News Post: The Amazing Story of the Crazy Horse in Paris

'In 1951, le striptease was an import from America, more daring than the high-kicking kitsch of French burlesque. Bernardin loved American popular culture, loved women, and seems to have particularly liked the way their naked bodies were rendered in an almost abstract fashion by surrealist artists such as Magritte. An amateur artist and friend of Marcel Duchamp, Bernardin was, in his own way, a dirty old Dada-ist, applying an arty European gloss to a product of the fleshpots of America.'

Wait until you read about their strict guidelines for their dancers!

'Tattoos and silicon implants are banned. This is now restricting the club’s traditional international recruitment policy, Deissenberg explains, because the British girls who used to make up about half of the Crazy Horse’s roster tend nowadays to have had something inked into some part of their body. No Brits currently feature in the Paris show, which is largely staffed by French former ballet dancers. When the Crazy Horse sends an export version of itself over to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, it can’t take on any local dancers, because they’ve all had cosmetic surgery.'

French Undressing

Because I have nothing remotely like photos from the Crazy Horse, here's yet another video:

Comments

Burlesque Baby said…
Wow, tattoos and implants are banned? I guess they like their girls natural!
They also have a really specific technical issue, which is that they have segements where the women have light shows played on their bodies. Tattoos would mess that up, and if the women's bodies weren't extremely similar to each other (they will also all be wearing the same headpieces or wigs), the effect would be quite different. It's not just what they want the women's bodies to look like but what they want the entire stage to look like from the audience point of view.

It's an interesting paradox because the women all blend into each other in the group numbers on account of the way their bodies are objectified as canvases, so when they do their individual acts (there are solos and duets in addition to the group numbers, and each of the ladies is identified individually and her personality described during one section of the show) the ladies' personalities really stand out due to the contrast.

The idea that it's all just about a female body ideal might be a bit misleading. Not that it's egalitarian at all in that sense, just that their idea goes beyond thinking "This girl's hot and this girl's not."

That said...if I got thrown out of a show every time I gained or lost an inch, I'd be toast!

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