A skirt dance is a form of dance popular in Europe and the United States, particularly in

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

theater of the 1890s, in which women dancers would manipulate long, layered

skirt A skirt is the lower part of a dress or a separate outer garment that covers a person from the waist downwards. At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of fabric (such as pareos). However, most skirts are ...

s with their arms to create a motion of flowing fabric, often in a darkened theater with colored light projectors highlighting the patterns of their skirts. Skirts used in skirt dances reportedly were constructed from over 100 yards of fabric.

Background

The dance originated in London, as a less formal type of

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

with elements of popular dance such as

clogging Clogging, buck dancing, or flatfoot dancing is a type of folk dance practiced in the United States, in which the dancer's footwear is used percussively by striking the heel, the toe, or both against a floor or each other to create audible rhythm ...

and French

can-can The can-can (also spelled cancan as in the original French /kɑ̃kɑ̃/) is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day. Originally dance ...

. The dancer

Kate Vaughan Kate Vaughan (1852 – 21 February 1903) was the stage name of Catherine Alice Candelin, a British dancer and actress. She was best known for developing the skirt dance and has been called the "greatest dancer of her time".St Johnston, pp. 170� ...

is generally credited with originating it, and being its early proponent, after performing the dance as part of a Dance of the Furies at the Holborn Theatre in 1873. Vaughan had also performed

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ''The Tales of Hoffmann''. He was a p ...

's ''

Orpheus in the Underworld ''Orpheus in the Underworld'' and ''Orpheus in Hell'' are English names for (), a comic opera with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Hector-Jonathan Crémieux, Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. It was first performed as a two-act "op ...

'' in a similar dress that year.

Ballet master A ballet master (also balletmaster, ballet mistress, ''premier maître de ballet'' or ''premier maître de ballet en chef'') is an employee of a ballet company who is responsible for the level of competence of the dancers in their company. In mo ...

and

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

John D'Auban Frederick John D'Auban (1842 – 15 April 1922) was an English dancer, choreographer and actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Famous during his lifetime as the ballet-master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he is best remembered as the ...

worked with Vaughan, and taught other students including

Alice Lethbridge Alice Matilda Lethbridge (29 January 1866 – 4 February 1948) was an English music hall dancer and Gaiety Girls, Gaiety Girl, best known for her "skirt dance" act. Early life Alice Matilda Lethbridge was born in Clerkenwell, the daughter of Thom ...

, how to perform skirt dances. The dance soon became popular at the Gaiety Theatre in London, where it was routinely performed by the theatre's

chorus line A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. While synchronized dancing indicative of a chorus line was vogue during the first half of th ...

, the "Gaiety Girls".

References

{{Authority control Concert dance Dance in England Novelty and fad dances