0 a fast dance, originally performed in France in the 19th century, in which a row of women on a stage kick their legs high and lift their skirts
But, says my friend, ready to surrender, yet taking a last chance, "you told me they were dancing the cancan!"
In the midst of the uproar, several couples danced the cancan till the chandeliers shook with it.
They formed up, in perfect silence, in two lines, facing each other between us and the fire, and then the dance—a sort of infernal and fiendish cancan—began.
Yes, he said, "they're going to dance the cancan—she's going to lead it."
Occasionally people dancing the cancan were arrested but it was never officially banned, as is sometimes claimed.
Other films set at this time also suggest how the cancan was regarded with disapproval.
Throughout the 1830s, it was often groups of men, particularly students, who caused the most outrage by dancing the cancan at public dance-halls.
Her stage name came from the chahut-chaos, a dance derived from the cancan.
