Paris, the Moulin Rouge, around 1957

The world's most famous cabared opened in October 1889, a few months after the inauguration of the Eiffell Tower. The owners were called Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler. Their first shows were marked by an extravagance and the crazy attractions of Le Pétomane or the parade of a naked Cleopatra surrounded by young women who were just as nude, which caused a scandal. It was a mad atmosphere in which the show was as much on the stage as it was in the theatre. Aristrocrats or thugs, humble Parisians or bourgeois from fashionable neighbourhoods had fun together in a complete euphoria.

La Goulue and Valentin le Désossé, Nine Pattes en l'air, Grille d'Egout, La Môme Fromage, Jane Avril and Yvette Guilbert immortalised by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec emblematically celebrated the dance of the Belle Epoque, or the cancan. The first years of the Moulin-Rouge, a sanctuary of partying and debauchery, remain legendary.

Today, the Moulin-Rouge sill remains a magical site in worldwide cabaret and one of Paris's most emblematic sites.

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