What is Cabaret?

“Cabaret” is a wide and glittering umbrella term which represents burlesque, circus, comedy, music, drag, magic, performance art, dance, theatre - and almost any form of performance in which an intimate and direct relationship is fostered between performer and audience, regardless of how big or small that audience may be.

Whilst many people believe that cabaret shows are performed in small venues, Cabaret has expanded into the far reaches of gigantic stages; from pride main-stage shows to variety productions on television. Cabaret is an organic theatrical form with limitless boundaries and a strong sense of community and connection.

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Some definitions:

• The Green Room Awards define cabaret as: "work that is musical and philosophical in its artform. This artform particularly lends itself to hybridisation, and random manifestations of fabulousness. Central to the form is the relationship between the performers/performance and the audience - there is no 'fourth wall’, or if there is, it is dismantled during the show.” -Eligibility Criteria and Assessment Guidelines

• Author Lisa Appignanesi identifies that cabaret acts hold a sense of "“immediacy and topicality.” - Appignanesi, L. 2004 The Cabaret (revised edition). New Haven/London: Yale University Press, p205

• Cabaret artist Mama Alto reflects: “Cabaret is a site of possibilities, of potential, of pluralities. Fluid, layered, and complex, the cabaret is like a prism: held up to the light of our lives, it refracts the singular beam out into a rainbow, revealing the full, rich, multifaceted glories of human experience.” - Fierce, Femme, Fabulous: Mama Alto on gender & the curiosities of…