The Béjart Ballet Lausanne presents a series of unprecedented performances where contemporary creations meet choreographic heritage.
Under the artistic direction of Julien Favreau, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne reaffirms its desire to unite transmission and innovation. By inviting choreographers with contrasting artistic worlds, and by paying tribute to Maurice Béjart with one of his emblematic works, the company unveils a new facet of its artistic identity — to be discovered from December 16 to 21 at the Théâtre de Beaulieu.
The evening opens with OSKAR, a creation by the duo Riva&Repele — comprised of Sasha Riva (USA/Italy) and Simone Repele (Italy). Renowned for their “choreographic poetry,” they build worlds that blend neoclassical vocabulary with contemporary gesture, marked by a strong theatrical and visual dimension. Inspired by Chostakovich’s dramatic music and Brahms’ lyrical depth, their creation paints the poetic and fragile portrait of a clown searching for meaning. Between movement and silence, humor and melancholy, OSKAR reveals an intimate, sensitive, and deeply expressive form of dance. With this vibrant work, the audience will discover the choreographic duo who have been invited to create a new piece for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan — an international recognition that confirms the uniqueness of their artistic language.
Julien Favreau then invites Andonis Foniadakis (Greece) — one of the most sought-after choreographers on the international scene — to create Real Love, an original work for the BBL. His style, at the crossroads of classical and contemporary, is distinguished by technical virtuosity, fluid and kinetic writing, and visceral energy that places the body at the centre of the narrative. On stage, every gesture, every breath becomes a suspended moment, as if it were the last: dance becomes celebration, trance, a burst of light in the night. Nourished by his youth spent at the Béjart Ballet Lausanne and by the music of Depeche Mode, the cult band of his adolescence, this vibrant and generous creation is a return to his roots — intimate, exalted, and profoundly human.
To close, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne pays tribute to its founder with one of his most iconic masterpieces: Maurice Béjart’s The Firebird, set to Stravinsky’s powerful music. An allegory of struggle, death, and freedom, The Firebird is presented for the first time in Lausanne in its original version. Performed last year in China, the work regains here all its symbolic strength. In an interview conducted by Patrick Ferla, Julien Favreau explains that he chose to bring “all the little birds” onstage alongside the Phoenix in the final scene — a spectacular moment, imbued with emotion and melancholy, because “Within each of us lives the dream of being a bird. The dream of taking flight.”
