"People associate the Tropicana with showgirls," says the nightclub's spokesman, Juan Carlos Aguilar.

Yet the Tropicana is closing the racy show that has entertained foreigners since the communist government began courting tourists in the 1990s.

It will be replaced with Tambores en Concierto -- Drums in Concert -- a spectacle that, while retaining the spirit of Cuban sensuality, will drop some of the more blatant skin baring.

"It's time to make some changes," says Tomas Morales, a dancer, choreographer and director who created the show that takes the stage in April.

His show will keep a live ensemble of Cuban musicians on one part of the multitiered stage, along with acrobats and some showgirls. And the royal palm, bamboo and fruit trees that canopy the stage still will provide "a breath of exoticism," says Aguilar, the club spokesman.

But the similarities end there.

The new show will be more theatrical, with increased emphasis on stage sets and technology, Morales says.

The story revolves around a male dancer who emerges from a drum to become "the drum's ghost," and then guides the audience through different music and dance acts, "taking you to the roots of Cuba," he says.

This is not the first time that the Tropicana has been reinvented.

In the 1940s and '50s, American tourists fre-quented the club, which was known for its casinos, all-night partying and visiting international stars like Liberace, Nat King Cole and Carmen Miranda. The Tropicana chartered planes, with dancers and musicians aboard, to fly in tourists from Miami.

Cars were raffled off on stage. Spectacular revues changed every two months and included circus acts, voodoo-inspired shows, even live cockfights.

But Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution squelched the revelry. The casinos disappeared, as did the American mobsters who had a stake in them.

A drop in the money coming in meant less extravagant shows and fewer performers from abroad.

Then in 1968, the government shut the Tropicana and all other Cuban cabarets.

"It wasn't clear whether (the cabaret) should continue as a product within the life we were leading after the revolution or if it was an element too tied to the decadence of a class that no longer dominated the country.

Eventually the idea that it was a cultural product won out," Aguilar says.

The Tropicana reopened in 1970. But without American tourists, the shows catered to Cuban audiences, incorporating Spanish dialogue and more theatrical acts.

Late-night performances lasted until dawn.

"We Cubans like to party all night," says Fernando Valdes, who joined the dance company in 1974 and now directs the Tropicana's school for cabaret performers.