On from Iconoclasm

"Be-jart! Be-jart!" thundered the audience in Brussels' Royal Circus. And right there and beating time to the chants, were Belgium's King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola. For French Choreographer Maurice Bejart, 37, the royal welcome was sweet relief from the catcalls, fistfights and lawsuits that have swirled in the wake of his iconoclastic creations of the last few years. Last week's premiere was his most ambitious production yet: a ballet to the music of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

For the epic undertaking, Bejart amassed more than 200 musicians and singers on the circular stage with 80 dancers from 24 nations, ranging from Japan to Jamaica. They performed in bare feet and ballet slippers, melding classical, folk, modern, African and religious dance into a ritualistic tribute to the brotherhood of man.

Clad in brown, gold, red and white tights, the dancers moved across a starkly lit stage that was virtually bare of scenery. In the first movement they awaken timidly from fetal positions, groping skittishly through the anguish of birth and early life. The playfully exuberant dancing in the scherzo abruptly shifts to an anti-racist theme in the third movement, in which racially mixed couples court and embrace, reject and reconcile. In the triumphant final movement, the entire troupe joyously marches and swirls about the stage while the chorus sings "Alle Menschen werden Brueder [All men become brothers]."

Critics declared it "a real triumph," "a revolution." Enthused Paris' Le Monde: "Here is the masterpiece of all symphonic choreographies." Said Bejart coolly: "I didn't say anything Beethoven didn't say."

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