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 is pronounced ah-PAHSH (not ah-PATCH-ee, like the Native American tribe). The dance is named after the nickname of street gang members, Apaches.
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 revolved around Lucy learning to do an Apache dance.[citation needed]
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.
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]
