Dubai Rehearsals Put Paris Cabaret's New Stage to the Test

The velvet armchairs are in, the lighting rig is tested, and nearly 500 costume pieces have arrived at the resort auditorium on The Palm. On Nov 12, the Crazy Horse cabaret is scheduled to open its first permanent show abroad, and the final rehearsals in Dubai now come down to one question: does the production, adapted for local requirements, actually work on stage?

The Paris institution, created in 1951 by Alain Bernardin, built its reputation on an artistic brand of nudity, with lighting projections bathing dancers in stripes, polka dots and other patterns. The Dubai version keeps the choreography and the signature lighting but drops the toplessness. Silhouettes remain visible in the half-light, with bare shoulders and legs, yet the performers are more covered than in the original.

“In Paris, they’re not very dressed,” explains Andree Deissenberg, the group’s chief creative and brand officer. “Here they have more costumes, the same lighting,” she adds.

Getting the wardrobe right was central to the delivery. Brio Mindset, one of the troupe’s 18 dancers, praises the teams behind the nearly 500 costume items. “We had to adapt to Dubai’s customs and requirements, which we did with great elegance and chic,” says the 28-year-old, wearing a red robe to match her lips and stiletto heels.

The venue itself departs from the Parisian basement where the cabaret was born. It is more opulent and less intimate. Guests at the resort auditorium watch from velvet armchairs and can order dinner and drinks during the performance. Dubai will also host the first Crazy Horse aerial act, a new element in the troupe’s repertoire.

The route to opening day was anything but straightforward. After the closure, several years ago, of spin-offs in Las Vegas and Singapore, Crazy Horse chose Dubai for its only permanent show abroad, under a partnership struck in early 2025 with a Dubai-based French entrepreneur. With nearly 20 million visitors per year, a population that is 90 percent expatriate and an unusual degree of openness for the Arab world, the city seemed to offer an ideal operating environment for a venue of this kind.

Then the war nearly derailed the whole undertaking. The conflict, triggered by US and Israeli strikes against Iran, hit Dubai hard in its early months, and The Palm itself was struck on day one, February 28. At the height of Iran’s retaliatory attacks on the Gulf, “there was a brief moment where we hesitated”, Deissenberg says. The threat of renewed strikes remains, but she stresses that the local partner is “quite confident… that Dubai will be a vibrant hub again”. “People in regions of war… say you need to live and things need to go on,” she adds.

The opening therefore lands in a city still trying to project normality amid the Middle East war. The United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich, Muslim-majority country of about 10 million people with more than 9,000 mosques, hosts a large expatriate population, and Dubai, the conservative Gulf’s commercial hub and most progressive city, is the setting for the show on The Palm, the chic, palm tree-shaped development and magnet for the well-heeled.

For now, the operational checklist is largely complete. The choreography and subtle lighting that have defined the show since the 1950s are in place, the costumes meet local sensibilities, and the dancers were rehearsing on site ahead of the debut, as photographed in Dubai on Nov 3, 2026. What remains uncertain is not the production but the environment around it, and whether the venue can sustain a reliable run under the shadow of the war. Further details on the adaptation appear at https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/arts-and-entertainment/3350006/crazy-horse-cabaret-tamed-for-dubai, which recounts how the Parisian original was tamed for its Dubai audience.