I watched this french documentary film yesterday (with japanese subtitles) at Shibuya's Bunkamura. It is an 85 minute documentary about the Maurice Béjart Ballet Lausanne, in Lausanne Switzerland.
It is a documentary by Arantxa Sanchez for Lopez-Li films. After Maurice Béjart has passed away, his Company, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, sets on to a new journey with Gil Roman, the Artistic Director. The movie is set during the creation of 'Aria', Gil Roman’s new creation.
Béjart was one of the world's top ballet coreographers. He passed away in 2007.. This film was very very good. I even teared up when the dancers in the school all said that Bejart was still with them, dancing with them, guiding their spirits and that they wanted to continue to dance for him, even though he was no longer with them.
If you have the chance to watch it, please do! I don't think you will be disappointed.
A little bit on Maurice Béjart from Wikipedia:
Maurice Béjart (1 January 1927 – 22 November 2007) was a French and Swiss 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. In 1954, he founded the Ballet de l'Étoile company (dissolved in 1957). In 1960 he founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels (dissolved in 1987).
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.
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. 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.
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