such as La Goulue, a performer at the famed Moulin Rouge cabaret who created the moves that we still know today. But it was another great Moulin Rouge dancer Moulin, Nini Pattes en l'air (Nini Legs in the Air) who, from 1894, was the first to teach the dance professionally. It was within the extravagant surroundings of the Moulin Rouge at the foot of the butte of Montmartre that the French Cancan gained international fame and affection that persists today. The renowned cabaret and its dancers still draw visitors from all over the world.
Today no school teaches the cancan, and the days of teachers such as Grille d'Égout and Nini Pattes en l'air are long past. But, arising as it does from popular culture, the French Cancan is a flexible dance belonging to all who wish to perform it.
There was a time when the cancan was considered so scandalous that the police would sometimes raid the dance halls where it was performed. But that's when ladies didn't show their ankles, much less their underwear.
He was well-acquainted with the woman at the center of his painting: Louise Webber, known as La Goulue (which means the glutton). She was the highest-paid entertainer in Paris at the time, and considered the greatest cancan dancer of all ... so skilled it's said she could kick the hat off a man's head.
Maybe today the cancan seems a quaint reminder of a bygone era, but Louise Webber, La Goulue, who died in 1929, is still remembered by the French as the woman who helped spark a revolution with the cancan.
(English pronunciations of cancan from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus and from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, both sources Cambridge University Press) 2ff7e9595c
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