Cancan dancers of the Moulin Rouge dazzled spectators in Paris on Friday (July 5), as the newly installed sails were lit up above the famous windmill.
The sails of the red windmill atop the Moulin Rouge, the most celebrated cabaret club in Paris, fell to the ground overnight in late April.
The newly-built sails were installed last June 24, in time for the passage of the Olympic torch in front of the landmark on July 15.
As the lights on the new sails were lit for the first time, a bevy of cancan dancers came out of the cabaret and performed for a street audience – twirling and shrieking, with high-energy lifts and splits.
“A moment of interlude and celebration” amid France’s uncertain political climate, said Moulin Rouge brand director Virginie Clerico. France goes into a second round of snap legislative elections on Sunday (July 7), possibly plunging the country into a deadlock in parliament.
The Moulin Rouge, founded in 1889, became a global symbol of end-of-the-century Parisian culture, its famed can-can dancers widely depicted in paintings by avant-garde artists of the era such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat. Nowadays the audience is largely made up of tourist groups.
(Reuters)