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For other meanings of "Cabaret" see the disambiguation page

Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue - a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting around the tables (often dining or drinking) watching the performance. The turn of the 19th century introduced a revolutionized cabaret culture with such performers including the spectacular Josephine Baker and the legendary infamous Brazilian drag performer João Francisco dos Santos (aka Madame Sata), both of African descent. The venue itself can also be called a "cabaret". These performances could range from political satire to light entertainment, each being introduced by a Master of Ceremonies, or MC.

The term is a French word for the taprooms or cafés, where this form of entertainment was born, as a more artistic type of café-chantant. It is derived from Middle Dutch cabret, through Old North French camberette, from Late Latin camera. It basically means "small room".

The first cabaret was opened in 1881 in Montmartre, Paris; Rodolphe Salís' "cabaret artistique". Shortly after it was founded it was renamed "Le Chat Noir" (The Black Cat). It became a locale in which up-and-coming cabaret artists could try out their new acts in front of their peers before they were acted in front of an audience. The place was a great success, visited by important people of that time such as Alphonse Allais, Jean Richepin and Aristide Brunt, as well as people from all walks of life: women of high society, tourists, bankers, doctors, journalists, etc. The Chat Noir was a place where they could get away from work. In 1887 the cabaret was closed due to the bad economic situation which made amusements of this kind seem vulgar.

German-speaking cabaret

Twenty years later, Ernst von Wolzogen founded the first German cabaret, later known as "Buntes Theater" (colourful theatre). All forms of public criticism were banned by a censor on theatres in the German Empire, however. This was lifted at the end of the First World War, allowing the cabaret artists to deal with social themes and political developments of the time. This meant that German cabaret really began to blossom in the 1920s and 1930s, bringing forth all kinds of new cabaret artists such as Werner Fink at the Katakombe, Karl Valentin at the Wien-München, and Cläre Waldorf. Some of their texts were written by great literary figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner and Klaus Mann.

When the Nazi party came to power in 1933, they started to repress this intellectual criticism of the times. Cabaret in Germany was hit badly: in 1935 Werner Fink was briefly imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp; at the end of that year Kurt Tucholsky commited suicide, and nearly all German-speaking cabaret artists fled into exile in Switzerland, France, Scandinavia or the USA. What remained in Germany was a state-controlled cabaret where jokes were told or the people were encouraged to keep their chins up.

When the war ended, the occupying powers ensured that the cabarets portrayed the horrors of the Nazi regime. Soon, various cabarets were also dealing with the government, the Cold War and the Wirtschaftswunder: the Tol(l)leranten in Mainz, the Kom(m)ödchen in Düsseldorf and the Münchner Lach- und Schießgesellschaft in Munich. These were followed in the 1950s by television cabaret.

In the GDR, the first state cabaret was opened in 1953, Berlin's Die Distel. It was censored and did not criticise the state.

Famous cabarets include:

• Moulin Rouge and Lapin Agile in Paris, France
• Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich
• Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona, Spain

dk:Kabaret

• Cabaret