“The man of the future will overcome man, but will rediscover what it is to be human while having become something fundamentally different. … Another form of life, of consciousness, must emerge in a future we cannot yet predict…” (Maurice Béjart about Mass for the Future Time)
The Ballet du XXe Siècle (Ballet of the 20th Century) was a ballet and contemporary dance company, founded by Maurice Béjart in Brussels in 1960. The company was known for including South and East Asian elements in its performances.
Maurice Béjart called the piece “an analysis of our time and its extension into a future that fascinates and frightens us.”
Soloists: Gil Roman (Artistic Director of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne since 2007) and Jorge Donn.
“Last winter, Dom Helder Camara, whose personality and work I had long admired but did not know personally, approached me to propose a libretto for a ballet. I was seduced, surprised, disconcerted by the content of the message ‘Robot with whom you will dance?’ and how difficult it would be to realise, and could not agree to it right away. But the man and his thoughts had to walk inside me and do their work in depth. The preoccupations of the Archbishop of Recife in Brazil were in line with mine. His love for the human being, his active concern for the Third World, his commitment to racial equality, his ecumenism made me plunge deeply into his ideas and extract from this conventional world in which we live the essence of the JOY which is our future.” - Maurice Béjart
