Off the Page, On the Stage : Poetry and Performance

Writers, artists, philosophers and performers have always mingled and enjoyed a cross-pollination of ideas. From the ancient Greeks, Romans and Celts through to the present day, this mingling of artists and creative thinkers from various disciplines has helped to counteract the isolation of solitary creation, and encouraged the formation of movements which have gone on to influence the wider societies in which they occurred.

The 'literary cabaret' is one of these movements, and is the model from which all modern forms of cabaret are derived. Probably the most prevalent notion of 'Cabaret' comes from the famous film of the same name starring Liza Minnelli, which shows a type of singing and dancing show. In fact, cabaret also traditionally included writers and painters. 'Cabaret' comes from the French word for 'tavern' or 'wine cellar'- which have long been the venues of choice for artists to meet, discuss, eat, drink, and perform. The first 'literary cabaret' opened in Paris, ten years after the suppression of the Paris Commune. In 1881, the Hydropathes literary society began to meet weekly in Montmartre at a venue called the Black Cat (Chat Noir), where they recited poetry, sang chanson and performed sketches and monologues. The Black Cat soon became the hub of Parisian bohemia, and its format was copied at other venues throughout the city. Its style and content spread to the east and by the outbreak of World War I there were similar cabarets operating in Berlin, Munich, Vienna and Moscow (Riley).

During the war, many pacifist and dissident artists and writers fled to Switzerland, one of the few countries to offer them refuge from death or internment. In Zurich, a group of writers and artists led by the German poets Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings started up the Cabaret Voltaire in a seedy bar. Cabaret Voltaire attracted a wide variety of European artists and poets, (among them Apollinaire, Kandinsky, Modigliani, Picasso, Oppenheimer, Laforgue and Rimbaud), and spawned the Dada movement. The Cabaret Voltaire was closed down within a year of its opening, but its impact was far-reaching, and it became one of the most famous of the cabarets of the period. Although the movement had always been anti-bourgeois, the Dada artists who emerged from it embraced a new political radicalism that by the end of the war had so influenced the cabaret that the art produced increasingly reflected social and political, as well as aesthetic, ideals. Here's a description of the kinds of works that were presented:

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