Pour toutes les saisons

With grateful thanks to Henri Toulouse Lautrec (and his artwork) for inspiring me.
For more information visit here

Voulez vous Can-Can

Having read up on burlesque, I decided to visit Le Moulin Rouge.
It's an option I suppose. I like to dance.

History of Can-Can

Can-can first made it's appearance in the working class ballrooms of Paris in 1830.

Further reading shows:

"who knew that the French cancan had revolutionary roots, and the dance is coded, physically coded? It's a language. It's a grammar among a group of people...it was incredibly defiant but coded so the dancers wouldn't all end up in the Bastille. The cancan is entertainment, but behind the entertainment is a much deeper and smarter meaning"

More reading

"Many composers have written music for the cancan. The most famous music (and probably the most well-known melody from any opera) is French composer Jacques Offenbach's galop infernal in Orpheus in the Underworld (1858).

Other examples occur in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (1905) and Cole Porter's Can-Can (1954). The cancan has often appeared in ballet, most notably Léonide Massine's La Boutique Fantasque (1919) and Gaîté Parisienne. A particularly fine example of a French Cancan can be seen at the climax of Jean Renoir's 1954 film of the same name."

Don't put your daughter on the stage..

The Theatre in Caledon Penzance.

I wonder what entertainment will be on offer? The Theatre isn't officially open as yet (neither is the sim), but I had a wander by on my rounds. Duster in hand, of course. There is a bit of construction dust but as it's work in progress, I didn't spend much time cleaning as only more dust will appear.

I sneaked a look inside and my, it does look very grand.

Research shows that Burlesque was popular in the Victorian Era.

Originally, burlesque featured shows that included comic sketches, often lampooning the social attitudes of the upper classes, alternating with dance routines. It developed alongside vaudeville and ran on competing circuits. In its heyday, burlesque bore little resemblance to earlier literary burlesques which parodied widely known works of literature, theater, or music.

Possibly due to historical social tensions between the upper classes and lower classes of society, much of the humor and entertainment of burlesque focused on lowbrow and ribald subjects.

The genre originated in the 1840s, early in the Victorian Era, a time of culture clashes between the social rules of established aristocracy and a working-class society.

The popular burlesque show of the 1870s though the 1920s referred to a raucous, somewhat bawdy style of variety theater. It was inspired by Lydia Thompson and her troupe, the British Blondes, who first appeared in the United States in the 1860s.

Surprisingly, early Burlesque was produced, written and performed mostly by women.

Here are some interesting links to read .

The History of Burlesque
http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm

Popular Entertainment in Victorian Britain
http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/index.html

Important Dates in Burlesque History
http://www.anatomyofburlesque.com/datesframe.htm

c.1890 Young Man's scrap book of pictures
http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/galleryimages/1890sloperia/index.ht