Eugénie Fougère (12 April 1870 – 6 February 1946) was a French vaudeville and music hall dancer and singer. She was often called a soubrette − a flirtatious or frivolous woman − known for her eye-catching outfits, frisky movements, suggestive demeanor, and for her rendition of the popular "cakewalk dance," which in her own style included "negro" rhythms and paces.Gordon, Dances With Darwin, p. 236 She should not be confused with the frequenter of the French demi-monde also named Eugénie Fougère although the two knew each other, mixed in the same circles and even lived in the same street in Paris for a while. Un assassinat à Aix-les-Bains, Le Figaro, September 21, 1903Bossy, Les Grandes Affaires Criminelles de Savoie, pp. 81-104 Les survivants du Caf’Conc’, by Maurice Hamel, Lectures pour tous, August 1934
Fougère, despite her image as a frivolous dance-hall star, was also an innovator. According to one theatre critic "this wild little diva was always dressed in the most outlandish outfits, resplendent in the most incongruous colours" but was also "a precursor who introduced the repertoire of foreign songs and dances from every country into the café-concert well before this repertoire became fashionable". La 'Gommeuse excentrique' Eugenie Fougere, Comœdia, 12 September 1925
Early life and career
Fougère's past is shrouded in mystery, not in the least because she herself contributed to the ambiguities by creating dual identities in real life and on stage. According to some sources she was either from Spanish Chez elles: Eugénie Fougère, Gil Blas, 30 July 1898 or Spanish-Jewish descent,Gordon, Dances With Darwin, p. 199 but it is more likely that her true identity was confused with her first artistic success as a Spanish singer and dancer,Gordon, Rae Beth (2004). Fashion and the White Savage in the Parisian Music Hall, Fashion Theory, 8:3, pp. 267-299 known as "fausses Espagnoles" (fake Spaniards), with the stage name Fougeros. Caradec, Le café-concert, p. 180 Riegler, Anne-Sophie (2018). Les enjeux d’une esthétique du flamenco : étude analytique et critique du duende, Thèse de doctorat en philosophie, Université Paris sciences et lettres
After the murder of her namesake in 1903, Fougère complained about the confusion over the name, about which the two ladies had argued in the past. Le Crime Aix-les-Bains; Deux femmes étranglées, Le Petit Parisien, 22 September 1903 Le Crime d'Aix-les-Bains (A Paris : Il y a Fougère et Fougère), Le XIXe siècle, 23 September 1903 Fougère claimed that she was the rightful bearer of the name, but according to an article in Le Petit Parisien that reported on the murder, Fougère was most likely born as Faugère, in Strasbourg. Le Crime d'Aix-les-Bains; ou en est l'enquête, Le Petit Parisien, 24 September 1903 Her birth certificate shows that Fougère was born out of wedlock as Eugénie Philippine Faugère in Strasbourg, the natural daughter of Jean Faugère, a soldier in the 16th artillery regiment from Puylaurens (Tarn), and an Alsatian woman, Catherine Kistler, a seamstress born in Herrlisheim (Bas-Rhin). She had an older sister, Justine Joséphine, born in Metz in 1861, Marriage certificate (Acte de mariage) Faugère-Kistler, Nr. 106, 29 April 1872, Archives municipales d'Avignon (1E229, Vue 149) (with mention of legitimation of their two daughters born out of wedlock) known as Juliette, who also was a vaudeville artist. Nos compatriotes artistes, Le Mistral, 3 May 1893
Eugénie became a native of Avignon in her early youth. After the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, her father, who had spent twenty-one years in the army, came to Avignon in Southeastern France with the Strasbourg pontonniers regiment, accompanied by his concubine and daughters. There, he married the sister's mother in 1872, and having left the army, became a tailor. Originally from Alsace-Lorraine, Eugénie became a naturalised French citizen after the Franco-Prussian War (when Alsace and northern Lorraine were annexed to the new German Empire in 1871), shortly after her parents' marriage. Bulletin des lois de la République française, Partie supplémentaire Nr. 344, p. 7975
Her first appearance on stage was at the age of 12 in Avignon, and subsequently in Marseille at 14. At the age of 15 she started her career at the Café des Ambassadeurs in Paris, where she would live the rest of her life. Fougère became a popular excentric singer (gommeuseGordon, Why the French Love Jerry Lewis, pp. 74-76) and dancer that performed in famous theatres, such as the Folies Bergère, Alcazar d'Été, La Scala (fr) and L'Olympia. Les Chansons illustrees The gommeuse was regarded as a sensual object and a "symbol of madness, of Parisian life", and the frenzy of Paris in the last decade of the 19th century:
Cake walk
The "frenzied divette" was, in the art of music hall, a precursor, introducing songs and dances of all countries, long before that became fashionable in the café-concert circuit, while wearing the most unlikely toilets, bedecked with paradoxical colours. Just like Polaire and Mistinguett, she became known for her "racially ambiguous" dancing techniques that she applied to ragtime and the popular "cake walk" dance of the time, which became a rage at the end of 1902. Pénet, Mistinguett: la reine du music-hall, p. 137Moore Whiting, Satie the Bohemian, p. 299 She is said to have introduced the dance in Paris in 1900 in the Théâtre Marigny after she returned from a tour in the United States,See: Le Journal, 20 January 1903 and Le Figaro, 13 February 1903 Pénet, Mistinguett: la reine du music-hall, p. 138 where she had been filmed in 1899 in the rag-time cake-walk "Hello, Ma Baby," with which she made a sensation at the New York Theatre, filmed by Frederick S. Armitage.
The ambiguous "cake walk" became very popular quickly. For a few months in 1903, Paris was in the grip of a veritable 'cake-walk craze' (folie du cake-walk) La Folie du Cake-Walk (1902-1903), Comoedia, 22 March 1923 or cake-walkomanie, after a popular song. Pénet, Mistinguett: la reine du music-hall, p. 141 Fougère appeared on the October 1903 cover of Paris qui Chante dancing to the song Oh ! ce cake-walk, which she performed barefoot at La Scala, much to the delight of the audience, seduced by this originality. Pénet, Mistinguett: la reine du music-hall, p. 156 The lyrics interconnected African and American dance, monkeys and epilepsyGordon, Dances With Darwin, p. 177 – reflecting the racist and colonial attitudes that prevailed at the time.Gordon, Dances With Darwin, p. xii; p. 81 and pp. 147–48 A popular theorist of "negro dance," Andre Levinson, observed that it was impossible for Europeans to recreate the moves seen by African dance, and that is why the public was amazed by it.
While describing a revue at La Cigale near Place Pigalle in Paris in 1920, where she appeared in the costume of an American negro, Rae Beth Gordon, a professor in French literature, notes that "at least in this original fantasy, she told the journalist, 'I felt my old self again.' The incorporation of blackness by this white singer suggests that the motivations for adopting a black persona and the effects of such a masquerade went beyond the purposes of simple exploitation. Fougère felt more at home in a black body — or, at least, in a body ruled by black rhythms and movements — than she did in a white body deprived of the opportunity to express itself with no holding back."Gordon, Dances With Darwin, p. 239
In the United States
The 'audacious' Fougère made her debut in the United States on 7 September 1891 at Broadway's Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York – the gayest night spot in town at the time – where her "scandalously risqué" performance quickly became "the craze of the hour".Gilbert, Lost Chords, p. 206Tomars, The First Oscar Hammerstein and New York's Golden Age of Theater and Music, p.29Theatre Dancing; Now it is the Lofty Jump That New York Raves Over, The Salt Lake Herald, 1 November 1891The New York Clipper Annual for 1892Koster & Bial's New Season, The New York Times, 11 September 1894 According to a review, "New York never saw anything to equal the performance of Fougere. Imagine an Apache in a setting of petite Parisian femininity." Her influence over the audience was due "to the sparkle, wildness and vim of her performance". According to another theatre critic she "flashed the real bottom facts of her sex in the eyes of the public. It was daring, but the police did not interrupt it."Town Talk, Vol. 8, No. 384, January 6, 1900, p. 13 Not everyone was impressed; theatre critic Leander Richardson called her "the most daring interpreter of indecency" and wrote that she dealt "in just plain sexual dirt, and looks the part".Naughty Fougere Is Coming Back; Singer of Doubtful Ditties Engaged as a Roof Garden Attraction, The Morning Telegraph, 24 August 1899
She was something of a trailblazer, launching a wave of 'unconventional' dancers and singers from across the ocean. According to New York's Metropolitan Magazine in 1895:Sensational Dancers, Metropolitan Magazine, March 1895
Fougere became one of "the high-priced music hall singers", according to Metropolitan Magazine, who was never out of an engagement, spending her time performing between New York and Paris:American and Foreign Music Hall Stars, Metropolitan Magazine, June 1895
Fougère toured the States for many years during the Gay Nineties and the early 1900s, but her performance was often too 'strong' for the audience. Due to complaints about the audacious performances of Fougère and other European music-hall artists, Koster and Bial's had to set new restrictive rules about the artist's dresses and song texts for the 1894 theatre season.Tomars, The First Oscar Hammerstein and New York's Golden Age of Theater and Music, pp.66-67Song And Dress Inspection, New York Evening World, 10 September 1894 She was a hit at the Los Angeles Orpheum,See the 1900 issues of the San Francisco's weekly Town talk but was hissed off the stage in Kansas City. "The people think I'm — ah — what you say? Naught-ee?," she commented. "Ah. monsieur, they don't understand. They will learn. Ah, these Americans, they are just a little slow, but they all like 'the great Fougere' when they know her. But, o-o-ooh ! I'm all breathless, c'est terrible!"Hissed Her of the Stage; Mme. Fougere's Too French Gestures Displeased Her Audience, The Pandex of The Press, January 1908 In 1907, impresario Willie Hammerstein paid her $700 a week () while playing in his Hammerstein's Roof Garden vaudeville theatre in New York City.Fougere's Salary $700, Variety, July 20, 1907
Her performances often shocked the puritan North Americans and revealed their hypocrisy. In October 1907, while she was performing at the Gaiety TheaterLost Washington: The Gayety Theater, Greater Washington, 26 January 2011 in Washington DC, she was brought to the police station where she had to pay a "cash security of $50 to insure her good behavior." Despite the fact that the police sergeant enjoyed her show on the front row, in particular her "specialty", he nevertheless said he was shocked and dragged her off to the police station.Fougere "pinched", Variety, 5 October 1907 Her controversial performances in the U.S. did not stop her from parodying the Gibson Girl – the quintessential perfect archetype of the upper middle class American girl – in Parisian theatres.Hâtez-vous, si vous voulez voir Eugénie Fougère dans sa curieuse et amusante imitation de la Gibson Girl, announcement in Gil Blas, 29 December 1906
"Extravagant"