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French Cancan: a dance of men, clowns and circus

By Cirk biZ'arT · Marseille · · 10 min read

In our Cabaret biZ'arT, Laurie dances the French Cancan on her own, then goes into the audience to bring a spectator on stage and dance with them. It might look like a burlesque whim. In fact, it is a return to the roots: before it became the petticoat number of the Moulin Rouge, the cancan was a ballroom dance of students, men and clowns. Here is its story, as it is rarely told.

A riot in the middle of the quadrille

In the 1820s, the public dance halls of Paris danced the quadrille, a structured ballroom dance made of figures, with couples facing each other. Some dancers grew bored and slipped improvised, unruly, provocative solos into the figures. This was called the "chahut" (roughly, "uproar"), then the "cancan". For a long time, the two words meant more or less the same thing.

The word "cancan", meaning the dance, appears around 1829. It is thought to come from a French children's word for duck, after the dancers' waddling. It has nothing to do with "cancans" meaning gossip: that is a different word that just happens to look the same.

Pointillist painting by Seurat: a line of dancers kicking their legs, a musician in the foreground
Georges Seurat, Le Chahut, 1889-1890: sixty years after its birth, the original name had stuck. Public domain (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), via Wikimedia Commons.

At first, it was the men who kicked their legs

In the 1830s, the cancan was often danced by groups of men, especially students, in public dance halls. Among the places credited with its birth are the Grande-Chaumière, a garden dance hall popular with students, and the Bal Mabille, which opened in 1831.

Its presumed creator is a character worthy of the circus: Chicard, real name Alexandre Lévêque, a leather merchant by day and a figure of the Paris Carnival by night. He performed in a grotesque costume, wearing a plumed helmet, and his name even became a French verb: "chicarder". So the cancan was born, in part, from a carnival clown.

The dance caused a scandal, and dancers were sometimes arrested for indecency. You often read that an "1831 law" banned it: we found no serious trace of one. What is certain is that the police kept a close eye on the dance halls.

The queens of Mabille

In the 1840s, women took the spotlight. In May 1844, the Reine Pomaré triumphed at the Bal Mabille. In September of the same year, Céleste Mogador was crowned queen there… by a man, the dancer and dancing master Brididi. Around 1860, Rigolboche, an "eccentric dancer", had all of Paris flocking to the Délassements-Comiques theatre.

Engraving: head-and-shoulders portrait of Céleste Mogador
Céleste Mogador, crowned queen of the Bal Mabille in 1844. Engraving by Albert Duvivier, CC0 (Paris Musées), via Wikimedia Commons.
Old photograph: the dancer Rigolboche, hands on hips, in a striped costume and cap
Rigolboche, photographed in 1860 by Pierre Petit. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Clodoches: four men, two dresses

The men did not disappear, though. In the 1860s, the Quadrille des Clodoches had the Opera balls in stitches: four dancers, two of them dressed as women, parodied the quadrille with wild energy, sometimes disguised as a kilted Scotsman or a fireman. They were such a hit that they went to perform in London in 1870, and the Musée Carnavalet in Paris still holds their portraits.

This is the direct ancestor of burlesque cancan: a dance that makes fun of itself, plays with gender and draws as many laughs as gasps. Exactly the spirit we look for in a circus cabaret.

Colour drawing: a Clodoches dancer in a clown costume covered in clover motifs, wearing a pointed cap, mid-move
A dancer from the Clodoches ballet, drawn by Draner in 1870: a true clown costume. Public domain (BnF), via Wikimedia Commons.

Music by Offenbach, a name from London

The tune everyone hums comes from an operetta: Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in 1858. Its "Infernal Galop" was not written for the cancan, but it became associated with it around 1868 and never left.

As for the word "French", it is said to have been added across the Channel, to sell Londoners a Parisian dance with a racy reputation. Tradition credits the idea to Charles Morton, a music-hall impresario, but no contemporary source really confirms it.

1889: the Moulin Rouge, and a circus boss

On 6 October 1889, Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler opened the Moulin Rouge. There, the cancan became a show, with its own stars: La Goulue (Louise Weber), credited with the famous bottom-flashing "coup de cul", Jane Avril, Grille d'Égout… Men became supporting partners.

A delightful detail: Joseph Oller was also a circus man. Three years earlier, in 1886, he had opened the Nouveau Cirque on the rue Saint-Honoré, whose ring could be turned into a pool, and where the clowns Foottit and Chocolat performed. We tell that story in our history of the circus.

Colour poster by Jules Chéret for the Bal du Moulin Rouge, with dancers and donkeys
Jules Chéret's poster for the opening of the Bal du Moulin Rouge, 1889. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

La Goulue's partner deserves a special place in a circus blog: Valentin le Désossé ("Valentin the Boneless"), real name Jules Renaudin. A lawyer's son and wine merchant, he had extraordinary flexibility that allowed him to perform contortionist moves. In 1889, he was already 46. Toulouse-Lautrec immortalised him in 1891 on the Moulin Rouge poster, a dark silhouette in the foreground facing La Goulue in full swing.

Toulouse-Lautrec poster: La Goulue dancing in the centre, Valentin le Désossé in silhouette in the foreground
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge – La Goulue, 1891. CC0 (Metropolitan Museum of Art), via Wikimedia Commons.
Old photograph: from left to right, an unidentified dancer, La Goulue, Grille d'Égout and Valentin le Désossé, kicking their legs
From left to right: an unidentified dancer, La Goulue, Grille d'Égout and Valentin le Désossé, around 1881-1891 (the order is handwritten on the back of the original print). Anonymous photographer, CC0 (Musée Carnavalet), via Wikimedia Commons.

From the cabaret to the lion's cage

La Goulue's story ends under the big top. In 1895, the queen of the Moulin Rouge left the cabaret for the fairgrounds. She commissioned her friend Toulouse-Lautrec to paint two large panels to decorate her booth at the Foire du Trône fair; they now hang in the Musée d'Orsay, and Oscar Wilde can be spotted in the crowd.

Then she became a lion tamer. She performed in circuses until 1907, the year a lion injured her. The most famous cancan dancer in the world ended her career in a cage, in the ring.

Old photograph: the front of La Goulue's fairground booth, decorated with large painted panels
The front of La Goulue's fairground booth, "dancer, then tamer", around 1895. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1955, Jean Renoir captured the legend in his film French Cancan, with Jean Gabin as Danglard, a cabaret director inspired by Zidler. From then on, the cancan became, for the whole world, an image of Paris.

And in Marseille?

Marseille has its own music-hall history. At the Alcazar on the cours Belsunce, opened in 1857 with 2,000 seats, the orchestra opened each evening with a quadrille. The venue later became a stronghold of pantomime, then, in the 1890s, a music hall where jugglers, tap dancers and acrobats followed one another on stage. In 1880, the Palais de Cristal opened on the allées de Meilhan, a more "rough and ready" rival to the Alcazar.

We found no precise record of the cancan on these Marseille stages: the archives of the local press may one day hold the answer. But the lineage is clear: quadrille, variety acts, acrobats and tap dancing on the same stage is already a circus cabaret.

The cancan, handed back to the audience

When Laurie brings a spectator on stage to dance the cancan with her, she reconnects with what this dance was at the start: a moment when someone, in the middle of a ball, dares to break ranks. The students of 1830, Chicard and his plumed helmet, the Clodoches in their dresses: none of them were star ballet dancers. They simply wanted to kick up their legs and make people laugh.

What we take from the French Cancan: before it was a perfectly drilled petticoat ballet, it was a dance of freedom and mockery, danced by men, women, clowns and parodists. Burlesque is not a betrayal of the cancan: it is where it started.

A French Cancan, tap dancing, levitation and a spectator who ends up on stage: that is Cabaret biZ'arT. For a festival, a village fête or a cabaret night, invite us.

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Sources

Most sources are in French.