Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart, born Maurice-Jean Berger on 1 January 1927 in Marseille, France, was a dancer, choreographer, and opera director whose Broadway presence was documented between 1977 and 1979 with the production Béjart: Ballet of the Twentieth Century. The son of French philosopher Gaston Berger, he died on 22 November 2007.

His path toward dance began after attending a recital by Serge Lifar, after which he committed himself fully to the art form. His early training in southern France took place under Mathilde Kschessinska, and in 1945 he joined the corps de ballet at the Opéra de Marseille. Beginning in 1946, he continued his studies in Paris at Studio Wacker under Madam Rousanne Sarkissian, Léo Staats, Madam Lyubov Yegorova, and Olga Preobrajenska. By 1948, he had also trained with Janine Charrat, Yvette Chauviré, Roland Petit, and Vera Volkova in London.

Béjart founded the Ballet de l'Étoile in 1954, a company that operated until 1957. In 1960 he established the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels, which continued until 1987. That same year he founded the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland, which he directed until his death. He also founded the Mudra School in Brussels, active from 1970 to 1988, the Mudra Afrique School in Dakar, active from 1977 to 1985, and the Rudra School in Lausanne, active from 1992 to 2007.

Among his most recognized choreographic works was his 1960 interpretation of Maurice Ravel's Boléro, created for Yugoslav ballerina Duška Sifnios. The piece features a single dancer performing atop a tabletop while surrounded by seated men who gradually join the dance. Jennifer Dunning, writing in The New York Times, described it as probably his best known and most popular dance. Performers who later took on the principal role include Sylvie Guillem, Grazia Galante, Maya Plisetskaya, Angele Albrecht, Roberto Bolle, and Jorge Donn, who became the first male to perform the lead role. A performance by Donn appears in Claude Lelouch's 1981 film Les Uns et les Autres.

Working with the Ballet du XXe Siècle, Béjart premiered Golestan in 1973 at the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of Arts, a work based on a poem by Sa'di and set to Iranian traditional music. That same festival also saw the premiere of Improvisation sur Mallarmé III, with music by Pierre Boulez. In 1976, the ballet Farah, also drawing on Iranian traditional music, premiered in Brussels before being brought to the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival that year, alongside the premiere of Heliogabalus, based on a poem by Artaud. The festival's patron was Farah Pahlavi, the former Empress of Iran. In 2000, Béjart staged a substantially revised version of The Nutcracker using Tchaikovsky's original score but replacing the original plot and characters with a new narrative.

Béjart received numerous honors throughout his career. He was awarded the Erasmus Prize in 1974, the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, and the Belgian Ordre de la Couronne. In 1994 he was appointed to the Académie des Beaux Arts and received the Deutscher Tanzpreis. He was appointed Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2003, the same year he received the Prix Benois de la Danse for lifetime achievement. Swiss citizenship was awarded to him posthumously.