Maurice Béjart — tribute concerts

Maurice Béjart, stage name of Maurice-Jean Berger, born on 1 January 1927 in Marseille (France) and died on 22 November 2007 in Lausanne (Switzerland), was a French-Swiss dancer and choreographer.

Founder and director of the Ballet du xxe siècle company, created in 1960 in Brussels (then transferred to Lausanne), Maurice Béjart is considered one of the main and most innovative choreographers of modern dance, developing his choreographic language based on both academic dance and neoclassical trends. He blended musical, lyrical, theatrical, and choreographic worlds, highlighting the individual qualities of his soloists within ensemble movements. Although he had many detractors, including his peers who judged him too classical or at least criticised him for having stopped his choreographic research to satisfy the masses, he nevertheless greatly contributed to the promotion of modern dance in France and Belgium in the 1970s, notably thanks to the generations of choreographers he trained at the Mudra School.

He was a member of the French Académie des beaux-arts (free members section) from 1994 until his death.