Until just recently, the dance form has been riding the crest of a wave of popular interest. Someone, probably a critic, dubbed this explosion the "dance boom."
This boom might have begun with the excited interest in Rudolf Nureyev, who defected from the Soviet Union in 1961, continuing until about 1981, when dance attendance started falling off. Perhaps those who climbed on the bandwagon to catch the flash and fire of the young Nureyev, or Mikhail Baryshnikov in his prime, never really had much interest in the art of dance apart from its superstars, and have fallen away. But the boom also garnered many new lovers of dance who are still around, but might be more selective with their money.
For Maurice Bejart, founder and artistic director of the Ballet of the Twentieth Century, based in Brussels, the boom might have begun in 1960, the year he and Maurice Huisman created the company. Bejart's company is testimony to the fact that dance events which abound with beauty and contain universal appeal will also do well at the box office. His recent engagement at the New York City Center played to packed houses.
The Bejart Ballet is a troupe that visits on this side of the ocean all too rarely, but one must realize that the expense for such a troupe to travel here is staggering. Air transportation alone for 57 company dancers, four guest stars, various administrative personnel, as well as costumes and sets, could be prohibitive. When the company does appear, then, it is not to be missed.
The dancers exude an exciting physical allure coupled with an awesome professionalism. Bejart has amassed a body of work for them to dance, including five premieres this season, that is unique today. Unique is perhaps too light a word. Maurice Bejart in 1985 is practically an anachronism.
The dance world of today seems increasingly dominated by prophets of doom, exemplified by such people as Pina Bausch, William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp and others. Their images of cruelty, decadence, ugliness, debasement, and sometimes insanity, are shoved at us.
By contrast, Bejart offers us relationships that are more often warm, human and sensual. They are not always happy, and they can be as complex as relationships are in life. His "Le Baiser de la Fee (The Fairy's Kiss)," which premiered in New York this season, is a case in point. It is beautiful, but after only a single viewing one can just begin to understand it.
People are not always kind and loving: witness the spider woman (danced in New York, and also in Ostend, Belgium last summer by Grazia Galante) who destroys a young man (guest star Patrick Dupond in New York, company dancer Gil Roman in Belgium) by a mesmerizing brutality in Bejart's "Symphonie Pour un Homme Seul" (Symphony for a Man Alone).
But much more to the point, Bejart's is a world vision in which love is not only possible, but can even triumph. Real friendships exist, such as in his "Songs of a Wayfarer," which is not on the current season. The age-old battle of the sexes can be won. Joy is possible, especially the joy of sex ("Rite of Spring." "Bolero"). Beauty is to be celebrated, especially the beauty of the human body. Some
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