The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Béjart Ballet: Julien Favreau confirmed as Artistic Director

Béjart Ballet: Julien Favreau confirmed as Artistic Director
Béjart Ballet: Julien Favreau confirmed as Artistic Director Keystone-SDA

Julien Favreau has been confirmed as Artistic Director of Béjart Ballet Lausanne (BBL). The Frenchman, who has danced with the company for 30 years, had been acting in this role since February.

This appointment “guarantees the perpetuation of Maurice Béjart’s artistic legacy”. It also “reinforces the extremely dynamic new impetus the company has been experiencing” since Julien Favreau took over as artistic director, announced the BBL in a press release on Friday.

Daily news – Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

The Board of Trustees unanimously appointed Julien Favreau. Born in La Rochelle in 1977, the Frenchman trained in classical and contemporary dance before joining the Rudra Béjart School in Lausanne in 1994.

Quickly spotted by Maurice Béjart, he joined the ballet a year later, subsequently taking on a series of important roles. After Maurice Béjart’s death, and under the artistic direction of Gil Roman from 2007 onwards, he continued to take on solo roles and participated in various creations.

+Swiss National Costume Festival opens with colourful fanfare in Zurich

Last February, he took over artistic direction ad interim after Gil Roman’s dismissal. The latter, on probation after an audit had revealed his sometimes abusive and angry behavior, had committed “l’écart de trop” in January at the Opéra Garnier in Paris.

The former Artistic Director of the BBL, who was invited to the performance and then to the private aperitif with the troupe, was dismissed in 2021 for attitudes and comments amounting to sexual harassment.

Adapted from French with DeepL/amva

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

F/A-18 take-offs and landings at Bern-Belp Airport

More

F/A-18s take off and land at Bern Airport

This content was published on The Swiss Armed Forces are training their fighter jets in Bern to fly from a civilian base. The exercise at Bern Airport will last until Wednesday.

Read more: F/A-18s take off and land at Bern Airport
cern

More

Plans materialise for new particle accelerator in Geneva

This content was published on Preparations for a huge new particle accelerator in Geneva have reached a milestone. After several years of work, a feasibility study for the project has now been finalised.

Read more: Plans materialise for new particle accelerator in Geneva
More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland

More

More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland

This content was published on The value of frozen Russian assets in Switzerland currently stands at CHF7.4 billion ($8.4 billion), the Swiss government announced on Tuesday.

Read more: More Russian assets frozen in Switzerland
Increase in business start-ups in the 1st quarter

More

Increase in Swiss business start-ups in Q1

This content was published on The number of business start-ups in Switzerland accelerated in the first three months of the year, with entrepreneurs being particularly dynamic in Central Switzerland, Basel and Geneva.

Read more: Increase in Swiss business start-ups in Q1

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR