the.com/cancan
the dance that turned kicking high enough to flash underwear into a national art form
means A high-energy stage dance, performed by a line of women in long skirts who kick their legs sky-high while whooping, swishing fabric, and flashing petticoats.
from From French, where 'cancan' originally meant idle chatter, gossip, or scandalous tittle-tattle — possibly an echo of the Latin school-room phrase 'quanquam' (meaning 'although,' a word droned endlessly in academic debate) that came to mock empty noise. The dance, born in the dance-halls of 19th-century Paris, was scandalous enough to inherit the name for 'scandal' itself.
- origin
- Born in 1830s Parisian working-class dance halls
- once banned
- Police arrested dancers for indecency
- signature move
- The grand battement: a violent overhead kick
- music
- Offenbach's galop, written for a different opera
- stamina
- Performers burn through cardio rivaling athletes
moulin rouge — parisian cabaret in the 18th arrondissement where the cancan became famous in 1889
lido de paris — champs-élysées cabaret known for cancan performances since 1946