Maurice Béjart

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Maurice Béjart in 1984

Maurice Béjart (January 1, 1927 – November 22, 2007) was a French choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.

He was born in Marseille, France and founded the Ballet de l'Etoile company in 1954. In 1960 he founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels.

In 1987 he moved to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he founded the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, one of the most famous and successful dance companies in the world.

He made significant contribution to the Persian Ballet Repertoire in the late 1960s and 1970s performing at the famous Roudaki Hall in Tehran created under the supervision of the former Empress of Iran, with whom he kept strong ties of friendship over the years.^[1]

Among his works is a thoroughly revised version of The Nutcracker, presumably inspired by his own life story, which he staged in 2000. It still uses Tchaikovsky's original score, but completely scraps the original plot and characters, instead supplying a new story about a boy's efforts to re-connect with his mother. We also are given a look into the boy's strange sexual fantasies. The production design is full of erotic images - some of which are most likely shocking to many, such as wombs and vaginal openings. [2] One of the characters is Marius Petipa, who becomes Mephisto. Another character is called Felix the Cat, presumably after the famous cartoon character. The production has been issued on DVD.