Show's over for famed cabaret show at France's Lido

PARIS (AP) — It’s the end of an era for the famed Lido cabaret on Paris’ Champs-Elysees.

Amid financial troubles and changing times, the venue’s new corporate owner is ditching most of the Lido’s staff and its high-kicking, high-glamour dance shows — which date back decades and inspired copycats from Las Vegas to Beirut — in favor of more modest musical revues.

Dressed all in black, dancers staged a protest Saturday on the broad sidewalk in front of the Lido — and then performed a dance routine to a cheering crowd, kicking their long legs high to a traditional cabaret song.

They handed out leaflets to passers-by on the Champs-Elysees Avenue, who lamented the Lido's fate and warmly applauded the performance. Dancers from the Moulin Rouge came to support Lido staff, and notably its historic Bluebell Girls dance troupe.

Dancer Hillary Van Moorleghem called the protest an expression of the whole staff's sadness and disappointment, and described the cabaret shows as part of France's cultural heritage.

“I am American, and I really came to know French culture through its dance,” she said.

With onstage waterfalls, an ice rink and a pool, the Lido started wowing audiences before World War II and became an institution of Paris nightlife. It drew in performers from Josephine Baker to Marlene Dietrich to Elton John to Laurel and Hardy, and famous spectators, too.

Jeremy Bauchet, an assistant ballet master at the club, lamented what he fears will be “the death of the cabaret as a place and a genre in Paris.”

“The Lido is the temple of the Parisian cabaret revue in its most elegant, prestigious, and entertaining aspects. An enchanting interlude in a magic world," he told The Associated Press.

French hotels giants Accor recently bought the club and says it plans to lay off 157 of...