Paris's Crazy Horse cabaret comes to Dubai — with less nudity

On stage at a luxury hotel, dancers from Paris’s iconic Crazy Horse cabaret are rehearsing for their debut performance in Dubai — but with less nudity than the original version.

The suggestive choreography and subtle lighting of Crazy Horse, a Paris staple since the 1950s, will be on display in Dubai, a city trying to project normality despite the Middle East war.

The women’s silhouettes are visible in the half-light, with bare shoulders and legs. But, with local sensibilities in mind, the show will not be topless.

“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.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a Muslim-majority, expat-heavy country of about 10 million people and more than 9,000 mosques.

Crazy Horse’s permanent show on The Palm, the chic, palm tree-shaped development and magnet for the well-heeled, opens on November 12 under the shadow of the Middle East war.

Dubai, the conservative Gulf’s commercial hub and most progressive city, was frequently targeted in the war’s early months with The Palm struck on day one, February 28.

Crazy Horse’s “Dubai Edition” retains many hallmarks of the show created in Paris in 1951 by Alain Bernardin, which prides itself on an artistic brand of nudity.

There, lighting projections bathe the dancers in patterns such as stripes and polka dots, a departure from the feather-filled cabarets of the Lido or Moulin Rouge. 

Dubai will also feature the first Crazy Horse aerial act. But the atmosphere is more opulent and less intimate than the Parisian basement where the cabaret was born. 

At the auditorium inside a plush, shoreline resort, guests will watch from velvet armchairs where they can order dinner and drinks.

– ‘Moment of hesitation’ –

Brio Mindset, one of the troupe’s 18 dancers, praises the work of the teams who created 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. 

After the closure, several years ago, of spin-offs in Las Vegas and Singapore, Crazy Horse chose Dubai for its only permanent show abroad. 

The project emerged from 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, Dubai seemed to offer an ideal setting. 

But the war, triggered by US and Israeli strikes against Iran, nearly derailed everything.

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 Crazy Horse’s local partner is “quite confident… that Dubai will be a vibrant hub again”, she stresses.

“People in regions of war… say you need to live and things need to go on,” Deissenberg adds.

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