Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the particular performance venue: restaurants and nightclubs. This form of entertainment is nothing new at all. Civilizations as early as the Greeks and Egyptians held forms of plays and theater, what we might call “Sketch Comedy.”

The word itself, “Cabaret,” is a French word for the taprooms or cafes where this form of entertainment was born. It is derived from Middle Dutch “cabret”, through Old North French “camberette”, it essentially means “small room.”

The performers are in close quarter with their audience, who are usually dining and/or drinking while enjoying the show. As the word suggests, the venue itself can also be called Cabaret. The turn of the 20th century introduced and revolutionized the cabaret culture.

In the 1840s, boundaries of cabaret were pushed with the introduction of the burlesque genre. This early Victorian culture-shock clashed heavily with accepted societal standards. Burlesque featured shows that included comic sketches, often satirizing the social attitudes of the upper-class, and their music.

The popularized burlesque bore very little resemblance to earlier literary and musical burlesques which parodied widely known works or art, including literature, theater, or music.

The popular burlesque show of the 1870s through the 1920s referred to a strident and somewhat lewd style of variety theater. It was inspired by Lydia Thompson and her troupe, the British Blondes, who first took the United States by storm in the 1860s.

Burlesque rapidly adapted the minstrel show's tripartite structure: part one was composed of songs and dance routines performed by a female company. Part two was an “olio” of short specialties in which women did not appear.

By the time a new century turned, so did the popular style of the burlesque show. In the 1930s, burlesque had evolved into the strip tease which became the dominant ingredient of the burlesque we know of today.

To the dismay of an adoring public, the government started to implement a social-crackdown on burlesque shows, leading to their eventual downfall. Though burlesque houses were being raided, and women arrested along with the men who attended, burlesque evolved into what we know simply as stripping.

In the United States, cabaret diverged into several different and distinct styles of performance, mostly due to the influence of Jazz music. Chicago cabaret focused intensely on the larger band ensembles and reached its pinnacle in the speakeasies and steakhouses of the Prohibition Era.

Cabaret started to disappear in the sixties, due to the popularity of rock and roll concerts and television variety shows. The art form still survives in entertainment formats such as stand-up comedy.

Though the two are often confused with one another, they are each unique and completely separate. Burlesque focused on the more risqué style of dancing and entertainment, whereas cabaret focused more on the art of gentle performance.

Both styles still have massive followings around the world, and burlesque lives on through many performers, some even cater to live audiences via the internet.