Where Did Burlesque and Cabaret Dancing Come From?
Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the particular performance venue: restaurants and nightclubs. This form of entertainment is nothing new at all. Civilizations as early as the Greeks and Egyptians held forms of plays and theater, what we might call “Sketch Comedy.” The word itself, “Cabaret,” is a French word for the taprooms or cafes where this form of entertainment was born. It is derived from Middle Dutch “cabret”, through Old North French “camberette”, it essentially means “small room.” The performers are in close quarter with their audience, who are usually dining and/or drinking while enjoying the show. As the word suggests, the venue itself can also be called Cabaret. The turn of the 20th century introduced and revolutionized the cabaret culture. In the 1840s, boundaries of cabaret were pushed with the introduction of the burlesque genre. This early Victorian culture-shock clashed heavily with accepted societal
