There aren’t many jobs in which a cartwheel can make or break your dreams. But at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the ability to do the move with confidence and grace means everything. “A girl can be a great dancer, but if you can do a cartwheel on your left side and not your right? You won’t get the job,” Fanny Rabasse, the venue’s press manager, tells me. After all, there’s a high, 134-year-old standard to uphold.
Since 1889, the Moulin Rouge has been a landmark of Parisian live entertainment, famed for its high-kicking can-can line, luxurious costumes, topless female dancers and, of course, the red windmill that gave it its name. Thanks to Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, the Pigalle venue was immortalised in the imaginations of a younger, international audience, with fans indulging in the lavish romance of Nicole Kidman’s courtesan, Satine, and Ewan McGregor’s poor poet, Christian.
