The can-can (more correctly not hyphenated, as in the original French:
cancan), is regarded today primarily as a physically demanding music hall
dance, performed by a chorus line of female dancers who wear costumes
with long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings, that hearkens back to the
fashions of the 1890s. The main features of the dance are the lifting up and
manipulation of the skirts, with high kicking and suggestive, provocative
body movements. The Galop from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the
Underworld is the tune most associated with the can-can (a somewhat
simplified form). The cancan first appeared in the working-class ballrooms
of Montparnasse in Paris in around 1830. It was a more lively version of
the galop, a dance in quick 2/4 time, which often featured as the final figure
in the quadrille. The cancan was, therefore, originally a dance for couples,
who indulged in high kicks and other gestures with arms and legs.