MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Rihab Kassatly Bagnole, Ph.D. Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Title: How the Cancan Preserves the Past through Objects and Performance Art

Rooted in nineteenth-century Montparnasse dancehall culture, where it evolved from a working-class couples’ dance noted for high kicking into a scandalous choreographed form of dance entertainment that spread to Western cities, the cancan remains a popular tourist attraction in France even today. Its ribald fame has become memorialized through collectible objects: the canvas paintings and posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, CD sales of Offenbach’s famous Orpheus in the Underworld score (and others by Léhar, Cole Porter), sales of numerous cancan film DVDs, cancan-related opera recordings (Massine, Ponchielli), the wall paintings of Lautrec extant at the Moulin-Rouge in Paris, and tourist souvenirs, including figurines of the dancers in their poses. Modern visitors to Paris purchase and collect the program booklets as souvenirs, and some of them even wear fashion items associated with this spectacular dance. The cancan, popularized in the Belle Époque, was immortalized by painters, such as Seurat, Rouault, Picasso, and most notably Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose prints of dancers La Goulue and Jane Avril, with their elaborate underwear and sensual moves designed to shock, remain highly collectible while patrons admire wall copies of his paintings at the cabaret shows today. I argue that the popularity of the Moulin Rouge is based on fascination with the past and its icons and its ability to fulfill the ‘naughty’ desire of spectators’ fantasies. I analyze how objects and performance have kept alive this historic dance for the contemporary dance aficionado while, at the same time, dispelling false notions that have become mythologized about it.