At 12, avenue George-V, a stone's throw from the Champs-Elysées, the brand is highlighted with a provocative mouth.
Passionate red, like the giant heart-shaped sign on the sidewalk.
Inside, this Crazy Horse favorite color is displayed from floor to ceiling: in the reception hall, the changing rooms, the performance hall, up to the unusual two-seater toilets, intended for chatting between dancers.
At lunchtime, the temple of Parisian nights and naked bodies seems very calm.
However, behind the scenes, everyone is busy.
At the start of autumn, the countdown has been on for two weeks.
Soon begins one of the last rehearsals of the show “Totally Crazy!
".
In the midst of a health slump, the next resumption of this dazzling best of designed, in 2017, as an “anti-crisis, anti-blues and anti-gloom” remedy is timely.
"In ordinary life, most of us are discreet and introverted"
"Dancing boxes - Forbidden to enter.
Even the house technicians are not allowed to go through the door leading to the holy of holies.
Behind, a narrow corridor serves mini-boxes separated by partitions.
In rehearsal outfit, black high-waisted panties and brassiere, a girl smooths her comrade's hair with an iron, seated facing the mirror.
Wigs and hanging baskets go hand in hand with the red stilettos designed by Christian Louboutin… and the comfort slides for breaks.
In the collective box, two young women dressed in the Crazy red bathrobe put on make-up with a sure gesture.
If the shade of the eye liner matches everyone's eye color, that of the lipstick, created exclusively for the cabaret, is the same for the whole company.
Mika Do puts on make-up in the collective box of the sacrosanct dressing room of the dancers./LP/Olivier Arandel
The dancers experienced their long forced rest rather well, a first since the opening of the place in 1951. In addition to dance or make-up classes given live on the Crazy site, each one practiced regularly gym or yoga, thus making less difficult the return to training.
Three days before the recovery - which will prove to be ephemeral - the excitement prevails over the few aches.
"Making people dream is so magical," enthuses Starlette O'Ara, so baptized in reference to the heroine of Gone with the Wind.
It is also an outlet, because in ordinary life most of us are quiet and introverted.
When girls are walking down the street, they don't necessarily look Crazy.
But once on stage, they become magnificent.
"
To join the troupe, she left without regret, at 23, a career as a ballet dancer.
Mika Do, who owes her stage name to her Asian origins, also went through classical lessons - a compulsory condition to join the troupe.
She then branched off to the cabaret and dreamed, “since the age of 16”, of entering Crazy Horse Paris.
Interpreter of several solos, she relishes the happiness of "working with creators and guest stars".
Classical dance or Pilates lessons paid for by the house
For the moment, it is a question of putting back in legs the final number, led drum beating by nine dancers.
On the six by three meter plateau - barely the size of a small platform - good humor reigns.
Coco Vanille, Bamby Splish-Splash, Kika Revolver and the others warm up while chatting.
Splits, flexibilities… Apart from the black ankle boots laced high on the calf, for the moment one would imagine oneself in any dance company.
On September 28, the Crazy Horse dancers rehearse around the pole dance bars./ LP / Olivier Arandel
Sitting in the room, stage director Svetlana Konstantinova, a former member of the Latin Paradise, suggests a slight change of tempo.
Valid!
Smiles, the girls set the pace.
"Straighten your leg, the goal is to move the buttocks, not the knees," says Svetlana.
She puts on the music, a disco hit from the 1980s: in the blink of an eye, the waists arch, the bodies wrap around the pole dance bars, the “girls” are sure of themselves, provocative, suggestive.
Irresistible!
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Apart from the daily rehearsals, each one attends several times a week, outdoors, classical dance or Pilates classes paid for by the house.
However, “more than the technique, it is the artist that counts.
They are real performers, ”says General Manager Andrée Deissenberg, who came to watch the spinning.
The costume designer and the caring general manager
Elegant blonde and straightforward American language, the one who was marketing manager for Cirque du Soleil is the keeper of the Crazy spirit.
A "unique mixture in the world of celebration, light and femininity", which depends on the physique of the dancers - between 1.68 and 1.73 meters, from 48 to 60 kilos, plump buttocks, small breasts.
But also to their aptitude to “become stars”, and to personalities like the choreographer Philippe Decouflé or the star of erotic glamor Dita Von Teese, invited to create shows.
On September 28, our photographer crossed, a rare thing, the door to the boxes of the Crazy Horse dancers, in the footsteps of Starlette O'Ara (above) and Mika Do (below) ./ LP / Olivier Arandel
Indispensable to the success of the show, other specialists work in the shadows.
In his den cluttered with wires and screens, the general manager Cyril Insergueix is responsible for "sending the images" and checking that synchronized lights and sounds "go off at the right time".
"We are taking back our marks," he slips, moved.
For her part, costume designer Céline Juhel, a seamstress meter around her neck, readjusts the strassed thong of a thong.
And corrects in passing a received idea: no, the girls are not dressed only in light.
They mostly wear handmade, bespoke micro-costumes, like “a ribbon on a gift package”.
Three days later, the scarlet heart in front of the entrance to the cabaret sparkles and resounds with a muffled beat.
The audience, duly spaced, takes place in the room.
As a couple or as a family, the spectators came to celebrate forty years of marriage or an anniversary.
All from Ile-de-France, since foreigners and provinces have deserted due to the pandemic.
Behind the stage curtain, the stage managers check the sets and conveyor belts one last time.
The "girls" adjust their long black gloves.
The driver gives the starting signal.
Before the Covid-19 comes again to disturb the party.