Rudra Béjart School Lausanne

Named after the fighting and victorious Indian God of dance, Maurice Béjart founded the Rudra Béjart School Lausanne in 1992. Until summer of 2021 and its temporary closure due to refounding, it has welcomed students of thirty different nationalities.

About forty students received a free training for two years in Lausanne. Maurice Béjart’s idea was to create a multi-disciplinary structure where dance would be the basis, and the atelier part would imply that dancers do personal research in order to develop themselves.

If dance joins the arts, whether it be music, theatre, body expression or martial arts, for Maurice Béjart, “Rudra is also an intellectual and moral lifestyle. A way of living in relation to the modern world where the dancer takes on a social place in the universe. A period of letting go and permissiveness, it is important to have humans that, without being aggressive, have the will to face the battle of life.“

Managed by the Béjart Ballet Lausanne Foundation, the school offered to a group of selected young dancers to complete their basic training.

The programme included ballet, modern dance, theatrical games, vocal placement, music, rhythm and chorus, choreographic composition, as well as the Japanese martial art form Kendo. Each year, the students experienced what it is like to be on stage in Switzerland, Europe, Latin America, Russia, Japan, China and India.