Jean Babilée

Jean Babilée, born Jean Gutmann on 3 February 1923 in Paris, emerged as one of the most celebrated French dancers and choreographers of the twentieth century. The son of a physician, he entered the Paris Opéra Ballet School in 1936, where he trained until 1940 before his promising career was abruptly interrupted by World II and his Jewish heritage on his father's side. Fleeing the advancing Wehrmacht, he returned to the Paris Opera Ballet in early 1942, narrowly escaping the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup and later evading forced labor by joining the French Resistance in Touraine, where he fought with the Maquis until the liberation. After the war, Babilée reclaimed his place on stage, joining the Soirées de la Danse, which became the renowned Ballets des Champs‑Élysées, and quickly gained a reputation for astonishing physical prowess, with critics claiming he could leap greater than any dancer since Nijinsky. His breakthrough roles included the haunting Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (1946), in which he famously hung from a gallows for a minute, and the mischievous Till Eulenspiegel, both created for him during his tenure as principal dancer from 1945 to 1950. Throughout the 1950s he appeared as a guest with the Paris Opera Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre, later founding his own troupe, Les Ballets Jean Babilée, and serving as director of the Ballet du Rhin in the early 1970s. Even into his sixties, he continued to astonish audiences, performing Le Jeune Homme et la Mort with the Ballet de Marseille in 1984 and inspiring Maurice Béjart to choreograph the solo Life for him in the early 1980s. In addition to his dance career, Babilée occasionally acted on stage and in film, and his life was documented in the 2000 film Le Mystère Babilée, which features testimonies from Béjart, Christian Lacroix, and Yvette Chauviré. His legacy endures as a symbol of artistic daring, resilience, and the transformative power of ballet.