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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.Nadège Maruta, L'Incroyable Histoire de Cancan: Rebelles et Insolentes, les Parisiennes Mênent la Danse (Paris: Parigramme, 2014). Originally danced by couples, it is now traditionally associated with a chorus line of female dancers.Marie-Franççpose Christout, "Can-can", in International Encyclopedia of Dance, edited by Selma Jeanne Cohen and others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 52–53. The main features of the dance are the vigorous manipulation of skirts and petticoats, along with high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.
The dance was considered scandalous, and for a while there were attempts to suppress it. This may have been partly because in the 19th century, women wore pantalettes, which had an open crotch, and the high kicks were intentionally revealing. There is no evidence that can-can dancers wore special closed underwear, although it has been said that the Moulin Rouge management did not permit dancers to perform in "revealing undergarments".Jacques Pessis and Jacques Crépineau, The Moulin Rouge (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990). Occasionally, people dancing the can-can were arrested, but there is no record of its being banned, as some accounts claim. Throughout the 1830s, it was often groups of men, particularly students, who danced the can-can at public dance-halls.Marie-Françoise Christout, "Can-Can", in International Encyclopedia of Dance (1998).
As the dance became more popular, professional performers emerged, although it was still danced by individuals, not by a chorus line.Renée Camus, "Cancan: Blurring the Line between Social Dance and Stage Performance", in Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Society of Dance History Scholars, Baltimore, Md., 2001/ A few men became can-can stars in the 1840s to 1861 and an all-male group known as the Quadrille des Clodoches performed in London in 1870.Alfred Choubrac, Ambassadeurs: Quadrille des Clodoches (Colombes: Atelier Choubrac, 1890). However, women performers were much more widely known.
By the 1890s, it was possible to earn a living as a full-time dancer and stars such as La Goulue and Jane Avril emerged, who were highly paid for their appearances at the Moulin Rouge and elsewhere.Michel Souvais, Moi, La Goulue de Toulouse-Lautrec: Mémoires de Mon Aïeule (Paris: Publibook, 2008).Jane Avril, Mes Mémoires (Paris: Phebus, 2005). The most prominent male can-can dancer of the time was Valentin le Désossé (Valentin the Boneless), a frequent partner of La Goulue. The professional dancers of the Second Empire and the fin de siècle developed the can-can moves that were later incorporated by the choreographer Pierre Sandrini in the spectacular "French Cancan", which he devised at the Moulin Rouge in the 1920s and presented at his own Bal Tabarin from 1928. This was a combination of the individual style of the Parisian dance-halls and the chorus-line style of British and American music halls.Philippe Le Moal, ed., "Sandrini, Pierre", in Dictionnaire de la Dansw (Paris: Éditions Larousse, 1999.
The can-can was introduced in America on 23 December 1867 by Giuseppina Morlacchi, dancing as a part of The Devil's Auction at the Theatre Comique in Boston. It was billed as "Grand Gallop Can-Can, composed and danced by Mlles. Morlacchi, Blasina, Diani, Ricci, Baretta... accompanied with cymbals and triangles by the coryphees and corps de ballet." The new dance received an enthusiastic reception. By the 1890s the can-can was out of style in New York dance halls, having been replaced by the hoochie coochie.Herbert Ashbury, The Gangs of New York (New York: Knopf, 1929).
The can-can became popular in Alaska and Yukon, Canada, where theatrical performances feature can-can dancers to the present day.
The can-can has often appeared in ballet, such as Léonide Massine's La Boutique fantasque (1919) and Gaîté Parisienne (1938),Debra Crane and Judith Mackrell, "Can-can", in The Oxford Dictionary of Dance (Oxford University Press, 2000). as well as The Merry Widow. Another example is the climax of Jean Renoir's film French Cancan.Criterion Collection, released by United Motion Pictures, 1955. A well-known can-can occurs at the finale of the "Dance of the Hours" from the opera La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli.
French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced several paintings and a large number of posters of can-can dancers. Other painters of the can-can included Georges Seurat, Georges Rouault, and Pablo Picasso.David Price, Cancan! (London: Cygnus Arts, 1998).
The can-can has appeared in numerous film and TV productions, such as the dance being featured prominently in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!. The 2009 anime series Fairy Tail featured the music as one of its themes, while a promotional advertisement for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends featured one of its lead characters, Coco, performing the dance before destroying the set around her. A remixed version, titled "William Tell Overture", by Kensuke Ushio also features in the anime series Dandadan.
In all versions of the Disney Parks's boat ride It's a Small World, there are some can-can dolls that dancing near the Eiffel Tower to represent the origin country of can-can, France.
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