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| Melitta Honeycup |
"Burlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration." - says Wikipedia promptly when you look up the word. Some say it is high class stripping or stripping for fat people or not even stripping at all. Theater, acting, dancing,acrobatics, mime, its all in the pot, but is there anything more to it?
Do we know where does it come from? And most of all what does it have to do with Budapest? This city is famous for seedy strip joint not for glamorous variete theaters...Was it so always? Was there an era of a Budapest inhabited by comedians and starlets?
In the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the circle of the 3 now eastern European capitals, Vienna, Prague, Budapest had their own way to name the variete theaters: "Orfeum"-s. This was the time, when operetta got big and set the scene for the future musicals. Imre Kálmán (or more familiarly Emmerich Kálmán) Ferenc Lehár, whose plays have even made to the Broadway, Pongrács Kacsóh, Jenő Huszka and so much more to mentioned have filled the theaters with their light enjoyable music.
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| Kálmán Imre |
When you walk down Nagymező street (the "broadway of Budapest") you can find a statue sitting on a bench facing a quite impressive building, to be specific the number 17. It is the statue of Imre Kálmán facing the house of his beloved Operetta Theater. (the bronze laptop was placed there later by anonymous contemporary artist :)- the legend says).
This was the building to house the first permanent variete of the capital and not to mention the most flashy too. At this time, a good couple of dozens of places in Budapest were awaiting the eager audience for some nightly entertainment.
This building was bought by Somossy Károly, manager of various previous premises used as orfeums. He got the famous architects Fellner and Helmer to renew the building in a way to become suitable for theater plays and dancing and opened it as "The capital's first Orfeum"
From 1894 to 1900 champagne was flowing and some hilarious amounts of money were spent on headline act, the more extravagant the better! In one play the primadonna even entered dressed as a man on horseback to give the goosebumps to the audience... But after 6 years of overwhelming luxury the place went
bancrupt and finally closed down. In 1923 the city decided to give operetta an own house, ever since the building houses the Budapesti Operetta Theater.
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| Moulin Rouge djz.hu |
On the other side of the building we see a familiar decoration, a red mill, under which we can find the entrance of the Hungarian version of the "Moulin Rouge", but dont get misguided, you will not find revue dancers dressed in almost nothing covered by colorful feather fans .
A supposedly high-class night club for the hip of the city was erected in the winter garden of the old "First Orfeum" - no shows or showgirls around there.
In the last two years Europe experienced a boom in the neo-burlesque scene from London to Helsinki and became a well-known phenomenon again more than a 100 years after its birth, coming back from the USA back to the old continent to reconquer.*
Burlesque goes back hundreds of years as theatrical genre in Europe, yet it was in the 19th century when it emerged with variete and vodeville and became what we know now as burlesque. This included sriptease dancing, comedy act, singing and even acrobatics, not many know, but in 1901 a short film was made of strong woman called Charmion doing a trapeze disrobing act!
But what about Budapest again? Well, you have the luck to be informed by the only neo-burlesque performer born in the city :). Some say its the most difficult to succeed in your own country and I have to agree with that, after having travelled Europe from Barcelona to Helsinki performing burlesque spiced up with circus arts I have to admit I have not performed on a Hungarian stage yet...
So what do we have here?
There are independently working theater and circus groups, but not many places willing to house them, it has only been the last years that some so-called "Alkotóházak/Creation Centers" (for example in Tűzraktér) have given a hand to the new generation of artists to create and share the art, but there is still a long way to go till we achieve the fame of the turn of the century...
Broadway of budapest nagyobb térképen való megjelenítése
* Neo-burlesque evolved in the 90's with such names as Dirty Martini, The Pontani Sisters, Catherine D'Lish or the most know for the masses Dita Von Teese. Now in Europe we are about to have the 5th London Burlesque Week run by Chaz Royal, it is without a doubt the biggest burlesque event in Europe. It is a must if you are in London in April. There is also a great weekly event in Zurich, Switzerland called "Ohlala!Cherie" with a carefully picked cast of the best performers of Europe such as Loulou D'Vil, Kitty BangBang, Lada Redstar. In London you must go and see the queen of the grotesque Empress Stah!
http://www.maciva.hu/en/index.html
http://www.trafo.hu/
http://www.godorklub.hu/
www.melittahoneycup.com
http://www.trafo.hu/
http://www.godorklub.hu/
www.melittahoneycup.com
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