Maurice Béjart

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Maurice Béjart, 1988

Maurice Béjart , actually Maurice-Jean Berger , (born January 1, 1927 in Marseille , † November 22, 2007 in Lausanne , Switzerland ) was a French ballet dancer and choreographer . Béjart is considered to be a innovator of neoclassical ballet. He staged it towards the end of the 1960s as “spectacle total” (“total theater”), a total work of art made up of different language, music, dance and direction. With spectacular performances rich in images, he opened up a new audience for ballet. Béjart emancipated the male dancers from their secondary role as lifting partners of ballerinas and also allowed them a sensitive subjectivity on stage.

biography

Education and early years

Béjart was born in Marseille as the son of the philosopher Gaston Berger . His father came from a poor background, he first worked as a fertilizer salesman, taught himself Chinese, then became a teacher and finally a ministerial director for universities. After an accident, a doctor prescribed the young Maurice exercises in classical dance for medical rehabilitation. This awakened his passion for dance.

He made his public debut as a dancer at the age of 14 at the Opéra National de Paris , where Roland Petit also danced. After graduating, he dropped his family name and called himself Béjart from then on, after a famous 17th century actor dynasty who appeared with Molière . In some reports, the mother's maiden name is given as Béjart; she died when he was only seven years old. He first appeared in France in companies of Janine Charrat and Roland Petit, later in the "International Ballet London" and in the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm .

In 1951 he created his first choreography there, L'Inconnu (The Unknown) . In 1955 he choreographed Symphonie pour un homme seul (Symphony for a lonely person) for his own company, the Ballets de l'Étoile . The piece, the music of which was composed by Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer , earned him recognition from audiences and critics.

Career in Brussels

1960 Maurice Huisman , then director at the Brussels opera house Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie / Koninklijke Muntschouwburg , for the Béjart the award-winning choreography for Le sacre du printemps created, aware of him. The choreographer got a permanent job at the house and with Huisman's support founded the Ballet du XXe siècle there , with which he toured around the world. Famous productions from this period have become famous (including Boléro ) with Jorge Donn as a soloist, Messe pour le temps présent and L'Oiseau de feu (1970). In the 1960s, Béjart abolished the traditional tulle tutu and had the dancers perform in jeans.

Move to Lausanne

Since the required funds were not approved, the choreographer, who converted to Islam after working for the Shiraz art festival , relocated his company to Lausanne in 1987 and renamed it Béjart Ballet Lausanne .

In 1998 he was convicted of plagiarism . His piece Le Presbytère… contained a scene taken from La chute d'Icare (The Fall of Icarus) by the Belgian choreographer Frédéric Flamand . Béjart revised the ballet and renamed it Ballet for Life . The film recording for it received the “Silver Rose for Art & Specials” at the Rose d'Or Festival in 1998 . In 1999, Béjart was honored with the Kyoto Prize .

Style and influence

Béjart had and still has a strong, but also polarizing influence on ballet, critics and audiences. He cultivated an eclectic style that was composed of many directions and tended towards pathos, mysticism and hero worship. Mythical figures, gods, artists and foreign cultures are subjects of his art. With these vivid, immediately accessible topics, he made a significant contribution to the ballet reaching a wider audience. With the "Ballet du XXe siècle" he renewed the neoclassical style.

Béjart had a great influence on the Iranian ballet, for which he created several choreographies as part of the Shiraz Art Festival. In 1971 he created a ballet based on the poetry of Saadis Golestan . He named another piece Farah, in honor of the founder of the Shiraz arts festival Schahbanu Farah Pahlavi .

Teaching

École Mudra

Béjart was very successful and influential as a teacher. His student and later partner Jorge Donn had become a star by working with him. In 1970, Béjart founded the École Mudra in Brussels to teach young talents the art of dance. From this school, which existed until 1988, a number of dancers and choreographers emerged who influenced the further development of contemporary dance in Europe, including Maguy Marin , Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Enzo Cosimi . In 1977 he founded the École Mudra Afrique in Dakar , which existed until 1985.

École Rudra

In 1992, after moving to Lausanne, Béjart founded the École-atelier Rudra there , which has since become one of the most prestigious training institutions in the world of classical and modern dance.

Quote

“ Béjart was infinitely important for the redefinition of classical dance.” He has won a whole new audience for classical dance, “because he has led it in a revolutionary direction without destroying the classical roots. "

- John Neumeier , artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet

Important works

  • 1955: Symphonie pour un homme seul ( Symphony for a lonely person , Paris , music by Pierre Schaeffer)
  • 1957: Sonate à trois ( trio sonata , Essen )
  • 1958: Orphée ( Orpheus , Liège )
  • 1959: Le sacre du printemps ( Brussels )
  • 1961: Boléro (Brussels)
  • 1964: 9th Symphony (Brussels)
  • 1966: Roméo et Juliette ( Romeo and Juliet , Brussels)
  • 1967: La Tentation de Saint Antoine , Paris, play based on Gustave Flaubert's novel
  • 1967: Messe pour le temps présent ( Fair for the present , Avignon )
  • 1968: Bhakti (Avignon)
  • 1972: Nijinski, clown de Dieu (Nijinsky, God's Clown, Brussels)
  • 1975: Pli selon pli ( fold by fold , Brussels)
  • 1975: Notre Faust (Brussels)
  • 1977: Petrouchka (Brussels)
  • 1980: Eros Thanatos ( Athens )
  • 1982: Vienna, Vienna, just you (Brussels)
  • 1983: Messe pour le temps futur ( Fair for the Future , Brussels)
  • 1986: Kabuki (Tokyo)
  • 1987: Souvenir de Léningrad ( Lausanne )
  • 1988: Piaf ( Tokyo )
  • 1989: 1789… et nous ( 1789… and we , Paris)
  • 1990: Ring um den Ring (Berlin), Pyramid ( Cairo )
  • 1991: Death in Vienna ( Vienna )
  • 1992: La Nuit ( The Night , Lausanne)
  • 1993: M (Tokyo)
  • 1995: À propos de Shéhérazade ( About Scheherazade , Berlin )
  • 1997: Le Presbytère n'a rien perdu de son charme, ni le jardin de son éclat ( The Rectory , Paris)
  • 1999: La Route de la soie ( The Silk Road , Lausanne)
  • 2000: Enfant-roi ( Child-King , Versailles )
  • 2001: Tangos ( Genoa )
  • 2001: Manos (Lausanne)
  • 2001: Lumière (Roman theater of Lyon )
  • 2002: Mère Teresa et les enfants du monde (Mother Teresa and the children of the world)
  • 2003: Ciao Federico , a homage to Federico Fellini
  • 2006: L'amour de la danse (The love of dance)
  • 2006: Zarathoustra
  • 2007: Le Tour du monde en 80 minutes (The world tour in 80 minutes)

Honors

Fonts (selection)

  • Mathilde: ou, Le Temps perdu: roman . Paris: Union générale d'éditions, 1973
  • An instant in the vie d'autrui . Paris: Flammarion, 1979
    • A moment in someone else's skin: memoirs . Translation by Ursula Kobbert-Volkmar. Munich: Noack-Hübner, 1980 ISBN 978-3-88453-010-8

literature

Web links

Commons : Maurice Béjart  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Maurice Bejart, 80, Choreographer, Is Dead" , Associated Press / New York Times , November 23, 2007
  2. ^ "Maurice Béjart, 80, Ballet Iconoclast, Dies," New York Times, November 23, 2007
  3. ↑ http://payvand.com/news/06/jan/1158.html
  4. ^ "Choreographer Maurice Béjart died" , FAZ , November 22, 2007
  5. ^ Review of «Lumière»: Maurice Béjart seeks light , NZZ , June 22, 2001
  6. ↑ Maurice Bejart was with the (…) In: Arbeiter-Zeitung , December 16, 1970, p. 12, bottom left.
  7. ↑ ENTIDADES ESTRANGEIRAS AGRACIADAS COM ORDENS PORTUGUESAS - Página Oficial the Order of Honoríficas Portuguesas. Retrieved August 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Béjart, Maurice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berger, Maurice-Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French choreographer and director of the Béjart ballet
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Marseille , France
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 2007
Place of death Lausanne , Switzerland