Okay, first things first. Let’s establish the basics. I looooove music, arts, and especially musicals. I will love even the shit ones a number of times. I have seen Mamma Mia countless times; when a good musical is in town, I will do my best to go there. So, of course, I have seen Moulin Rouge (the movie) and, of course, I have seen Bourlesque (also the movie). So, as homage to them and the countless other musicals about showmanship that I have seen, I clearly wanted to see the actual Moulin Rouge performance and not only a movie about one.

However, as it is crazy expensive (for my standards), I needed a good occasion to go there. It couldn’t have been just a random visit to Paris. Nonono. There had to be a reason. And finally I got one! My mother-in-law decided that she was done with Christmas at home and wanted to spend her Christmas somewhere else. And what is a better way to spend Christmas with my husband and his mom than watching a show which is widely known for seductive dancing and boobs-out kind of performance when the city of choice is Paris? I bet you would say there are about a hundred better ways, but me being me had only one in mind. And that was a visit to Moulin Rouge.

Without much thinking and with plenty of money paid, we got our tickets to the show. We arrived rather early (almost 40 minutes in advance), and we were ready for the special seating and a fabulous show. And this is where everything started going down the hill.

As there is no dedicated seating, you are escorted by a very serious Parisian to your seats. As apparently, the majority of people decided to eat there – God knows why one would choose to do that – we ended up getting a bit of shit seats because only those were left. As you come, you can always order drinks to go with the performance. To promote “prestige” and “luxury” of the place, champagne is highly promoted, and everything is overpriced – we paid 8 euros for a 0.3l Heineken bottle! While it should exude luxury, it has become such a factory that there is very little of that left. Everyone is crammed as sardines, eating simple food and drinking something that should never be priced like this. But. There is hope for a performance. A great and magical evening that whisks you away.

But that never happens. Because it’s simple, boring, highly problematic in terms of the values that it talks about, and very, very dated. The only saving graces are mass performances where they managed to squeeze in more than 50 dancers with ridiculously large hats or wings on a rather small stage, and interim performances. The show that we went to (and they change that once in a while) had essentially four acts, and each act is separated by interim performance. And those are very much circus-like. And they are. FUCKING. FANTASTIC. The quality of those acts, the sheer strength and execution, is impressive. One of them was two guys showing what control and strength looks like – I think throughout the whole performance, one of them never actually touched the ground as the other one was always holding on or lifting up. And they are actually the highlights of our visit.

When it comes to Moulin Rouge performance itself… It’s just blah. Basic moves, where I am still arguing that I would learn one of the choreographies in five minutes because it’s not really dancing but just fancier walking. There is no magic in it; there are no grand solo singing performances. They couldn’t even hire a live band for the price that they were ripping off everyone. But they have stories where women were concubines, where they were animals to be trained, where they were slaves or wives, who knows, to be either sacrificed or drowned in water. And who was doing all the training, sacrificing? Of course, one of those ten men who were on the cast (and fully clothed).

I knew where I was going, so nudity was not an issue, but how dated and whatever the opposite of specular is. It was supposed to be inspiring and captivating, but it was just. Boring. And they made an effort to progress with the times, because they did introduce the men, but they were never treated the same. They were always in full clothes, they were always in power positions, and it did feel like they were just filling a diversity quota.

There is a saying that you shouldn’t meet your heroes. And it did feel like you shouldn’t fulfill some of your dreams. It would have been better if this one had stayed in my fantasy and history. It is a shame that the dream is squished, but at least I got a story out of it. And that’s the most positive thing that I can say about this experience. However, if I had a choice, would I choose not to go? Probably no. Because this is the only way for me to find out that it’s shit. But not everyone needs to suffer as I did. So, please. Don’t. I did that for you.

And now. What waits for me? Off to chase the next dream. Whatever that is. And most likely, report back.