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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".

French cabaret

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 Bruant, 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.

The Moulin Rouge was built in 1889 in the red-light district of Pigalle near Montmartre, and is famous for the large red imitation windmill on its roof. Notable performers at the Moulin Rouge have included La Goulue, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril, Mistinguett and Le Pétomane. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted numerous pictures and scenes of night life there.

The Folies-Bergère continued to attract a large number of people until the start of the twentieth century, even though it was more expensive than other cabarets. People felt comfortable at the cabaret: they did not have to take off their hat, could talk, eat and smoke when they wanted to, etc. They did not have to stick to the usual rules of society.

At the Folies-Bergère, as in many cafés-concerts, there were a variety of acts: singers, dancers, jugglers and clowns, and sensations such as the Birmane family, all of whom had beards. Audiences were attracted by the danger of the circus acts (sometimes tamers were killed by their lions) but what happened on stage was not the only entertainment. Those not watching also strolled around and met friends or even prostitutes. At the start of the twentieth century, as war approached, prices rose further and the cabaret became a place for the rich.

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 committed 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.

In the 1960s West German cabaret was centred around Düsseldorf, Munich and Berlin; at the end of the decade the students' movement of May 1968 split opinion on the genre as some old cabaret artists were booed off the stage for being part of the old establishment. In the '70s, new forms of cabaret developed such as the television show Notizen aus der Provinz (Notes from the sticks). At the end of the '80s, political cabaret was an important part of social criticism, with a minor boom at the time of German reunification. In eastern Germany, cabarets had been growing more and more daring in their criticism of politicians in the time leading up to 1989. After reunification, new social problems such as mass unemployment, the privatisation of companies and rapid changes in society meant that cabarets rose in number. Dresden, for example, gained two new cabarets alongside the popular Herkuleskeule.

In the 1990s and at the start of the new millennium, the television and film comedy boom and a lessening of public interest in politics meant that television cabaret audiences in Germany dropped.

Famous cabarets

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

See also

• Café Society

External links

• Els Quatre Gats website
• Folies Bergère website (in French)
• Die Distel website (in German)
• Herkuleskeule website (in German)

dk:Kabaret

• Cabaret