Tuesday, November 06, 2007

APACHE DANCE, ANYONE?





What do you guys think of Apache Dancing? That's the dance where the sleazy boyfriend beats up his prostitute girlfriend because she won't share her money with him.




Everybody associates the dance with France but I'll bet it got started in Spain. The Spanish have a flare for this sort of thing. Look at Flamenco and Tango...or is tango purely an Argentine dance?











Here's (above)a must-see apache dance from TouTube. Don't be put off by the silly beginning. It heats up real fast.





For purists here's (above) a clip from a Parisian apache from 1934. Nifty, huh?

23 comments:

Diego Fernetti said...

Hi Eddie! In fact I believe that apache dancing was purely a Hollywood invention... it's a sort of stylized tango, with fake Frenchmen sprinkled upon. Nothing like that is or was danced here (I'm from Argentina). In fact, the famous scene where Rodolfo Valentino dances "tango", look hilarious down here, especially for the odd wardrobe he uses.
Of course, these images being known all over the world have modified a bit the way that professional tango dancers design their shows for worldwide audiences.
"Hernando's Hideaway" is a lovely song too, but it's far, far from real tango or "milonga", the specific genre of tango that's played for dancing.

DEANIUS said...

Great clip... Some of the hits look like they really hurt...! A lot more creative than some modern film fight scenes I think...

Charlie said...

I always wondered what that dance was, thanks!

Harman Ising cartoons are full of them!

Max Ward said...

That is probably the most fun you could have dancing

Lester Hunt said...

Wow, it's hard to imagine anything more "politically incorrect" than the Apache dance. Treating male-on-female domestic battery as an artform (and possibly as a joke), etc. That last video clip might be the only one I've ever seen that wasn't (even in part) a parody of the form. Thanks Eddie!

MikeSnj said...

I'm so gonna do that next time I go to a night club.

Kelly Toon said...

omigosh!! that's amazing the way they just fling themselves down and tumble and fall . . . very very skilled! They should both be wearing the NO hat for added effect though :D

Lynsey Schaschke said...

Wow! What a dance! Makes me wish I was a dancer now, 'cos I'd love to learn how to do it. But then again, they do get knocked about a bit (especially the female partner), so maybe it'd be safer to just watch.

By the way, I'd like to tell you I've been reading your blog for a while now,and I love it. You share such interesting things, a lot of which I never even knew about! Thank you for imparting your wisdom upon us!

pappy d said...

I think that's the first apache dance I've ever seen in live action.

So romantic!

But I'm puzzled. What do you mean by HER money.

I.D.R.C. said...

Keep your pimp hand strong, pappy d.

Some Apache dance background:

http://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3aposh.htm

Katie said...

WOW!!!! Thanks for posting those, Eddie! The videos are amazing! That girl sure is tough!

Pete Emslie said...

Here's a funny parody of the dance on "The Muppet Show" with guest star, Rita Moreno. This is one of my favourite episodes, as I thought Rita Moreno really "got" The Muppets more than some other guest stars, with both this sequence and the one where she sings "Fever" with Animal accompanying her on drums showing off her great flair for physical comedy and terrific timing. Unfortunately, it can't be embedded, but you can find it here on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fee8TeGNzws

David Germain said...

Harman Ising cartoons are full of them!

Two such WB toons with this dance in them are It's Got Me Again (by Rudolf Ising c. 1932) and He Was Her Man (by Friz Freleng c. 1937). There may be others, but that's all I can think of right now.

mr_pumba said...

I think this is where they got the idea for "pro" wrestling.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

IDRC: Thanks for the link! I kinda thought the Apache was using tango music!

Pete: Thanks for the funny link! Boy, Moreno has a nice legs!

David: It strikes me that there are several more but I can't think of any names!

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Dfernetti: Thanks for clearing that up! You can't blame Hollywood for tweaking the Tango form. It's such an appealing dance that everyone who tries it wants to customize it!

Diego Fernetti said...

The less tweaked, and yet, the most bizarre tango dancing scene was that of "Scent of a Woman" with Al Pacino who is a blind man on the movie! The name of the tango they play during the scene is "Por una Cabeza" (tr. "For one head") and the lyrics are about a lost horse race bet. Romantic, isn't it?

Ian Merch! said...

Wow, that first clip looked REALLY painful. I can't imagine how many takes they had to do to get that right, but sweet jesus that didn't look like it was much fun to be on the ass end of that ass kicking.

Anonymous said...

The Apache dance is from Paris. It was develop by two of Paris's famous dancehall performers. It was a take off of what they had seen in the brothel saloons in the Paris slums.The way the Apaches(Street thugs and pimps)manhandled and in some later versions, fought their Molls and Hookers
Here some other films
1)Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation
2)Can Can
3) Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy
4)Charlie Chan in Paris
5) The Four poster (GREAT ANIMATION!)
The Apache is a Waltz belive it or not

Anonymous said...

Apache Dance started from a newspaper account of a street brawl between two men and a woman outside a nightclub in Montmarte in Paris that they said was as savage as Apache indians. It became popular in across Europe and in the U.S. as an exhibition dance around 1904. Some of the Apache gangsters were actually hired out to dance with upper class women in the early 1900s. There is an account in Germany (stated in New York Times article 1913) of a woman breaking her back dancing this dance.

Anonymous said...

The name apache came from that inciden , not the dance

Anonymous said...

The apache dance - (pronounced -Apashee) origintated with a French dancer in the early 1900 in Paris.
She invented lots of new dances - all of them called 'Cakewalks' - which were very popular.
The word Apashee means low-life - or underworld - referring to the criminal underclass in Paris at the time.

It is not intended to show the violence towards women - so much as the woman triumphing against it by being strong in herself - and sometimes she will fight back strongly in the dance.
The basic idea is that her spirit triumphs.

The dancer who choreographed this dance originally was called Minguestte.

I'm pretty sure you can find all this on the internet - but I learned it many years ago in ballet class in London.

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