Interruptions by Inevitable Petticoats: Skirt Dancing and the Historiographical Problem of Late Nineteenth-Century Dance

Hindson, Catherine, Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film

A craze for the skirt dance and for skirt dancing swept across the stages and dance floors and into the drawing rooms and schoolrooms of Europe and the United States of America during the 1890s.1 Individual skirt dance performers attracted mass fan bases and international celebrity status. The style became a characteristic of variety theatre programmes and was written into plays, musical comedies, pantomimes, skits and burlesques. Skirt dance lessons, instruction manuals and clothing brought the form into the classroom and the domestic space. Fluctuating ideas concerning embodiment, gender and theatricality were embedded in each diverse, ephemeral performance of the skirt dance at the end …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Interruptions by Inevitable Petticoats: Skirt Dancing and the Historiographical Problem of Late Nineteenth-Century Dance. Contributors: Hindson, Catherine - Author. Journal title: Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film. Volume: 35. Issue: 2 Publication date: December 2008. Page number: 48+. © Manchester University Press Jun 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.