Ohad Naharin To Mentor a Fledgling Choreographer
Rattle off the names of a few dancemakers whose brains you’d love to pick.
Did Ohad Naharin make your list? He made mine, too. I’ve always wondered what goes on between his ears. How Naharin makes work that shows off his dancers’ technical and physical skills to the maximum, while balancing it with sincere and incredible emotional complexity, is beyond me.
Soon, one lucky young choreographer will find out. Naharin has been selected as the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’s choreographic mentor for 2016–17. In the spring, he will personally select a talent from a pool of chosen finalists. Then, he’ll spend the rest of the year helping his emerging choreographer hone his or her craft. Last season, Alexei Ratmansky mentored San Francisco Ballet corps member and choreographer Myles Thatcher. The coming year’s participant won’t be named until June 2016.
Luminaries from six other fields will also mentor promising young artists: There’s David Chipperfield (architecture), Mia Couto (literature), Alfonso Curaón (film), Joan Jonas (visual arts), Robert Lepage (theatre), and another big name you might recognize, composer Philip Glass.
