The Moulin Rouge has a history as a cabaret dating back to the 6th October 1889 when Joseph Oller opened it.
There is no doubt the cabaret has, throughout its time been a crowd puller. “As soon as the cabaret opened it attracted crowds, appealing to Parisians who were looking for the extravagant.” Anne Rohan, 2009. “ For 110 years, the most legendary cabaret in the world has welcomed millions of spectators who have come to admire the famous shows”
www.123europe.com
Today the cabaret is world famous, but what are the factors that have attributed to that fame?
The Moulin Rouge is famous for being the birthplace of the French dance, the cancan.
People wishing to see this dance in it’s original home have been coming to the cabaret for the past century and it is still possible to see the cancan today.
“This dance is still the main feature of the shows today.” Wikapedia.
The cancan has been drawing people to the cabaret and it is one of the main attractions of the cabaret.
It is also known that the French artist Henry Toulouse-Loutrec{1864-1901} immortalized the French cancan{moulin rouge website} and according to Rohan{2009} “was himself a faithful customer.”
Toulouse-Loutrec was a post-impressionist painter and The Moulin Rouge along with the Parisian area of Montmartre where the cabaret is based are the subject of many of his paintings.
As well as being publicized by the Lautrec paintings, the cabaret has boosted it’s publicity by inviting famous people to perform on it’s stage. La Goulue {real name Louise Webber} was known as the queen of Montmatre. Her speciality was to drink the customers’ champagne between high kicks, which is why she was named the La Goulue {the glutton}. La Goulue was the subject of one particular Toulouse-Lautrec painting “One evening in December 1891, about three thousand copies of this poster were pasted on walls across Paris.” The poster advertises the Moulin Rouge dance hall and its featured performer La Goulue." By advertising a specific celebrity rather than anonymous beauties, Lautrec infused his poster with star power. The poster created a sensation, and fuelled the popularity of both La Goulue and Lautrec."{ N.G.A 2005} This poster was a sucessful amalgamation of the Famous guest and of Lautrecs paintings two of the things that have attribited to the cabarets fame.
Other performers include, Misinguett, {real name Jeanne Borgeois} who was famous for her risqué cabaret routines, she first appeared at The Moulin Rouge in 1907, going on to become the highest paid female performer in the world at the time. In 1919, her legs were insured for 500,000 Francs. Her signature song was “mon homme” recorded in 1916. Barbra Streisland made the English version “my man” famous in the “Funny girl movies.
More recent stars that have performed on the stage here have included French singer Edith Piaf. Frank Sinatra, world-renowned dancer. And Liza Minelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Elton John and Josephine Baker. {Travel tips.com 2009}
There have also been in total six movies made with the title “Moulin Rouge”. Edward Andre Dupont directed the First in 1928. The following movies were released in 1934. 1939,1944,1952 and not forgetting the smash hit directed by Baz Luhrmann, staring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor released in 2001.
The movie was released worldwide in 70 countries, and made $177 million. {IMBD} The name Moulin Rouge became household and the cabaret become known by millions more.
The cabaret used the release of the film to show the world what they could do traveling around and showing excerpts of the show.
“We traveled a lot for the premiere of Moulin Rouge, the movie - In Cannes, in London - for Prince Charles, Vienna, gala in Canada with Air France, Hong Kong in May, we are going to Australia in August.” Fanny Rabase, 2003, publicist, The Moulin Rouge.
Since the film was released in 2001, the cabaret has become more of a household name but the cabaret have worked towards publicizing itself since it opened, firstly with the help of the paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec. And with the continuous performances of famous guests aimed at boosting the profile of the cabaret.
I think that this is a very intelligent piece of writing. I did find it full of information however for me I will be honest and say I don’t enjoy reading academic work. There was so much to read about and I’m not sure if this is what put me off. You talk about so many topics in one piece such as the dancers, paintings, films and history. I’m not saying your piece should be changed, I just found that you had written about so many topics that I found myself skipping to the parts that I was interested in like the cancan and Jeanne Borgeois. I think that maybe a topic about the costumes in the show would have been really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI see that you have used all internet sources too; I think this is fine as you have still researched your work even if you did use the net and not visit the library. If people are working and dancing in countries where there isn’t an English library or maybe on a cruise ship where the library is limited how does anyone expect people to use sources beyond the internet?
Thanks Abbi,
ReplyDeleteI really struggled in writing this as it was my least favorite style and extremely hard to find quotes.
I too agree there is a lot of information here but once i had started the piece on that topic I felt that i had to cover every angle,back them up and try and link them. It is interesting what you say about too many topics ect. Was it clear to you what I was writing about? as i have noted this is important in academic writing. So please let me know.
I do need to edit this piece and improve the referencing.
It is hard to reference sources other than the internet. I don't have easy access to the libary and work aboard quite often so I rely on the internet.
Tara.
I think that its structure and grammar is good and think that the piece is interesting in parts. Different people will be interested in different parts of the piece; however I’m not interested in the history section or the paintings part. I would have liked to know more about the Cancan and the costumes as after reading your descriptive piece I was enticed by them and thought this would have been an interesting topic to read about and easy to write as you have danced there for 18 months.
ReplyDeleteAs for referencing I think it is good, you should read my post on “A little debate is forming” and read how the conversation about internet sources is going!!
I think it is interesting to see how the academic piece is most people’s least favorite piece to write.