Folies Bergere, naked dancers and boxing kangaroos

The Folies Bergère began in 1869, opening as one of the first major music halls in Paris. Once a hall for operettas, ballets and pantomime, the Folies Bergère became the premier nightspot in Paris and had elaborate and colourful revues that featured dozens of sets and costumes. Montmartre was becoming a hopping and jumping suburb, except for the nightmare of the Franco-Prussian War period (1870-1).

Boxing Kangaroo poster

Then in the 1870s, after the war ended, the Folies Bergère staged vaudevillian acts, displaying varied and exotic talents including trained elephants, snake charmers  and strange clowns. There were "unusual" performances put on by Miss Loie Fuller and Little Tich, very talented English music hall stars and comic dancers. The more exotic, the better! In fact the Folies Bergere shows actively played up the exoticness of persons and objects from other cultures, stretching the boundaries of good taste wherever necessary.

Acrobat crossing Niagra, poster

But most interesting of all, at least to an Australian, was the boxing kangaroo. See the poster Folies-Bergere/Le Plus Nouveau Spectacle /Le Kangourou Boxeur which appeared on Paris walls. It featured a kangaroo boxing with a man in blue tights, red boots, a red waist band and a striped shirt.  Stupid.com told an amazing, if bizarre story. A man from Australia arrived in Paris with an adult kangaroo named Lester. When the Australian claimed Lester could out-box anyone in the ring, people packed into the Folies Bergere; they were keen to watch something so exotic that no-one in Paris had ever seen before. It may not have been High Culture, but it certainly was popular.

When did all this reach its peak? In 1886, the Folies Bergère went under new management which was responsible for staging the biggest revue-style music hall shows.  Fortunately we can still read their programme: the Isola brothers (illusionists), Nala Damajenti (snake charmer), a troupe of real Zulus, our favourite boxing kangaroo, wrestlers, Ira Paine (American marksman), Sampson (a chain breaker!), Captain Costentenus (tattooed with 325 animals), the Scheffers (acrobats), Baggenssen (eccentric clown) and Little Tich (the famous English music hall star). Most of the stars of 'Car Conc' sang at the Folies, namely Paulus, Polin, Yves Guilbert, Polaire and Gaby Deslys.

That same year, 1886, new management introduced Place au Jeunes, a revue featuring chorus girls. It was a great success largely because the chorus girls wore little more than feathers and a smile. In Ambassadeurs Cabaret in Paris, one chorus girl didn't even have feathers. Just a big picture hat, as you can see in Belle Epoque Vintage Posters!

 African animals poster, by Jules Cheret

The audience drank in the theatre’s indoor garden and the bar area, as we can see from the well known paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Manet. But even more importantly, the special nature of the performances was captured on posters that were pasted on the city walls. This exuberant image of the American dancer Loie Fuller captured the spirit of sensuality and excitement in the cabaret culture of fin-de-siècle Paris.  Print-maker and poster designer Jules Chéret made Folies Bergere, and the delectable Loie Fuller, very inviting.

Poster for Folies Bergere, by Jules Cheret, 1893.