Crazy Horse Paris reigns at MGM Grand
The world-famous Crazy Horse has been a glimmering nightspot on the Paris landscape since 1951.The saucy burlesque cabaret show has its first permanent home in the United States at the MGM Grand, causing a French revolution on the Las Vegas entertainment scene.
MGM Grand’s Crazy Horse Paris debuted directly from Paris at the hotel and casino complex in June 2001 as “La Femme.” The adults-only show brings a French sensibility that combines the elegant with the erotic, and it celebrates beautiful women, dressing them in rich hues and textured lighting designs. True to the intent of the creator of the original Crazy Horse, Alain Bernardin, the cabaret celebrates L’Art du Nu (the artistry of the nude).
“’MGM Grand’s Crazy Horse Paris’ combines the ever-increasing level of sophistication of Las Vegas shows with the city’s world-renowned history of featuring beautiful women in its shows,” said Richard Sturm, MGM Mirage President/COO of Entertainment and Sports. “Crazy Horse’ brings the French reverence for sensuality and the famed Parisian sense of style to Las Vegas.”
The unmistakable trademark of the Crazy Horse girls is the cambre du corps, the curve of the body. The back is deeply arched to exaggerate a woman’s curves and, to complete this youthful image, the chest is pushed forward and out and the shoulders back, magnifying the arcs of the body seen from any angle.
In the 1960s, influenced by the French New Wave and Pop Art, Bernardin, an artist in his day, devised a cabaret show in which his figures became what he called “living pictures,” using one or more dancers. Each number became an individual show with its own choreography, set and lighting. Dancing and singing, the dance troupe, in various stages of undress, perform both synchronized chorus lines and seductive solos.
Except for one, all 14 dancers in Crazy Horse Paris are members of the original Paris dance troupe. The exception? The first-ever American dancer, Kristal D’Arc, who entered the show in early 2009.
Trained in ballet, they perfectly integrate the sensuous choreography of their performance with the lighting, creating a mesmerizing effect and capturing Bernardin’s true genius — the ability to re-invent the female form as human art.
The production is exactly the same as the one currently playing on Paris’ fashionable Avenue George V. Paris' Crazy Horse has drawn a long list of international celebrities over the past 58 years, among them, President John F. Kennedy, Salvador Dali, Madonna, Warren Beatty, Sophia Loren, Eric Clapton, Elizabeth Taylor, Sting and Elvis Presley.
- by Bobbie Katz, Las Vegas Reporter for HelloMetro
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