Peter Sellars Selected As 2010-11 Theater Mentor

At a gathering of global arts leaders last night in London, six artistic masters were announced as mentors in the 2010-2011 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

The internationally renowned artists, who will spend a year guiding a rising talent in each of their respective disciplines, are: Trisha Brown (Dance), Brian Eno (Music), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Literature), Anish Kapoor (Visual Arts), Peter Sellars (Theater) and Zhang Yimou (Film).

Over the course of the next five months, each mentor will choose a protégé from a small group of finalists identified by Rolex international nominating panels, arts insiders who scour the world for the most promising young artists. The six mentor-protégé pairs will then participate in a one-to-one creative collaboration, an exchange benefiting both mentor and protégé.

Since its launch in 2002, many of the world's most illustrious artists have accepted Rolex's invitation to serve as mentors in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. These acclaimed masters are: John Baldessari, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Sir Colin Davis, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, William Forsythe, Stephen Frears, Sir Peter Hall, David Hockney, Rebecca Horn, Ji?í Kylián, Toni Morrison, Mira Nair, Youssou N'Dour, Jessye Norman, Martin Scorsese, Álvaro Siza, Wole Soyinka, Julie Taymor, Saburo Teshigawara, Kate Valk, Mario Vargas Llosa, Robert Wilson and Pinchas Zukerman. All have contributed to developing the next generation of great artists through the Rolex arts program.

Bruno Meier, CEO of Rolex and host of last night's gala event at the Royal Opera House, said: "We are indebted to the great artists who give their time to this program. They are helping us reach our goal of bringing emerging talents from around the globe into the greater community of remarkable artists and advancing their careers-an unparalleled opportunity."

In addition to their year-long artistic relationship, which includes extended periods of dialogue with their mentors and the sharing and refining of their creative work, protégés each receive a grant of US$25,000 to enable them to take part in the program, as well as funds for travel and other major expenses. When the year of mentoring is complete, Rolex matches the original grant by supporting a new creation by the young artist and continues to promote their work.

About the Mentors:

THEATER: Peter Sellars

American Theater, opera and festival director Peter Sellars, has gained renown worldwide for his transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists across three decades. Sellars' early work crossed genres and travelled in time with powerful contemporary versions of works by Shakespeare, Brecht, Gershwin, Mozart, Handel and Bach. Later, he collaborated with composer John Adams on operas including Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic and The Death of Klinghoffer. Sellars has produced new operas by Kaija Saariaho and Amin Maalouf, Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang, and Tan Dun, as well as new productions of works by Messiaen, Ligeti, Hindemith, Kurtág and Stravinsky. Sellars, who has directed many path-breaking, international festivals, is a resident curator at the Telluride Film Festival and a professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. He is the recipient of the 1998 Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

DANCE: Trisha Brown

For over 40 years, legendary American choreographer Trisha Brown, has pushed the limits of contemporary dance, changing it forever with her pioneering approach to light, space, gravity, geometry, technology and perception in her compositions. In 1962, she co-founded the avant-garde Judson Dance Theater and eight years later formed the Trisha Brown Company, the world-renowned ensemble, based in New York, that she still heads today. Among her early groundbreaking works were the gravity-defying Man Walking Down the Side of a Building and the still popular Set and Reset, featuring costumes and set design by frequent collaborator, Robert Rauschenberg. In 1998, she choreographed her first opera, Monteverdi's Orfeo. Brown's latest transformative creations include I love my robots and L'Amour au théâtre. She is currently preparing an opera production with Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence. The first woman choreographer to receive the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, Trisha Brown is also a highly regarded visual artist.

MUSIC: Brian Eno

Over the past 40 years, Brian Eno, 61, visionary English music producer and theorist, composer, singer, multimedia artist and technological innovator, has profoundly influenced music - from rock to techno - and collaborated with many of the world's greatest performers, creating what he calls unusual aural environments. Eno gained prominence in the early 1970s as the keyboard and synthesizer player of glam-rock band Roxy Music. His early landmark works include No Pussyfooting and the solo hit Here Come the Warm Jets. Arguably, Eno's most significant innovation was ambient music, a sound featured in Discreet Music and Music for Airports. Recently, Eno has worked with Paul Simon, U2, Coldplay and other musicians, and designed music for many applications, including the score of the forthcoming film, The Lovely Bones. He is also an inventive installation artist whose 77 Million Paintings, which uses self-generating software to manipulate his drawings, most recently illuminated the Sydney Opera House. Eno is a founder and director of the Long Now Foundation.

 

LITERATURE: Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 80, Germany's most important contemporary poet and author of more than 50 works, has earned the reputation over the past half-century as a provocative cultural essayist and one of Europe's foremost political thinkers. Through his impressive range of poems, novels, plays and varying discourses, the prolific writer, editor, translator and philosopher has showcased his recurrent themes, including overcoming social injustice and oppression. Among his early landmark publications are the anthology Museum der modernen Poesie, the award-winning Blindenschrift poetry collection, the political periodical Kursbuch, Mausoleum: 37 Balladen aus der Geschichte des Fortschritts (Mausoleum: 37 Ballads from the History of Progress) and the book-length poem, Der Untergang der Titanic. In the 1980s, he founded the monthly periodical TransAtlantik and began editing Die Andere Bibliothek. Enzensberger, a true polymath, continues to be at home in many genres. He is the recipient of the Sonning Prize and the Prince of Asturias Award.

VISUAL ARTS: Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor, 55, is one of the most versatile and celebrated visual artists of his generation. His often provocative works are found worldwide in major museums, galleries and iconic outdoor settings. Born in Bombay (Mumbai), Kapoor has lived in London since the 1970s. Over the years, numerous solo and group exhibitions have showcased his evolving techniques and increasing concern for opposites in his enigmatic sculptural forms. The winner of the Premio Duemila at the Venice Biennale and the Turner Prize, Kapoor is today best known for his large-scale installations and public commissions. Among them are Marsyas in the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern; Cloud Gate at the Millennium Park, Chicago; Sky Mirror at Rockefeller Center, Manhattan; and Temenos in Britain's Tees Valley. A retrospective of Kapoor's work opened in September 2009 at the Royal Academy in London, and a site-specific sculpture, Anish Kapoor: Memory, is being featured at the New York Guggenheim until March 2010.

FILM: Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou, 59, one of the most influential film-makers in recent history, has for two decades been attracting mass audiences in China and abroad with his prolific works that span genres - from historical dramas to martial arts epics. After working on a farm and at a textile factory, Zhang enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy where he met his future associates in the celebrated Fifth Generation of Chinese film-makers. Challenging conventions of Chinese cinema, he unorthodoxly used lush images, sumptuous colour and strong female characters in his critically hailed trilogy: Red Sorghum, Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern. These films were followed by, among others, The Story of Qui Ju, Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower. In 2008, Zhang, the recipient of countless honours, won acclaim for directing the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Summer Olympics. He recently started shooting a remake of Blood Simple.

For further information, please visit: www.rolexmentorprotege.com

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