Editing Can-can (section)

==History==
[[File:Georges Seurat, 1889-90, Le Chahut, oil on canvas, 170 x 141 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[Georges Seurat]], 1889–90, {{lang|fr|[[Le Chahut]]}}, oil on canvas, {{cvt|170|×|141|cm}}, [[Kröller-Müller Museum]]]]
[[File:Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 031.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Toulouse-Lautrec, ''Jane Avril Dancing'']]

The can-can is believed to have evolved from the final figure in the [[quadrille]], a social dance for four or more couples.<ref>Mary Clarke, "Quadrille", in ''The History of Dance'' (New York: Crown, 1961).</ref> The exact origin of the dance is obscure,<ref>Francis Henry Gribble, "The Origin of the Can-can" (1933), reprinted in ''Dancing Times'' (London), October 1953, pp. 28–29, 66–67.</ref> but the steps may have been inspired by a popular entertainer of the 1820s, [[:fr:Charles-François Mazurier|Charles-François Mazurier]] (1798–1828), well known for his [[Mime artist|mime]] and [[acrobatic dance]], including the [[grand écart]] or [[Jump split|jump splits]]—both popular features of the can-can; his greatest success was in ''Jocko, or The Brazilian Ape'' (1825).<ref>G. Desrat, "Mazurier, Charles", in ''Dictionnaire de la Danse Historique, Théorique, Pratique et Bibiographique, depuis l'Origine de la Danse jusqu'a Nos Jours'' (1895), Classic Reprint (London: Forgotten Books, 2017).</ref>

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".<ref>Jacques Pessis and Jacques Crépineau, ''The Moulin Rouge'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).</ref> Occasionally, people dancing the can-can were arrested, but there is no record of its being banned, as some accounts claim.{{cn|date=February 2023}} Throughout the 1830s, it was often groups of men, particularly students, who danced the can-can at public dance-halls.<ref>Marie-Françoise Christout, "Can-Can", in ''International Encyclopedia of Dance'' (1998).</ref>

As the dance became more popular, professional performers emerged, although it was still danced by individuals, not by a chorus line.<ref>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/</ref> A few men became can-can stars in the 1840s to 1861 and an all-male group known as the {{lang|fr|Quadrille des Clodoches}} performed in London in 1870.<ref>[[Alfred Choubrac]], ''Ambassadeurs: Quadrille des Clodoches'' (Colombes: Atelier Choubrac, 1890).</ref> 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.<ref>Michel Souvais, ''Moi, La Goulue de Toulouse-Lautrec: Mémoires de Mon Aïeule'' (Paris: Publibook, 2008).</ref><ref>Jane Avril, ''Mes Mémoires'' (Paris: Phebus, 2005).</ref> The most prominent male can-can dancer of the time was [[Valentin le désossé|Valentin le Désossé]] (Valentin the Boneless), a frequent partner of La Goulue. The professional dancers of the [[Second French Empire|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 (Paris)|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.<ref>Philippe Le Moal, ed., "Sandrini, Pierre", in ''Dictionnaire de la Dansw'' (Paris: Éditions Larousse, 1999.</ref>