Apache (dance)
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Apache is a highly dramatic dance associated in popular culture with Parisian street culture in the beginning of the 20th century. The name of the dance (pronounced ah-PAHSH, not uh-PATCH-ee, like the English pronunciation of the Native American tribe) is taken from a Parisian street gang (see Apache (gang)), which in turn was named for the American Indian tribe due to the perceived savagery of the hoodlums. The term came to be used more generally to refer to certain vicious elements of the Paris underworld at the beginning of the 20th century.
The dance is very brutal to the woman, and sometimes said to reenact a "discussion" between pimp and prostitute. It includes mock slaps and punches, the man picking up and throwing the woman to the ground, or lifting and carrying her while she struggles or feigns unconsciousness. In some examples, the woman may fight back.
[edit] Depictions
The "Valse des rayons" (also called the "Valse chaloupee") from Jacques Offenbach's ballet "Le Papillon" was used in a 1908 production at the Moulin Rouge and has become the music most associated with the dance.[citation needed]
Olive Oyl and Bluto do the Apache in the old Popeye television cartoons.
An episode of I Love Lucy, The Adagio (season one, episode eleven), revolved around Lucy learning to do an Apache dance.
The famous French 10-part 7-hour silent film Les Vampires (1915, re-released on DVD in 2005) about an Apache gang "Vampires" contains a number of Apache dance scenes performed by real street Apache dancers, rather than actors. A notable detail is that during part of the waltz the man holds firmly onto the woman's hair, rather than her body.
In the 1935 movie Charlie Chan in Paris, Charlie Chan's female agent (played by Dorothy Appleby) is murdered following her performance of an Apache dance.[1]
In the 1947 film Crime Doctor's Gamble, Dr. Robert Ordway (played by with Warner Baxter) visits a seedy Parisian cabaret with an Apache dance sequence. The dance ends with the male dancer twirling the female around by her hair.
An Apache dance also figures in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. When Andrew Lloyd Webber set out to create a more than usually fascinating musical mix and included a wide variety of musical genres in this show, he added a very French number. When Joseph's brothers are explaining their impoverished state, after selling Joseph into slavery and experiencing the seven lean years, they sing about "Those Canaan Days" reminiscing of better days. Included within that number is an Apache Dance, a brief joyous celebration of what once was and a poignant expression of their regret for their actions.[citation needed]
In the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge!, "El Tango de Roxane" is performed as a tango with apache elements.[citation needed]
In the Apocalyptica video I Don't Care, Apache dance is featured in a scene between Adam Gontier and a woman.
An example of an Apache dance number is also seen in Twentieth Century Fox's 1960 film "Can Can" starring Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and Maurice Chevalier.[2][3] The number is performed by Shirley MacLaine along with five male dancers as they toss and thrash her about.
