>SOLOS AVAILABLE FOR STAGING

Elssler, Fanny

 La Cachucha

Music: Probably Casimir Gide, arranged by John Lanchberry
(No performance tape available. May be dubbed from the video.)
Length: 14 minutes (May benefit from being shortened for performance)
Costume: Spanish style dress
Set: Not necessary but information available at DNB
Notation: Excellent quality, 1981
Consultancy: Not required

The Cachucha is a Spanish solo-dance, better adapted for execution by a lady than by a gentleman. It is danced to the melody of an Andulusian national song containing two parts of eight measures each, to which, for the sake of variety, there has been added a third part of similar duration; the whole is completed by an introduction and a coda.

The celebrated Fanny Elssler, by her wonderful execution, won for this dance a popularity in keeping with its merits. The dance is best performed by mature artists. There is some tricky footwork. It helps to know classical Spanish dance but is not necessary. The clicking of the castanets, which forms so essential a part of the Spanish dances is usually neglected by all save Spanish dancers. Care should be devoted to this feature if it is at all possible. (Notes reproduced, in part, from Zorn's Grammar of the Art of Dancing, Boston, 1905. A reduced facsimile edition is published by Dance Horizons, New York).

Above: Fanny Elssler in La Cachucha. Image reproduced from Bibliothèque Nationale de France/Gallica.