Any story about Crazy Horse starts with Alain Bernardin, who founded the famous cabaret in Paris in the early ’50s. Bernardin’s notion of sensuality was influenced by surrealism, from the lighting shades in Man Ray photographs to the colors in the work of Salvador Dali. His idea of feminine beauty was one of rigorous conformity: matching body type, breast size and height. And thus the Crazy Horse show mixed artistic aesthetic with sexual expression. And over it all presided Bernardin, turning the show and the dancers into a type of performance art even offstage. The dancers were given new names and allegedly not allowed to date, and were heavily chaperoned during public appearances and interviews. In Bernardin’s approach, feminine mystery was tied to inaccessibility and secrecy.
Even after Bernardin’s death, when his daughter opened a show at the MGM Grand, the classic Crazy Horse approach was maintained. She would fly in to Vegas a few times a month to weigh the dancers and to make sure the American version in general was keeping up to the Parisian standard.
The women dancers and specialty acts who performed in the show were trained in Paris and brought to the United States before being rotated back out. My one previous interview with a Crazy Horse dancer was chaperoned by Bernardin’s daughter, and the dancer was not allowed to give me any contact information when she wanted me to send her the article I was writing. In fact, years later, after leaving the show and returning to Europe, that dancer looked me up to send an apology note that explained the strict code Crazy Horse enforced.
But times have changed. Crazy Horse in Vegas is no longer owned by the Bernardin family as when the show opened at the MGM. And, without losing touch with the show’s core approach, the new owners are attempting to draw attention to the MGM production in more traditional ways, like guest stars and press events.
And that is how I found myself talking to burlesque queen Dita Von Teese last week at the first-ever open auditions for Crazy Horse. Robin Leach, fellow Vegas writer, was covering the event as well, and he recalled for Von Teese and me once getting a tour from Bernardin of the original Crazy Horse. Leach noted: “If Bernardin were alive none of this would be happening. He insisted on keeping everything mysterious.” Von Teese had her own history with Crazy Horse, having done a guest stint last year in a routine that found her taking a bubble bath onstage both in Crazy Horse Paris and Crazy Horse Las Vegas. Back then she made clear to me her devotion not only to Crazy Horse but also to the history connected to it:
“I’ve been a big fan of the Crazy Horse since I was 17. I read the history of it. I learned that it was open since 1951, and that it is an all-nude cabaret, and that the girls are highly respected in Europe, which is unfathomable in America for a nude dancer. I took myself to Paris the first time when I was 18 or 19 years old, and it was really the first place I went. I’ve seen the show in Paris maybe 20-25 times. Being a Crazy Horse girl would have been a dream come true. But those girls are the most beautiful girls from all over the world. They all have exceptional dance training. It was a real honor and privilege to be part of the show. I think they are the last great showgirls.”
Despite Von Teese’s cameo, the truth is that before becoming famous the closest she ever came to being a Crazy Horse dancer was to work as a stripper in Vegas giving lap dances at the less prestigious Crazy Horse Too. And even now Von Teese is the first to admit that she has the wrong body type for a Crazy Horse girl. Von Teese’s beauty is unique and stylized, whereas Crazy Horse deals in feminine archetypes.
Just before seeing the finalists for the first time, Von Teese told me that she was not looking to change anything about the look of Crazy Horse dancers, only to honor the tradition: “I know what the Crazy Horse standard is. I’ve seen it up close and personal There is a certain Crazy Horse aesthetic: a beautiful face, a certain body shape and style and a really talented and enormously trained dancer.”
FYI: The finalists’ breasts (the show is topless in Vegas and fully nude in Paris) had been examined before the media were invited, and so the last audition was fully clothed. Most of the auditions had already taken place; so by the time the media and Von Teese were presented with the finalists, the original group of 50 applicants had been whittled down to seven. A Crazy Horse executive told me: “These women are all outstanding, or they would not have made it this far.” And among the finalists I recognized dancers from other Vegas shows, including a lead from the recently closed Fashionistas, a former Vegas Rockette. As a result, very little judging was necessary. These were all pros, and it was a matter of taste rather than talent, and the auditions took less than an hour. Though only three winners were to be selected, Crazy Horse and Von Teese wound up picking four women.
Among the winners was 26-year-old local advertising rep and UNLV graduate Krystle Richeson: “I saw the show in Paris four years ago and fell in love with the way they portrayed women in such a beautiful light. It was incredible and creative. When I heard about the American auditions I just had to go. I was elated and excited.” Richeson has danced and trained since she was two years old. But an ankle injury sidelined her career for years, until this opportunity was too enticing to resist. “I just want to dance again. It is hard not being on stage. It is my passion and hopefully my life again.”
Despite appearing in perfect shape, Richeson knows that her years off mean that her body is not what it was when she last worked in dance. And, though it was undetectable to nonprofessionals, Von Teese and the executives all agreed that one of the winners needs to lose some weight before joining the show. Richeson suspects that it may be her. “It could be me. A dancer can always shed a few more pounds and be more fit and more toned. I haven’t danced in four years, so I am not in the best dancer shape I used to be in, and that will be easy to get back into. Look, it is easy to lose a few pounds in two weeks, and it is impossible to get two decades of classical dance experience in two weeks. I am happy Crazy Horse recognized my talent and technical abilities no matter what weight I am.”
Longtime contributing editor Richard Abowitz wrote the Skin column for this paper years ago; he now writes it on a biweekly basis. You can reach him at [email protected].