page_title: Vedette (cabaret)
section_title: Mexico
hierarchical_section_title: Vedette (cabaret) / The Americas / Mexico
caption_attribution_description: English: Studio publicity portrait of Lupe Vélez for film Mexican Spitfire (1940).
context_page_description: A vedette is the main female artist of a show derived from cabaret and its subcategories of revue, vaudeville, music hall or burlesque. The purpose of the vedette is to entertain and captivate the public. The vedette has to know how to sing, dance and act on stage. Particularly accomplished artistes are considered super vedettes or first vedettes. Vedettes often appear alongside groups of dancers, flashy and revealing costumes, magicians, comedians, jugglers, or even performing animals. Vedettes specializing in burlesque generally do striptease and may also perform nude on stage.
  In the 20th century, vedette shows were successful in the cabarets, theaters and nightclubs of countries such as Spain, France, Argentina and Mexico. Paris and Las Vegas were considered the main cradle of the vedettes.
context_section_description: The image of the Vedette in Mexico arises from the beginning of the 20th century with the rise of the called "Carpas" and the Revues. Some venues such as Teatro Principal, the Teatro Colón and the Teatro Arbeu were considered as the cathedral of the revues and burlesque in Mexico City. There arise figures like Lupe Vélez, who, before being consecrated as a star in Hollywood, was considered one of the queens of the frivolous theater. The maximum figure of the time was Maria Conesa "The White Kitten", who also had a very long career spanning theater, film and television. Other outstanding figures of the time were Esperanza Iris, Celia Montalván, Lupe Rivas Cacho, Amparo Arozamena, Prudencia Grifell, Celia Padilla, Delia Magaña, Lupe Inclán, Aurora Walker, Amelia Wilhelmy and Mimí Derba, among others. Conesa, Montalván and Rivas Cacho, were even immortalized in a famous foxtrot called Mi querido capitán (My dear captain).
  In the 1950s saw a resurgence of nightlife in Mexico City. Venues like the Tivoli, the Waikikí, the Margo (after the Teatro Blanquita), the Follies Bergere and the Teatro Lírico, among others, became the main forums for the blossoming of the vedettes. Special mention should be made of the Exoticas, a group of vedettes that caused fury in Mexico's nightlife in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These "Exoticas" were characterized by using extravagant names, and their shows included African, Tahitian or Oriental dances. The most famous of the "Exoticas" was Yolanda Montes "Tongolele", one of the most important dancers of Latin America, and has been in force for more than sixty years. Together with Tongolele, the most famous were Su Muy Key The Chinese Doll, and Kalantan. Another famous "Exóticas" were Trudi Bora, Turanda, Joyce Cameron, Tanabonga, Tundra, Gemma, Eda Lorna, Kurumba, Bongala, Tula Montenegro, Brenda Conde, Josefina del Mar and Naná.
  Parallel to the success of the Exoticas, they appear in Mexico the famous "Rumberas", dancers of Afro-American rhythms. The Rumberas managed to create their own cinematographic genre: The Rumberas film In the called Golden Age of Mexican cinema. The Rumberas films reflected in many of its arguments the life of the women in the night centers and cabarets. The main exponents of the genre were the Cubans María Antonieta Pons, Amalia Aguilar, Ninón Sevilla and Rosa Carmina as well the Mexican Meche Barba. 
  These women were complete vedettes who never needed to explicitly teach their bodies, captivating audiences only with their dances and other stage talents. The Rumberas also performed shows and live performances in important venues. With the decline of the Rumberas film in the mid-fifties, some rumberas broadened their horizons and ventured into vedette shows. Particularly remembered are the live shows of Amalia Aguilar and Rosa Carmina, who even filled stadiums in various countries in Central and South America.
  The Cuban Rosita Fornés deserves special mention. She reaches the final consecration in Mexico before conquering the rest of the continent.
  In the 1960s the splendor of the vedettes in Mexico lost force. Even so, worthy of mention are the shows offered in venues such as the Blanquita Theater or "El Patio" by the stars such as Sonia Furió, Ana Luisa Peluffo and Ana Bertha Lepe. In the midst of the fury of the Rock and Roll era, were famous figures like Malú Reyes and Emily Cranz. Actresses such as Jacqueline Voltaire and Irán Eory also performed shows as vedettes.
  
  The 1970s and 1980s are considered the golden era of the vedettes in Mexico, thanks to a massive revival of nightlife in the country's capital. Mexico City was flooded with nightclubs, cabarets of all levels and burlesque theaters where the vedettes began to bloom. Among the most important nightclubs that illuminated the capital of the country are the Terazza Casino, the Capri (from the Hotel Regis), the Imperial, the Minuet, the Rio Rosa, La Fuente, El Conjunto Marrakech, La Copa de Champagne, El Cordiale, El Rondinella, El Clóset, El Quid, El 77, the Impala Bar and the Belvedere of the Hilton Contine
caption: Lupe Vélez
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