Are you planning some European travel this summer? Me too. Getting from A to B by train has never felt so exciting, with a thrilling mix of new routes, classic journeys, and under-the-radar options to choose from.
25.04.2024 - 22:47 / lonelyplanet.com
France-based travel journalist Anna Richards understands the allure of the Moulin Rouge and why that may be your first preference for cabaret while in Paris - but here's why she thinks you should consider the Crazy Horse.
Cabaret dancer Lola Kashmir doesn’t divulge her “real” name to me.
When dancers perform their debut show at the Crazy Horse in Paris, they’re given a “Crazy Girls” name. Chosen for them based on their preferences, origins and dance style, this identity becomes so entrenched that even during a night out with her fellow dancers, Kashmir’s stage name never slips.
Such illusion and mystique are what the Crazy Horse is all about.
You’ve surely heard of the Moulin Rouge, where dancers high-kick in petticoats and tights. At the Crazy Horse, by contrast, performers take the stage dressed in no more than light and shadows.
The famous Moulin Rouge first opened its doors in 1889. Its prevalence in popular culture – the joint loaned its name to not only Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 blockbuster but also John Huston’s 1952 musical – have made the theater and its illuminated red windmill famous the world over. (Even though the sails of that iconic windmill collapsed recently for unclear reasons, the show goes on while new ones get installed.)
In France and across the globe, most cabaret clubs mimic the traditional format popularized at the Moulin Rouge: scantily clad women (and some men) perform a sequence of dances as the audience enjoys dinner. The showstopper is the French cancan, an energetic fiesta of leg kicking, shimmying petticoats and high-pitched whoops.
Like the Moulin Rouge itself, the dance was born in Montmartre, invented by 19th-century washerwomen. Sick of being bossed around by their husbands, they expressed their discontent by transforming the menial chores they had to do into dance moves. Many of the signature routines of the cancan derive from movements associated with such housework: serving drinks to thirsty husbands, scrubbing laundry and even making condiments. To this day, cabaret dancers learn and perform le tire-bouchon (corkscrew), le lavoir (washhouse) and la mayonnaise.
But you won’t find such moves at the Crazy Horse, which first sashayed its way onto France’s cabaret scene 60 years after its better-known progenitor.
“The style of dance at the Crazy Horse is different, and completely unique,” says Kashmir. “It’s a combination of cabaret and burlesque.”
When Alain Bernardin opened the Crazy Horse in 1951, he seemed to seek every chance to distinguish the club from its rival in the 18th arrondissement. The Moulin Rouge was in higgledy-piggledy, artsy Montmartre, full of bohemians, radicals and bon vivants (and a fair share of sex shops, too). The Crazy Horse, on the other hand, has an
Are you planning some European travel this summer? Me too. Getting from A to B by train has never felt so exciting, with a thrilling mix of new routes, classic journeys, and under-the-radar options to choose from.
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