Crazy Horse, Paris with Dita Von Teese
Featuring Dita Von Teese's routines and the cabaret set-pieces from the famous French night-club the Crazy Horse, this DVD presents burlesque as a mixture of celebrity, nudity and high production values. A long way from the satirical and community-minded scenes of Scotland, it promotes polish over imagination.
Despite the nudity, the show isn't particularly sexy: by the end, the parade of nude beauties turns the body into just another aesthetic object, and the final routine - featuring a line up of almost identical women in wigs and little else - could almost be a surreal look at the conformity and predictability of the choreography. Of course, the discipline is incredible in the chorus line, and there are moments of humour: Dita's Lazy routine has a languid lilt, even if the DVD sorely lacks the immediacy of live performance.
A solid recording of a high-cost show, Crazy Horse, Paris unfortunately does little to express the ferment and energy of modern cabaret.