Crazy French dancing The cancan originated in the working-class dance halls of Montparnasse in the Paris of the 1830s, where it was first known as the chahut (meaning “uproar”). It was for men and women, dancing in quartets, and it quickly became the rock n roll of its day, shocking polite society with the level of bodily contact it allowed between couples. Some of the earliest chahut stars were men, whose athletic high kicks and mid-air splits (or grands écarts) were copied from stage acrobats of the time. When women began to try the high-kicks, they often revealed more than just their athleticism. As the fashion for wider hoop-reinforced skirts brought with it ever-frillier layers of undergarment, the kicking, skirt lifting and bottom waggling began to take over. The cancan probably gets its name from the French verb cancaner, which means “to quack” (ducks are great bottom-wagglers). Cancaner also means “to spread scandal”.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:14:11 +0000
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