Bejart's Ballet Of The Xxth Century At Music Hall, Dec. 19-20

Maurice Bejart, the French-born choreographer and founder of the Brussels-based Ballet of the XXth Century, brought his incredible company of dancers back to Detroit's Music Hall last weekend for a series of magnificent performances of several of the modern master's recent  (1970-75) dance works.
The Friday evening concert, upon which this review is based, offered a striking, sometimes strangely surrealistic setting of five poetic works (three by Mallarme) to music by Pierre Boulez; a lightly sarcastic, warmly witty "Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman?" (music by W. A. Mozart) which gave the traditional ballet fans something to clap at; and an absolutely spectacular rendering of Stravinsky's Firebird, with Ivan Marko dancing The Bird and Andrzrej Ziemski, The Phoenix.
Bejart draws from the classic modern music and poetry of human race to form the foundations of his ballet; he works from a deep humanism and a broad internationalism to capture the essential spirit of musical and poetic creators from Boulez, Debussy, Ravel and Bartok to Duke Ellington and Gerry Mulligan; and he has assembled a troupe of dancers worthy of his immense artistic vision who execute his design as brilliantly as he compose them.
The Music Hall concert was an exhilarating experience in every way, and one can only hope that Maurice Bejart and the Ballet of the XXth Century will return here every year from now on.

-- John Sinclair

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Ebenezer is a Geezer
Harbinger Dance Company at the Detroit Institute of Arts