What is Crazy Horse Paris, where Blackpink’s Lisa will perform? 6 things to know about the cabaret club that’s hosted Rihanna to Salvador Dalí – and its dancers wear Balenciaga and Louboutin
- Lisa Manoban is not the first celebrity to perform Crazy Horse’s legendary cabaret numbers – Beyoncé, Pamela Anderson and Dita Von Teese have all done ‘Le Crazy’s’ dances before her
- The show’s performers are held to high standards too: dancers must be classically trained ballerinas to audition, and are not allowed to exceed 173cm in height so they fit on the venue’s tiny stage
So what’s the truth about the famous venue, its history, dancers and previous celebrity collaborations? From Christian Louboutin’s involvement to Pamela Anderson’s Valentine’s Day performance, Beyoncé’s music video and more, we take a look behind the scenes to find out the truth ahead of Lisa’s show dates from September 28-30.
1. Crazy Horse has a proud history
Crazy Horse was founded in 1951 by artist Alain Bernardin. Situated in a prestigious location just off the Champs Élysées, it sat beside fashion houses YSL, Givenchy and Balenciaga, per its website. Bernardin was fascinated with American burlesque showgirls and decided it was time to take the cabaret show Paris was famous for – like the one at Moulin Rouge – and turn it into an art form, per New York Post.
As reported in Artefact magazine, Bernardin was a visionary at the time, “integrat[ing] elements of the New Wave, new realism, pop art and fashion” into his shows in a way that would revolutionise the industry.
Crazy Horse’s current chief creative officer Andrée Deissenberg agrees: “Alain Bernardin was fascinated by femininity in general. It wasn’t about sex; it was about seduction, about making the mind work. For him, imagination was everything. And he created an art form out of it,” she said in an interview in 2017.
2. Dancer auditions are brutal
Bernardin was famously a perfectionist who chose the music and even sketched the show’s costumes, according to Schön magazine. And while Bernardin is no longer alive, the tradition continues. “All the dancers that we hire are classical dancers because we want the pointy toes,” Deissenberg said in 2017, adding that the women undertake three months of training once they’ve passed auditions to become so-called “Crazy Girls”.