Wild. Violent. Acrobatic. Passionate. The Apache dance came
from the Paris underworld of the early 20th century and gained
international fame primarily in films like Can-Can, Charlie Chan in Paris,
Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, and even
an episode of I Love Lucy. The dance
was named after Les Apaches, a gangster underworld subculture especially active
in Belleville, La Villette, Montmartre, and la Bastille.
The dance is sometimes said to re-enact a violent
“discussion” between man and woman, including mock slaps and punches and the
man throwing or dragging the woman while she struggles.
Dances in the open-air cafés were not always this dramatic.
The guinguettes were also places for a lively waltz, a good meal, and
inexpensive drinking, often just outside the taxman’s reach. A poor man’s ball.
To see an Apache dance, visit this site.
To learn more about Parisian culture after the French
Revolution and before the First World War, join the WICE guided visit “Open-air
Cafés to Barricades (1814-1914) in the Musée Carnavalet on November 4th.
For more information, click here.
(Thank you to Veronique Kurtz for the information in this post.)