Textiles and Dress

Folies Bergere at The Tropicana Hotel Las Vegas

Les Folies Bergere was a Las Vegas revue presented at the Tropicana Las Vegas from 1959 to 2009, making it one of the longest-running shows in Las Vegas history. The Folies Bergere revue was derived from the Folies Bergère revue in Paris, with French creative leadership and many cast members involved in its early years. The Tropicana Las Vegas production followed the format of the original Paris Folies Bergere featuring topless showgirls, chorus line dancers, elaborate stage sets with segments of comedy, magic, acrobats, and animal acts. Costumes, sets, and dance styles for many production numbers were based on historical periods, developed using museum research and consultation with costume design specialists, then adapted to accommodate dance choreography. The prominence of showgirls in the production contributed to their association with Las Vegas entertainment during this period. In their most active years, showgirls appeared at hotel openings, promotional events, and in print advertising, and were sometimes photographed alongside city officials such as Mayor Oscar Goodman. The Tropicana produced Folies Bergere during a period when casinos commonly funded large entertainment productions, including some that operated at a loss, to draw visitors to their gaming floors. As casino ownership shifted toward corporate structures in later decades, entertainment divisions were increasingly required to be self-funding, and productions on the scale of Folies Bergere became less common.

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See also

• ▸Birrus
• ▸Elizabeth Okie Paxton
• ▸Detachable collar

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.