Valentin le désossé

[3] According to legend, he danced 39,962 waltzes, 27,220 quadrilles, 14,966 polkas and mazurkas, and 1,000 lancers for a total of 83,112 performances[clarification needed] on the stage of the Moulin Rouge.

Popular in French music halls and cabarets throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, it derived from the chahut, a rowdy dance performed at public ballrooms by students, working girls, and young clerks.

With no set steps, it permits wild inventiveness of movement--spectacular leaps, high kicks, cartwheels, and jump splits.

The popularity of the dance with young people began to fade in the mid-nineteenth century, but it was taken up, with great success, by performers in cabarets and music halls such as the Casino de Paris and the Moulin Rouge.

[7] It usually featured a bevy of female dancers wearing long, flaring skirts, flouncing petticoats, and black stockings, held up by garters.