Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart was born in France on 1 January 1927 and trained as a dancer before the work behind the curtain called harder. He built a choreographic method that swung away from delicate traditional ballet toward something expressionistic and big, staging pieces that took on enormous human themes instead of fairy tales. That approach found its home when he founded and ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland, where the company became a pillar of European dance. He also directed opera, extending the same visual hunger across forms. He died on 22 November 2007; Switzerland granted him citi…