{"id":84836,"date":"2017-01-02T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84836"},"modified":"2017-01-02T08:58:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T08:58:51","slug":"maurice-bejart-1-jan-1927-22-nov-2007-starting-off-the-year-with-a-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/maurice-bejart-1-jan-1927-22-nov-2007-starting-off-the-year-with-a-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Maurice B\u00e9jart (1 Jan 1927 \u2013 22 Nov 2007): Starting Off the Year with a Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>January first is the birth anniversary of Maurice B\u00e9jart, a innovative master of modern dance.\u00a0 In a world where there is both appreciation and fear of the mixing of cultural traditions, Maurice B\u00e9jart was always a champion of blending cultural influences.\u00a0 He was a world citizen of culture and an inspiration to all who work for a universal culture.\u00a0 His death on 22 November 2007 was a loss, but he serves as a forerunner of what needs to be done so that beauty will overcome the walls of separation.\u00a0 One of the B\u00e9jart\u2019s most impressive dance sequences was J\u00e9rusalem, cit\u00e9 de la Paix <\/em>in which he stressed the need for reconciliation and mutual cultural enrichment.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9jart followed in the spirit of his father, Gaston Berger (1896-1960), philosopher, administrator of university education, and one of the first to start multi-disciplinary studies of the future.\u00a0 Gaston Berger was born in Saint-Louis de S\u00e9negal, with a French mother and a S\u00e9n\u00e9galese father. S\u00e9n\u00e9gal, and especially Leopold Sedar Sengore pointed with pride to Gaston Berger as a \u201cnative son\u201d \u2014 and the second university after Dakar was built in Saint-Louis and carries the name of Gaston Berger.\u00a0 Berger became a professor of philosophy at the University of Aix-Marseille and was interested in seeking the basic structures of mystical thought, with study on the thought of Henri Bergson and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, both of whom were concerned with the basic energies which drive humanity forward. Berger was also interested in the role of memory as that which holds the group together writing that it is memory which allows us \u201cto be able to hope together, to fear together, to love together, and to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Maurice B\u00e9jart<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1953, Gaston Berger was named director general of higher education in France with the task of renewal of the university system after the Second World War years.\u00a0 Thus, when Maurice-Jean Berger, born in 1927, was to start his own path, the name Berger was already well known in intellectual and administrative circle.\u00a0 Maurice changed his name to B\u00e9jart which sounds somewhat similar but is the name of the wife of Moli\u00e8re. \u00a0Moli\u00e8re remains the symbol of the combination of theatre-dance-music.<\/p>\n

Maurice B\u00e9jart was trained at the Opera de Paris and then with the well known choreographer Roland Petit.\u00a0 B\u00e9jart\u2019s talent was primarily as a choreographer, a creator of new forms blending dance-music-action. He was willing to take well-known music such as the Bolero <\/em>of Maurice Ravel or The Rite of Spring <\/em>and The Firebird <\/em>of Stravinsky and develop new dance forms for them. However, he was also interested in working with composers of experimental music such as Pierre Schaeffer.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9jart also continued his father\u2019s interest in mystical thought, less to find the basic structures of mystic thought like his father but rather as an inspiration.\u00a0 He developed a particular interest in the Sufi traditions of Persia and Central Asia.\u00a0 The Sufis have often combined thought-music-motion as a way to higher enlightenment.\u00a0 The teaching and movements of G.I. Gurdjieff are largely based on Central Asian Sufi techniques even if Gurdjieff did not stress their Islamic character.\u00a0 Although Gurdjieff died in October 1948, he was known as an inspiration for combining mystical thought, music and motion in the artistic milieu of B\u00e9jart.\u00a0 The French composer of modern experimental music, Pierre Schaeffer with whom B\u00e9jart worked closely was a follow of Gurdjieff.\u00a0 Schaeffer also worked closely with Pierre Henry for Symphonie pour un homme seul<\/em> and La Messe pour le Temps Pr\u00e9sent<\/em> for which B\u00e9jart programmed the dance. Pierre Henry was interested in the Tibetan school of Buddhism, so much of B\u00e9jart\u2019s milieu had spiritual interests turned toward Asia.<\/p>\n

It was B\u00e9jart\u2019s experience in Persia where he was called by the Shah of Iran to create dances for the Persepolis celebration in 1971 that really opened the door to Sufi thought \u2014 a path he continued to follow.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9jart also followed his father\u2019s interest in education and created dance schools both in Bruxelles and later Lausanne.\u00a0 While there is not a \u201cB\u00e9jart style\u201d that others follow closely, he stressed an openness to the cultures of the world and felt that dance could be an enrichment for all social classes.\u00a0 He often attracted large audiences to his dance performances, and people from different milieu were moved by his dances.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9jart represents a conscious effort to break down walls between artistic forms by combining music, dance, and emotion and the walls between cultures.\u00a0 An inspiration for world citizens to follow.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and of its Task Force on the Middle East, is president and U.N. representative (Geneva) of the Association of\u00a0World\u00a0Citizens<\/em> and <\/em>editor of Transnational Perspectives<\/em>. He is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January first is the birth anniversary of Maurice B\u00e9jart, a innovative master of modern dance. In a world where there is both appreciation and fear of the mixing of cultural traditions he was always a champion of blending cultural influences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biographies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}