Maurice Béjart

choreographer

Born in Marseille in 1927, the dancer and choreographer began his career as a dancer in 1946 at the Vichy Opera Ballet and continued it with Janine Charrat, Roland Petit and above all in London at the International Ballet. On a tour of Sweden with the Cullberg Ballet in 1949, he discovered the possibilities of choreographic expression. In 1955, as a member of the Ballets de l'Étoile, which he founded, he left the beaten track with Symphonie pour un homme seul. In 1959, Maurice Huisman, then director of the Brussels Opera House, gave him the opportunity to create a choreography to Stravinsky's ballet music Le Sacre du printemps. The following year, Béjart founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels, an international company with which he travelled the world (including Munich for the Ballet Festivals in 1961, 1965 and 1977) and which premiered Boléro (1961), Messe pour le temps présent (1967) and L'oiseau de feu (1970), among others. In 1987, the Ballet du XXe Siècle moved to Lake Geneva and became the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, for which Béjart created Le Mandarin merveilleux (1992), Le Manteau (1999) and Le tour du monde dans 80 minutes (2007), among others. In 1990, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne made a guest appearance at the Munich Ballet Festival. In 1992, Béjart founded the École-Atelier Rudra Béjart Lausanne. He is also known as a theatre, opera and film director and as a book author (A-6-Roc, Lettres à un jeune danseur). Béjart died in Lausanne in 2007,

Béjart's Boléro was added to the repertoire of the Bavarian State Opera Ballet in the 1982/83 season. The Bayerisches Staatsballett performed Béjart's choreography Sonate à trois to music by Béla Bartók in its inaugural season in 1990/91.

(Information as of March 2025)