Expanding the Cancan Stereotype Gianna Mercandetti

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2013 The Essence of an Era: Expanding the Cancan Stereotype Gianna Mercandetti

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE, AND DANCE

THE ESSENCE OF AN ERA:

EXPANDING THE CANCAN STEREOTYPE

GIANNA MERCANDETTI

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Dance in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: Fall, 2013

The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Gianna Mercandetti defended on April 26, 2013.

Dr. Jen Atkins Thesis Director

Dr. Kathryn Cashin Outside Committee Member

Joyce Fausone Committee Member

Strolling down a narrow boulevard in nineteenth century northern Paris, one would not be

surprised to pass by a gathering of poets, to hear the notes of a musician's romantic score or the

shrieks of a cancaneuse1 from a nearby cabaret, to catch a glimpse of a vibrant lithograph in the

making or to be engaged in deep conversation with an intoxicated neighbor. During the fin-de-

siècle2, this scene particularly flourished in the French quarter of Montmartre, a collective of artistic abodes occupied by people more or less unpinned by social constraints. It was a time of the café-concert3 and dance hall, and of the Moulin Rouge, when the infamous cancan girls laid claim to the dance floor. It was also a time when Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec and many like- minded artists flourished, not adhering to a particular artistic movement as did the Impressionists or Cubists, but instead expressing personal voices through works, glued together by the adhesive that was their inspiration: their environment.4 These artists lived in Parisian Bohemia symbiotically, feeding off of their surroundings and community for subject matter and producing timeless depictions in return.

Montmartre has had a continuous existence as a distinct entity from the remainder of the city. "In 1784 the construction of the Mur des Fermiers Généraux, a tax barrier around the city

that made goods sold on the outside cheaper, had given Montmartre a separate identity [it

quickly became the choice drinking location for locals as it had the cheapest wine]. But its

physical enclosure by the ring of fortifications built around Paris in the 1840s and its inclusion

within the capital's administrative structure in 1860 had gradually absorbed it into the

1 Gordon, Dances With Darwin, 55. 2 McGuinness, Symbolism, Decadence and the Fin de Siècle, 7. 3 Gordon, Dances With Darwin, 33. 4 Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, vii.

metropolis."5 Despite this, the area retained its character and to a certain degree rural identity, decorated with aged architecture, windmills overlooking sloping passages, and the occasional vineyard. Montmartre was a sector characteristically separated from the remainder of the city by the boulevard de Rochechouart/Clichy,6 and known for its inviting atmosphere to souls from all walks of life: the painters, the writers, the workers, the déclassés and dandies, and all the rest. It most famously boasts an outrageous nightlife, where any trouble could be flushed away with drink, and the pleasures of life enjoyed at any dance hall or café-concert on the boulevard.

The Moulin Rouge, possibly the most famous dance hall of Montmartre, flourished here.

The establishment was -- and still is -- found on the Boulevard de Clichy, easily spotted by its large red windmill. It was one of the main dance halls to bring the wildly popular cancan to the forefront of 19th century Parisian entertainment. The cancan was a rambunctious, lively dance performed in duple meter. Originally danced by couples, it came to focus fully on the female performer as it transitioned from its inception in the 1830s into its fin-de-siècle heyday.7 The dancers performed a series of high kicks, leg circles, splits, and improvisation unique to their individual style. It was, essentially, a dance of idiosyncratic flair. Among the most notable aspects were the cancan costumes, a veritable list of clothes most scandalous for women to wear in the nineteenth century: black stockings, garters, short boots with heels, and various undergarments that were revealed by lifting up multi-layered skirts. This skirt manipulation was accompanied by a view of a naked thigh or other body part, and for women who lived in clothing

5 Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, 65. 6 Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, 66. 7 Price, CanCan!, 33.

that shielded their flesh from outside eyes a tantalizing view of the leg was erotic and

revolutionary for its time.8

The cancan's legacy persists through the twenty-first century, and has been brought into

modern context with set choreography and changes in costume. From this, a generally accepted

cancan stereotype has emerged. Today, particularly at the current Moulin Rouge, the dance is

depicted as a highly sexualized spectacle, emphasized by the appearance of the model-like,

scantily (but ornately clad) dancers who tantalize audiences by kicking up their voluminous

skirts. In popular culture, the sexuality of the cancan has been exploited to a great extent.

Halloween costumes, even those for very young children, feature suggestive bodices, frilly skirts,

chokers, and feathers, all in bold colors. A general response to the mention of the very word

cancan also brings about a chorus of a few notes of Offenbach's galop infernal,9 one of the

musical compositions that became associated with the dance years after its creation. At the

Moulin Rouge, the dance and its performers have more of a Las Vegas spectacle feel. The

cancan is performed at the end of the night as homage to the tradition, but this newer, more

choreographed version is in an entirely different context than that of its predecessor.10 At the turn

of the century, the cancan was indeed being performed in the dance halls of Montmartre, and

considered a rambunctious, somewhat licentious and entertaining affair, but the cultural context

of the time colored it much differently than the twenty-first century.

The cancan, while boasting its nature as an entertaining spectacle, is representative of

deeper, more complex concepts embedded in nineteenth century Paris than the current stereotype

8 Price, CanCan!, 60. 9 Price, CanCan!, 108. 10 Mercandetti, Gianna. Performance at the Moulin Rouge and Backstage Tour. Summer, 2012.

highlights. One core cultural idea concerns the struggle of women to find modes of self-

expression in a patriarchal society, where dance became an outlet for female frustration and an

option while other avenues of life remained closed off. The second concept is that of the

unconventional mentality of the bohemians, whose defiance of social norms gave birth to the

very spirit of the dance. By extracting the essence of the bohemian era and the role of women,

exploring the origins of the cancan and its development, and analyzing the immortalizing works

of cancan artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the relevance of his viewpoints, the cancan

surfaces as a symbol of nineteenth century bohemian culture. The dance captures an era and its

ideals in motion, and is an invaluable vessel for preserving cultural knowledge.

The setting of this era is Paris of 1830; Charles X has recently been deposed and Louis-

Philippe installed as king. From the depths of society, Bohemia came into existence, and on

February 25 of 1830, the apogee of its buildup manifested itself in the opening performance of

Victor Hugo's Hernani. The drama tested the heretofore-concrete principles of its time, and

encapsulated the vigor of the bohemian youth. Known as the bataille d'Hernani, the event marks the beginning of the Bohemian revolution, a countercultural movement in nineteenth century

Paris.11

With roots tracing back to the Romani gypsies who emigrated from the Kingdom of

Bohemia (Czech Republic) as the original Bohemians,12 the term now refers to a classification for any individual who sought to live the unconventional life. Artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers who rejected the societal and artistic conventions of the time collectively formed this group of people. The idea of a Bohemian revolution draws its roots to Paris because, unlike other

11 Richardson, The Bohemians, 27. 12 Extra and Gorter. The Other Languages of Europe: Demographic, Sociolinguistic, and Educational Perspectives.

areas with certain individuals that expressed the bohemian mentality (for instance Britain), Paris

housed an entire class of people possessing solidarity. "It is to France, then, that we must turn for

studies of this strange kingdom of poetry and lawless art, of loves and duns, of banquets and

starvation, informed with a magic that holds youth too often spell-bound with a spell only broken

by shameful death."13 The values ingrained in this mentality consisted of individualism,

romanticism, and a rejection of social norms and bourgeois expectations. Bourgeois in this

context often refers to being aristocratic, but is not solely defined by this characteristic.

Bourgeoisie, as their bohemian counterparts saw them, were essentially philistine and

uneducated in the arts. They represented the law and all that was not morally reprehensible.

Bohemians, on the other hand, not only lived for the art they created and experienced, but also

lived in the moment and for the moment, without inhibition, and with complete contempt for

rules and expectations. They did as they pleased, and exploited the enticements and enjoyments

of life; imbued with wildness and gaiety, rejecting all laws and showing complete disregard for

public opinion.14 Bohemians often lived in dire poverty, and not without debilitating hardships;

they masked the harsh reality of their world by mixing it with imaginative dreams, and pursuing

a misunderstood, tumultuous life.

For a woman who ventured into the realm of the bohemian, the decision was absolute, as

women did not possess nearly as much freedom as men where lifestyle shifts were concerned.

They were drawn to Bohemia because it, "provided women with a base and an alternative social

setting in which they were accepted in spite of the irregularity of their lives."15 They were

13 Richardson, The Bohemians, 12. 14 Richardson, The Bohemians. 15 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 87.

coming from a place in high society that meant a controlled life with fewer freedoms; liberating

themselves by breaking convention and becoming déclassé put them at the center of bohemian social circles and in the company of some of the most established artists of the time. By doing so, women gained social confidence and were able to, to a certain extent, support themselves on independent income.

There were many avenues a bohemian woman had to choose from with regards to lifestyle: she could be a grisette, mistress, muse, model, wife, mother, salon hostess, independent woman, worker, dancer, free spirit, lesbian, artist, or she could attempt to escape all of these rules and restrictions of gender and seek out an entirely different way of being.16 Possibilities and repercussions were dependent on her class standing. An aristocratic woman could become déclassé and yet successfully support herself by way of establishing a salon, etc. Lower class women inserted themselves into this culture to be free from social conventions and restrictions of the class from which they came.

Of those who pursued acclaim and success in the artistic world in the 1830s and 1840s

Louise Colet, George Sand, Delphine de Girardin, and Marie d'Agoult (original muse and mistress of Franz Lizt) were writers. While they sought solidarity and assimilation into bohemian culture, those like George Sand often found themselves desirous of a truly individual life, constantly flouting social norms (she frequently donned menswear) and pushing socially acceptable limits for women. Though these female journalists were successful, there still existed rampant misogyny and female prejudice in Paris' patriarchal society, both within and beyond

Bohemia. For instance, these writers were given to writing under male pen names as it allowed

16 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 86.

them to maintain respectability. In the case of those like Marie d'Agoult, it also omitted the need

to have permission granted from their husbands or lovers for their writing to be published.17

Since male artists dominated the field, they did not make the pursuance of art for women

easy by any means. Arsène Houssaye paints a rather simplistic picture of romantic women,

suggesting that they were given to wandering the streets of Paris, blinded by passion for poetry

and romance. Gustave Flaubert has a more biting review, stating his preference for tarts over the

bores of romantic females; nevertheless he depicts an equally unfortunate view of women.18

Even Sigmund Freud suggests that women cannot handle the trials and tribulations of an ever more demanding business life, stating that the place of the woman is in the home, for family and sexual activity, and that the outside world is that of men.19 This stems from the fear of the "new

uncontrollable woman of male fin-de-siècle fears,"20 or the independent woman, breaking free of their docile molds and acting of their own will and desire.

Even as women made strides toward their independence, they continued to face opposition from the male population, both actively, and through the long-standing social concepts constructed by men, especially concerning erotic life. Prostitutes were very much figures of fantasy; they embodied the sexual liberation and free love allowed to the men of

Bohemia. Most male artists preserved women in their imaginations as beautiful sexual objects, and nothing else, as their talents, dreams, and intellect, were impertinent as far as the male population was concerned.21 Fernande Olivier, model for Pablo Picasso, commented on her

17 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 91-92. 18 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 92-93. 19 Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, 100. 20 Sweetman, Explosive Acts, 185. 21 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 98.

being called Picasso's 'la belle Fernande': "there is a tendency in France, particularly amongst

intellectuals, to regard women as incapable of serious thought."22

The fin-de-siècle struggle for women to obtain an identity and mode of self-expression

left them with few avenues from which to choose. Bohemia itself was a jumping platform, an

initial ticket of liberation from bourgeois life, but from there the woman had to fight to maintain

her independence. Since the first female student was not accepted to the École de Beaux Arts until about 1900,23 women used other methods to exert their feminist sides. Dance became a

potential vessel for this female frustration, and the cancan was one such dance in which the

female eventually became the main attraction, and could propel herself to stardom. Since the

cancan was featured at cabarets frequented by bourgeois men who would pay, as well as artists

like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who immortalized the dancers and aided their rise to popularity

through his famous paintings, dance could be used as a means to create a new life. Dancing the

cancan became an oasis of freedom for the expression of female sexuality and individuality,

simply because it was the only option for these particular women.

In order to understand where the cancan was at the end of the nineteenth century, and

how women used it, it is necessary to examine its roots. The cancan is a derivative of the

quadrille, a dance and musical composition in steady duple meter.24 The quadrille was present in

operatic works of early nineteenth-century Paris, and was often embodied by the aristocracy at

upper class social events. As movement, the quadrille derives from the contredanse of the earlier

22 Wilson, Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, 103. 23 Gaze, Dictionary of Women Artists, Volume 1, 89. 24 Mclean, Māori Music, 82.

Napoleonic courts, and consisted of mainly walking patterns.25 Couples moved through the five

figures: Pantalon, Été, Poule, Trénis (or Pastourelle), and Finale.26 Eventually though, the

simplicity of the dance led to a decrease in zeal among the upper class, due to the notion that the

mediocrity of the style was inferior. Thus, the quadrille became more and more popular in the

working class social dance scene, where it was easily disseminated because of this simplicity.

The lack of complexity also allowed for "choreographic elaboration and improvisation that

emphasized physicality and individuality. In this manner of dance, called the chahut or cancan,

sensuality and the battle of body against body...entered the frame of the quadrille and culminated

in a virtuosic and spectacular performance style at odds with supposed French civility."27 Male

dancers led this shift of dynamic within the dance structure, and eventually their female partners

began to imitate the outrageous, wild improvisation, high kicks included, and became the

original cancaneuses.28

One of the most celebrated of these original cancan dancers was Céleste Mogador

(Mogador being her stage name). Born the daughter of a courtesan, she fled home after a rough

childhood and found herself working in a brothel. The stress of the work and exhaustion it

entailed provoked Mogador to seek respite, which she found after learning to dance. Mogador transitioned to the dance hall scene, and, with her talent and eye-catching beauty, she quickly rose to fame. She is credited with the development of the quadrille naturaliste, synonymous with the cancan. This version still involved couples dancing set figures, but each girl had a solo

25 Aldrich, From the Ballroom to Hell, 15-16. 26 Clark, "The Quadrille as Embodied Musical Experience in 19th-Century Paris," 507. 27 Clark, "The Quadrille as Embodied Musical Experience in 19th-Century Paris," 511. 28 Price, CanCan!, 24.

improvisation section that allowed for an exhibition of virtuosity and talent.29 Having these improvisational segments featuring the women further propelled the dance into the realm of the female, as the cancan girls became more of a focus than their male partners. Solos inserted into a primarily group/couple-oriented dance also denoted the changing nature of the cancan to reflect the bohemian interest in individuality.

After a low period for the dance following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, it was not until a young mademoiselle, Louise Weber, re-ignited the spark for the cancan that it re- emerged in Parisian cabarets and dance halls. Weber, more commonly known by her stage name

La Goulue, danced at the Moulin de la Galette near her mother's laundress business. While performing at various dance halls she met her future dancing partner, Valentin le Désossé. Le

Désossé was already an established dancer, his talent being astonishing flexibility that allowed for the execution of incredible acrobatic feats.30 The two experienced great celebrity at the

Moulin Rouge where they were invited to dance in the 1890s. The establishment was crucial in promoting the turn-of-the-century cancan. It served as a temporary home for La Goulue and Le

Désossé, and the high-kicking contemporaries who imitated them.

The Moulin Rouge opened its doors in October of 1889, run by Joseph Oller and Charles

Zidler. Situated at the foot of the Butte Montmartre on the Boulevard de Clichy, the Moulin

Rouge is recognizable by the infamous -- to some degree ostentatious -- red windmill above its entrance. Within the establishment there existed a garden, complete with a stage and larger-than- life cardboard elephant for performance purposes. A red velvet-lined foyer preceded a dance hall, and the theatre, or bal, consisted of a dance floor surrounded by a promenade of sitting

29 Price, CanCan!, 33. 30 Price, CanCan!, 47.

arrangements for guests.31 The establishment boasted a large array of enticements, notable

among them: the cancan.

The Moulin Rouge's female cancan dancers revealed racy undergarments with high leg

kicks, and danced themselves into a frenzy. La Goulue and Le Désossé, along with other belles

of the Moulin Rouge, danced the cancan, typically in a group of four -- three women, one man.

They furthered the development of the dance, and brought it to the height of entertainment of the

fin-de-siècle. By this time the cancan had come to include significantly more skirt manipulation,

high kicks, splits, and more developed solos to showcase each dancer. Women often took the

opportunity with their solos to employ their sexuality to their advantage. La Goulue notably

knocked the top hats off the heads of male audience members if they became too invasive. To be

even more audacious, she embroidered hearts on her undergarments, revealed when she upturned

her skirts. Her tongue-and-cheek maneuvers trace back through the lineage of cancan dancers:

one in the 1850s, by the name of Nini, dared to go without undergarments, and shocked an entire

audience with the high kicks that exposed this fact. 32 These women coupled seduction with such

shocking, scandalous methods, and their actions brought the cancan to a place where it was a

stage for female individuality as a statement.

Expressions of individuality, along with the harsh reality of the lives of these dancers, are

captured in the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This esteemed artist's legacy extended

considerably further than his short stature of 5 feet and three quarters of an inch. One of his most

notable titles is as the painter who idolized the Moulin Rouge and captured the bohemian essence

of fin-de-siècle Parisian culture in his lithographs. Among his most famous of these posters was

31 Price, CanCan!, 73 & 74. 32 Price, CanCan!, 48.

that of La Goulue dancing, which he was commissioned to create in 1891.33 The use of motion in

Lautrec's works, as well as humor mixed with realism combine to create his aesthetic. His

renditions of life in Montmartre are snapshots of its inhabitants' lives, and his works of the

cancan dancers give depictions of the cabaret atmosphere and the activity of its employees and

audience.

Lautrec was born in 1864 into an aristocratic family in Albi, a small town in the south of

France. After two consecutive bodily falls in 1878 (both causing bone breakage), Lautrec

discovered that he suffered from an incurable bone disease. There is still speculation as to the

exact condition, but the reigning diagnosis is pycnodysostosis, a form of dwarfism.34 This was

the cause of his well-known short stature; although his torso and arms grew to natural

proportions, his legs never extended further.

In 1882 18-year-old Lautrec moved to Paris and resided with his father while studying

under René Princeteau, a talented painter and friend of the family.35 Princeteau was the first of

several mentors to help Lautrec hone his painting skills, particularly his ability to capture

movement.36 The desire to paint moving figures was already present in the young painter's

artistic vision. It stemmed from the time of Lautrec's infancy, when his father gave him a treatise

on falconry.37 This early influence brought a love of fauna and the outdoors, prompting Lautrec

to sketch the movement of the animal kingdom, with eventually translated into human movement

when his subject matter shifted. This shift occurred during Lautrec's time with Princeteau, when

33Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, vii. 34 Sweetman, Explosive Acts, 49. 35 Boyer and Cate. The Circle of Toulouse-Lautrec: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist and His Close Associates. 36 Sweetman, Explosive Acts, 56. 37 Dortu, M. G., and Philippe Huisman, Lautrec by Lautrec, 14.

he realized his interest in painting real people as subjects, an aesthetic choice he continued to

develop for the rest of his career. Lautrec was inspired by individuals and “their burden of spirit

and flesh and the stories of their minds,”38 and wished to express his observations through his art.

These aesthetic choices molded Lautrec well for painting the dancing figures of the Moulin

Rouge, and injecting them with a tinge of harsh reality.

Initially having struggled with the temptations of Montmartre’s nightlife, which

conflicted with the semi-aristocratic values instilled in him from childhood,39 Lautrec finally

began to explore the fantastical pleasures that existed in his Parisian playground. He frequented

the café-concerts of the area, by 1885 becoming a regular at those of impresario Aristide Bruant,

who publicized the work of Lautrec and others by using it to decorate his establishments.40 In addition to visiting the café-concerts he was also to be found at Montmartre's various dance halls and cabarets. He took a particular interest in La Goulue after their introduction, creating many sketches of the dancer, and eventually following her to the Moulin Rouge once the establishment opened.41 Here Lautrec found further subject matter in the many personalities of the cancan dancers and their audience.

One aspect of Lautrec's art is his insertion of the comical, which came about from his days as an art student. In the year 1884, Lautrec and friends ventured to an art show sponsored by the Société des artistes françaises for contemporary art, and found themselves in the presence of esteemed painter Puvis de Chavannes' work, The Sacred Grove, Beloved of the Arts and the

Muses. It depicts the muses and other figures of antiquity posing in nature, almost like statues.

38 Bouret, The Life and Work of Toulouse-Lautrec, 64. 39 Dortu, M. G., and Philippe Huisman, Lautrec by Lautrec, 42. 40 Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, vii. 41 Bouret, The Life and Work of Toulouse-Lautrec, 94.

The work was a revolutionary move toward modernity for painting, "revealed in the stark

application of paint and the non-academic delineation of figures in nature."42 Lautrec took it upon himself to execute a humorous reinvention of the piece. He inserts himself and other artists into the work, as well as switches around props and adds painting materials. Entitled "Le Bois

Sacre" parodie du panneau de Puvis de Chavannes du Salon de 1884, Lautrec's creation was a vessel for him to make a distinct statement: that contemporary art reflects the time and place of its creation. This reads through in many a painting of Montmartre nightlife, where he uses the surrounding environment and the people existing in it as his material. At venues such as the café- concerts, Lautrec's lack of height gave him a unique vantage point that most audience members

were unable to experience.43 His angle emphasized the eerie glow cast on the performers’ faces,

due to their being illuminated solely by footlights. This translates in his works through a real but

almost inhuman quality that lingers in his subjects, usually via color. It gives them something of

a caricature aesthetic,44 which further enhances the humorous quality of his works.

Upon examining particular works, among them Lautrec's famed Moulin Rouge: La

Goulue, Alfred la Guigne, La Goulue Entering the Moulin Rouge, Jane Avril Dancing and At the

Moulin Rouge, these elements become more apparent. Lautrec unabashedly displays the

inhabitants of Montmartre in a gritty, dramatic light. A running theme is that of more definition

being given to facial expression. In Alfred la Guigne, a woman with a face resembling that of a

swine peeks around the side of a man with his back turned to the viewer.

42 Boyer and Cate. The Circle of Toulouse-Lautrec: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist and His Close Associates, 11. 43 Bradley, "The French Connection Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition showcases unique artist's story," H-01. 44 Bouret, The Life and Work of Toulouse-Lautrec, 87 & 88.

Her full feather boa and bow-adorned hat, coupled with the facial expression, suggest an overall gaudy appearance. Perhaps it is a facade concealing the hardships of her routine life. Having the male covering her may also imply the struggle of women to obtain their own voices in a patriarchal society. This harkens back to the female artist having a difficult time finding validity through self-expression in a misogynistic society. Other depictions show his characters with melancholic, condescending, stern, passive, smug, defiant, or proud expressions, bringing out the more insouciant and frustrated sides of those living in Bohemia. In Jane Avril Dancing, Lautrec depicts Avril executing a signature step of the cancan, the rond de jambe. The angle of her leg and the folds of her skirts suggest motion, characteristic of Lautrec's ability to capture moving figures. While Avril's body suggests motion, as she is presumably mid-cancan, her face expresses an emotion other than the frenzied look of an excited cancan dancer. She appears

45 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred la Guigne, 1894, oil on cardboard, 25 13/16 x 19 13/16 in., Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

contemplative, with a tinge of melancholy. Again, she may be frustrated by her place as a woman of the fin-de-siècle, pondering her situation and the struggle for independence as a female.

46 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril Dancing, 1892, oil on cardboard, 85.5 x 45 cm., Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

On another note, several of Lautrec's works do have an air of defiance emanating from the highlighted female. In Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge,48 a cancan dancer, possibly La

Goulue, is shown in a wide stance with her hands on her hips. She occupies much space, and is

the focus of the others in the painting. Lautrec has painted a woman in a powerful pose, with a

proud face and confrontational air. She embodies the essence of female empowerment, and

represents the angst that many women felt toward their situation in the nineteenth century. The

scene is depicted in a dance hall as women prepare to execute the cancan, the very dance that

gives them this empowerment.

47 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge, 1892, oil on cardboard, 31 9/16 x 23 13/16 in., Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 48 Cate, Chapin, Coman, and Thomson. Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, 129.

With the historical context behind it and the artwork that has persisted through the present day, the cancan shines as an icon of nineteenth century bohemian culture. The bohemian concept of flouting convention is ever-present in the dance's scandalous nature, particularly for women. The cancan girls were able to use such opportunities to showcase their individuality, using their bodies in motion because their voices were suppressed in other areas. The hardships and pleasures of life experienced by these women and other bohemian figures are showcased in the works of Toulouse-Lautrec. By examining his immortalizing artwork, the concept and history of Bohemia and its figures, the role women play in nineteenth century France, and the interplay of the cancan and its origins, one can come closer to understanding that the cancan is much more than a dance; it is a movement and an era in motion. While there is much truth to the sexual overtones present in the cancan dancer figure, she ultimately represents an embodiment of the motto of French Bohemia, or living the unconventional life. This is particular to women, who were at the time pushing the boundaries for their individual expression. Exploiting their sexuality through the dance, and making use of scandalous moments assisted them in making such a statement.

In this way, the stereotype of the cancan girl can be expanded, as her actions and demeanor are rooted in cultural context. The cancan was the dance that defined this period in

French history, and thus absorbed the ideals, hardships, and indulgences of the time. It persists today in a different form, but by understanding the framework from which it originated, and how rich its meaning had been, there can be a deepening in appreciation of the dance and its capturing of an era's essence. The core of the stereotype is sexuality, and by using this as a jumping point, the history, social politics, gender issues, economy, culture, and mentality of Montmartre can be

unveiled. A dance will change with the times, colored by and reflective of the environment in

which it exists, and though it shifts, the root through-line attributes are what hold the form

together. By finding such through lines, the values that shape a particular society are revealed,

and can be used to derive further information about how movement context evolves, as well as postulate its future trajectory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aldrich, Elizabeth. From the Ballroom to Hell: Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance. Northwestern University Press, 1991.

Bouret, Jean. The Life and Work of Toulouse-Lautrec. Translated by Daphne Woodward. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966.

Boyer, Patricia E., and Phillip D. Cate. The Circle of Toulouse-Lautrec: An Exhibition of the Work of the Artist and His Close Associates. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1986.

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