Tapuscrit avec commentaires manuscrits autographes de La Messe pour le temps présent

Final script of Maurice Béjart’s show, Messe pour le temps présent, created at the Avignon festival on 3 August 1967.
24 leaves of laid paper bound with a flexible board and two brass fasteners, bearing the SACD (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) stamp. 9 leaves entirely handwritten, 15 leaves typed. Several passages crossed out with blue marker.
A precious handwritten and typescript notebook of the texts recited during Maurice Béjart’s famous dance ceremony, the Messe pour le temps présent, with choreographic and philosophical explanations written by the choreographer.
The typescript recitals between the scenes, alternately taken from Nietzsche, from the Canticles and from Bouddha, are abundantly annotated by Maurice Béjart, who adds in pen indications concerning the dancers’ movement, the music, the percussion, as well as moments of silence. A summary, also written by the choreographer, is featured on the upper cover.
In 1967, Maurice Béjart, under Jean Vilar’s guidance, the director of the Avignon festival, produces a remarkable avant-garde work, which, throughout this career, remains one of his greatest successes: the Messe pour le temps présent. An immense saga of an era haunted by the thermonuclear war and fascinated with Indian spirituality, this “Celebration in 9 episodes” sanctifies modernity and the fears of the contemporary world. Pierre Henry’s electroacoustic “rock” music and Béjart’s audacious cultural syncretism initiative in dance and texts were highly appreciated by critics and audiences, leading to a new series of performances at the Palais des Papes the following year.
It is through this precious annotated typescript of the Messe pour le temps présent that Béjart reveals the key to a spectacle total – a ceremony bringing all of the performing arts and all of the beliefs together, thanks to the recitals and musical sequences that punctuate the performance. The 15 typewritten leaves provide the details of the texts that accompany the show’s nine tableaux – an eclectic and scandalous selection bringing together Nazi military marches, a book from the bible (the Canticles), texts by Nietzsche and nursery rhymes. Exploring the phenomena of mystic thought, philosophy and dictatorial propaganda, Béjart annonates the texts and the chosen music in his handwritten notes: “Omipresent Nazism. Destruction of the Individual in the name of the questionable heroic and patriotic Ideal” (6th tableau, Mein Kampf); “Fulfilment and an anxious cry that results in Devine Research” (5th tableau, Le Couple). “Slow silent liturgy. The Journey ends. Inspiration is born again” (8th
tableau, Le Silence).
The unquestionable spiritual dimension of the show owes a lot to Buddhism and Hinduism, with which the choreographer was obsessed at the end of the 1960s. Bringing the audience into a state of almost mystical concentration, Béjart will attempt, in the Messe pour le temps présent, to recreate the union of the body and the spirit accomplished in the Indian ancestral culture. He begins the Messe with a half-hour meditation session: ”A Hindu musician improvises on scene surrounded by all of the dancers and actors sitting down. And they gather until the beginning of the show” he notes in the margin of the prologue. Reflection continues in the second tableau, entitled “Le corps” “The body,” dancing to a Buddhist founding text, an extract from Satipatthana sutta highlighting the importance of bodily introspection and the full awareness of being.
The notebook’s plentiful handwritten notes also constitute a unique choreographic archive document, detailing the running of the dance sequences, the number of dancers or actors on stage and the general atmosphere of the scenes. The grace of academic ballet stands alongside fashionable rock dances and the violence of the contemporary world: “Two boys fight / Brutal fast realistic combat” (5e episode, Mein Kampf) “classic danse as a means of concentration and construction of the human body” (2nd tableau, Le Corps). Throughout the pages we find the highlights of the show, particularly Paolo Bertoluzzi’s solo, star ballet dancer of the 20th century, and the masterful group dance scenes performed in front of the Palais des Papes: “14 dancers perform classic dance exercises on the barre” (2e tableau, Le Corps) “Dancers create a runway for aeroplanes with Beacon Lamps” (9th tableau, L’Attente).
This perfectly preserved working document is a unique testimony of a choreographic masterpiece and one of the general public’s best known contemporary works: the Messe pour le temps présent.
Rare privately owned manuscript from Maurice Béjart, the choreographer’s archives being shared between his house in Brussells, the Béjart foundation in Lausanne and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.
Provenance: Maurice Béjart’s personal archives.