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Maurice Béjart (January 1st 1927–November 22nd 2007) was a French dancer, choreographer and opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He developed a popular expressionistic form of modern ballet, tackling vast themes. Maurice, in his 80 years of life, became very well respected among modern and contemporary chorographers, including The Residents. He is known for breaking barriers and beautiful storytelling through his art form, with his most famous dance being Boléro. [1]
Maurice and The Residents[]
In the mid 1970s The Residents became acquainted with Maurice, who had used their music as part of a dance piece he had performed on a barge moving down the canals of Venice. It is unknown exactly how the two met and the song performed along the Venice canals is still unknown. With The Residents many connections to dancers, Europeans, and even having a failed ballet of their own it be assumed one of these avenues led to Maurice. Once the two had realized their shared ideals they began to plan a collaboration with Bejart, composing a ballet titled "Six Things To A Cycle" which told the story of "a primitive humanoid" who is "consumed by his self-created environment only to be replaced by a new creature, still primitive, still faulty, but destined to rule the world just as poorly". [2]
The ballet was never produced, The version of the suite released on Fingerprince is a truncated version of the original ballet; the full ballet is known to exist in the group's archives, and is being considered for release in the near future by their labels New Ralph Too and Cherry Red Records. Excerpts had also been performed live by the group at their Oh Mummy! show in June 1976 but never in a proper ballet formant. The exact reason why the show fell through is unknown, but both groups had very busy lives at that time, likely leading to conflicting schedules living halfway across the world from each other.
Light[]
Even with this falling out, Maurice still held quite a deep respect and love for The Residents as well as San Francisco, where The Residents were residing. In 1979, Maurice was commissioned by John Neumeier to make a ballet specifically for the "Hamburg Ballet". All he knew was that he wanted to talk about the baroque composer Vivaldi, stating that his music was painfully misunderstood. Work progressed steadily with no Residents in sight until a fall forced Maurice out of the project for two months. Maurice suddenly had the story click, so it was written in his diary in July 1981. [3]
Venice. Five weeks. The Dance Festival. The city of Vivaldi, where the entire world meets.I begin a new music montage (Vivaldi’s work is so vast, so rich), a different montage. It is hardly satisfying. My work stops. A deadlock. Or perhaps more like a labyrinth, like this city that I know so well yet where I always get lost. Suddenly, it is like turning a corner from a narrow, dark and humid lane onto a huge campo swept with light and sprinkled with birds, and a vision imposes itself Two cities on the water. Venice; and far away, San Francisco. Between the two cities there is a bridge, like The Rialto, a rainbow on which boys and girls are dancing. These two cities are sinking into the water but suddenly, a luminous platform emerges from the sea and flies towards the sky, carrying beings who twirl tirelessly in the light.
From that moment, things go very quickly. Between the big Vivaldi sequences, I introduce pieces by a young group from San Francisco that I like a lot, The Residents as well as another ensemble who works with them, Tuxedomoon. Thus, a new montage develops.
Not only did the show open with a song by Tuxedomoon, it also had "Loss of Innocence", the song "In between Dreams", and, "Time's Up". All of these songs include very extravagant dances to further the plot Maurice had in mind. The show in its entirety has been performed a number of times since Marcie's passing and has been archived on YouTube. With this show debuting before The Residents Mole Show, this was likely the biggest audience to hear the residents in a live setting until 1982.
[]
Maurice is known to have used The Residents material after this 1981 performance, but the exact details are unknown. The first time many fans even learn about Maurice is through their "Icky Flix" DVD. As a easter egg, a clip from the English version of "Maurice Béjart, le temps d'un ballet" (the time of a ballet). This easter egg showed a small clip of a rehearsal of "love leaks out". Sadly, the only other fact that The Residents have ever publicly shared about this performance is that the filming of that rehearsal took place in 1982. Even though very little is known, the whole documentary is available on DVD and a higher-quality recording of the one on "Icky Flix" has been archived on YouTube. Perhaps even more interesting, this documentary also includes a rehearsal for "Amber" as well as a performance of "Perfect Love" that was performed on a boat moving down the Venice canal. The perfect love performance can also be viewed on YouTube.
Although modern versions of light are available, there is some confusion about what has actually been performed by the ballet group. There are still rumors surrounding how far the abandoned "Six Things to a cycle" project got and some sources suggest that in a tribute performance to Maurice, the songs Picnic Boy, Dimples and Toes, Love Leaks Out, and Love Is... were all performed live. [4][5][6] These songs were all in tribute to light, but none of those songs actually appear in modern recordings and performances. Sadly, as with most of this ballet work surrounding the residents, there is no publicly available video footage. Finally, some fans may recognize the name Maurice as part of the tumblr page "Maurice and Me". It is unknown if the two are related, but it is very likely a coincidence.