This little chamber piece-a "poeme dansee"-was originally scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, and strings, before a piano reduction was created. It was composed for the dancer, poet, and painter Valentine de Saint-Point, and was intended to be performed at a festival as the accompaniment to the poem of the same name. The festival, a "Metachoric" festival, was devised by Saint-Point, who sought a closer union between music and dance. Saint-Points' "Metachory" describes a poetic work which incorporates music and dance; however, neither music nor dance are subordinate, but are instead equally dependent upon the poetic idea. Satie was drawn to this esthetic position, and eagerly participated in the creation of Les Pantins dansent.

Les Pantins dansent is a very short piece, with a duration of only a minute and a half. Its most prominent feature is its staccato, march-like rhythm. There are actually two differently composed versions of this work: the first, reconstructed from Satie's sketches, was, according to musicologist Robert Orledge, "too jaunty, expressive, and harmonically unambiguous" to adequately reflect the poem it was to accompany; however, he also notes that neither version of Satie's music fits the poems phrase scheme, and so the poem and music were likely not performed simultaneously. The second version of this piece is the published score.

Les Pantins was composed in the same year as Satie's surrealist lyrical comedy Le Piege de Medusa was written. The play contains seven quirky dances, and the music of Les Pantins is certainly of a similar flavor. Both works belong to what Alfred Cortot referred to as Satie's "period of mystification and eccentricity."



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