The Art of Mentoring: The Rolex Arts Festival
Since its inception, this remarkable mentoring initiative has cultivated an extensive community of artists, cutting across generations, cultures, and disciplines worldwide
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06 Musica is proudly presented by Rolex.
00:09 Celebrating the art of mentoring,
00:14 passing on cultural heritage, and contributing
00:17 to the arts worldwide, the Rolex Arts Festival in Athens.
00:23 It's a great sensation of joy, like a celebration.
00:27 Also like a dream, like sensation.
00:31 These artists are part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts
00:35 Initiative.
00:36 To be surrounded by so many artists,
00:40 it's been like the way that I would like
00:42 to see the rest of the world.
00:46 The mentoring, it's not just giving hair things,
00:49 but taking also from hair.
00:54 My mentor has given me her love.
00:58 Yeah.
01:00 Musica brings you the highlights in this special edition.
01:03 Perpetual quest for knowledge and excellence.
01:20 Athens, the cradle of culture and art.
01:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:28 Houdia Toure and Pouchi Sasaki are here
01:31 to celebrate a unique program, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé
01:37 Arts Initiative.
01:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:43 This is amazing.
01:44 Wow.
01:49 We belong to that history, you know?
01:50 We are made and connected to the history of the past, what
01:54 has come before.
01:56 There is this relationship with time,
01:57 and this is also what we talk about with this mentorship.
02:01 And like, these things are traveling invisible.
02:04 Yeah, and from generations to generations,
02:08 from thousands of years ago to us.
02:11 Yes.
02:12 You just feel it was the right place to do it.
02:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:19 To honor 20 years of artistic collaboration,
02:23 mentors and fellows are gathering in Athens
02:25 for the Rolex Arts Festival.
02:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:37 Over several days, the festival is
02:39 a hive for performances, readings, discussions,
02:42 screenings, exhibitions, and installations.
02:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:57 There's over 150 artists involved,
03:00 including a lot of Greek artists.
03:03 It's absolutely wonderful, the range
03:06 of what this program brings together
03:08 across styles, across countries, and across art forms.
03:11 I really-- I can't think of anywhere else that
03:14 does it like this.
03:15 I'm hoping people will come and see the vision
03:21 that these people have.
03:22 I think change in our society comes through imagination,
03:27 and these artists have it.
03:29 The program seeks to pass on knowledge
03:32 from generation to generation, bringing together
03:35 young, aspiring artists and masters.
03:38 This one-to-one mentoring relationship
03:40 has seen legends like Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Jesse
03:44 Norman.
03:46 Protégés follow their mentors around the world
03:48 and observe, exchange, learn, and get insight
03:52 into their craft.
03:53 And he liked it.
03:54 For Peruvian-Japanese artist Pauchi Sasaki,
03:57 working with iconic composer Philip Glass
04:00 has been a revelation.
04:03 But I think with a real harp, it'll be better.
04:04 Yes.
04:05 I think something very beautiful about the mentorship
04:12 is that you start to develop a kind of confidence
04:19 in your own voice.
04:20 And that's something that really mentors help,
04:24 to give us that security.
04:28 Look for what you want to express.
04:33 The idea of the festival is also to include local artists.
04:38 Pauchi collaborates with 30 members of the acclaimed Greek
04:41 choir, Choukhes.
04:42 The process was very joyful.
04:49 The girls were so excited.
04:51 And they brought all their energy into the project.
04:55 So it was a whole experience that I really enjoyed.
04:59 Enjoy it.
04:59 Pauchi Sasaki's contribution to the festival
05:15 is a premiere, Artemis Fountain.
05:19 The performance is an excerpt of her multi-platform opera.
05:23 The opera is inspired by NASA's program Artemis,
05:27 a space mission that will bring the first woman to the moon's
05:30 surface this decade.
05:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:35 [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
05:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:42 [CHEERING]
05:45 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:49 [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
06:17 [APPLAUSE]
06:21 Dancers are here having fun.
06:29 Dancers are here having fun.
06:33 Khoudia Touré and her dancers are getting
06:34 ready for their performance.
06:36 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
06:40 The hip hop dancer and choreographer from Senegal
06:43 is presenting her latest work at the festival, Oro.
06:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:49 It's an ambitious artistic and social project
06:58 created through exchanges between young adults
07:00 from different countries and multiple social backgrounds.
07:11 Going beyond words, its power is expressed through dancing.
07:15 The performance is a great success
07:32 in the presence of her mentor, Crystal Pite.
07:35 The superstar of modern dance and one
07:37 of the world's most acclaimed choreographers
07:39 traveled all the way to Athens to watch the performance.
07:43 It's inspiring to be here and to see all these artists
07:46 from all these different disciplines
07:47 and to reconnect with Khoudia and see her work
07:50 and see her just ace that whole experience.
07:55 I don't know how you did it.
07:57 It was a lot on your shoulders, a lot of pressure,
08:00 a lot of exposure.
08:01 So yeah, it was incredible watching her do that.
08:04 I was really, really excited that you
08:06 could see it this way.
08:08 Even besides coming to rehearsal,
08:10 I just wanted her to see the piece.
08:12 It was very meaningful to me.
08:16 Khoudia has watched Crystal in her Canadian hometown
08:19 of Vancouver and at the Paris Opera Ballet.
08:23 But it's not only the protégées who learn from their masters.
08:27 The inspiration goes both ways.
08:29 It gave Crystal a new perspective on her work.
08:33 I want to experience creation through her.
08:38 I think mentorship has to be a conversation.
08:42 It's an exchange between two people.
08:46 And the spirit of it, I think, is best
08:48 when we both feel like we're going to learn something
08:50 and we both have something to learn.
08:52 And certainly that's been my experience with Khoudia.
08:55 It was just an incredible opportunity
08:56 for me to learn something.
08:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:25 The program also features legendary performers
09:28 like Brazilian icon Gilberto Gil.
09:33 His protégée, Egyptian singer Dina Elwedidi,
09:36 comes from a completely different musical world.
09:40 When they met, she reminded him of himself
09:42 at the start of his own career.
09:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:47 [SINGING IN PORTUGUESE]
09:50 The talent was there.
10:07 The music was there.
10:09 And being with me, spending some time with us, the band,
10:14 was a new experience for her.
10:17 And I expected she was absorbing experience.
10:22 I think she did.
10:25 It was amazing because the mentorship simply is like you
10:28 have to follow your mentor.
10:30 And I was so lucky because my mentor is always
10:32 on tour and busy.
10:34 So I had to follow my mentor wherever.
10:36 So we had so much fun.
10:38 [LAUGHTER]
10:39 Gil!
10:40 Hello.
10:41 The mentors opened doors for young artists.
10:45 The nine-time Grammy-winning singer
10:48 helped Dina to move to the world stage by performing together,
10:52 a unique experience repeated at the festival.
10:55 Thank you.
10:57 I'm so emotional now.
10:58 But I would love and I have the honor
11:00 to introduce my friend and the great artist
11:04 and my mentor, Mr. Gilberto Gil.
11:07 [APPLAUSE]
11:11 [MUSIC - GILBERTO GIL, "ABEI"]
11:14 It's inspired me so much.
11:33 So from that time until now, many things
11:37 have in terms of growth and in terms of definitely
11:42 a new awareness of discovering your own artistic identity
11:47 as well.
11:48 [MUSIC - GILBERTO GIL, "ABEI"]
12:06 [APPLAUSE]
12:09 For many proteges, like Australian composer
12:20 and performer Ben Frost, the collaboration
12:22 with their mentors has left a long-lasting impact.
12:25 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
12:33 My time with Brian Eno was a gift.
12:37 He raised many questions for me during my mentorship.
12:41 It's nicely syncopated.
12:43 It's very syncopated.
12:46 Like breathing, yeah.
12:48 Yeah.
12:49 He challenged a lot of ideas that maybe
12:52 were some preconceptions that I had about myself
12:55 and about music.
12:55 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
12:59 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
13:02 The birth of it is kind of in different parts.
13:15 As a child, I played a lot with piano.
13:19 My favorite thing was to spread my hands as far as possible
13:23 across the keyboard and try and build
13:24 these really long, suspended chords with the sustain pedal
13:28 down.
13:28 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
13:30 Then taking each of those notes, if you can imagine,
13:33 and sort of rather than thinking of them as a note,
13:36 but rather as a vector within space.
13:40 And so then kind of mapping that out
13:41 across this field of speakers.
13:45 So you're sort of sitting inside of a chord.
13:47 But the chord, the relationship between all those harmonics
13:50 is shifting.
13:51 It's constantly shifting.
13:52 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
13:55 [MUSIC - BEN FROST, "ABEI"]
13:59 They are dancing a work of mine called 549.
14:14 It describes when you have an awareness
14:17 that a relationship is ending, or some chapter of your life
14:20 is ending, and how your experience with another person
14:23 changes with that awareness.
14:26 Instead of it being a surprise, there's this kind of array
14:29 of emotions that you go through, I think.
14:33 The creative collaboration between American choreographer
14:36 Miles Thatcher and his Russian mentor, Alexei Ratmansky,
14:41 still inspires him today.
14:43 I think something Alexei was really successful at in
14:46 the studio was always encouraging his dancers
14:49 to work with him.
14:51 He was always pulling from them and asking for feedback
14:55 from them.
14:55 And that's something I really tried to do with mine as well.
14:58 So I hope to learn as much from them as they learn from me.
15:01 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
15:04 From learning to teaching, many of the protégés
15:14 have become mentors in their own right.
15:16 American violinist David Aaron Carpenter
15:19 gives master classes at the festival
15:21 and works with the local El Sistema Youth Orchestra.
15:24 It's really inspiring, I think, just
15:28 to see kids of all different age categories
15:31 coming together and playing, and to see a young orchestra
15:35 really tackle on something that's quite, quite difficult,
15:38 but really pushing them to the extremes of their potential.
15:41 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
15:45 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
15:48 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
15:50 You're basically giving everything
15:51 that you've learned to the next generation,
15:53 and then they're taking it and then making it a lot better.
15:58 I think the importance of mentorship, it's huge.
16:01 I mean, for me to have the opportunity
16:03 to work with somebody like Jesse Norman,
16:06 to then be able to have a master class or lessons
16:10 with a younger singer, yes, I have my own things
16:15 that I can pass along, but so much of what I am
16:18 is what Jesse gave to me.
16:19 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
16:23 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
16:30 And then tell us the rest of the story.
16:32 [MUSIC - ALEXEI RATMANSKY, "549"]
16:37 I feel like I'm passing the torch that Jesse gave to me
16:40 in what I learned from her, and I'm giving that
16:44 to the next generation, too.
16:45 And I will credit her.
16:47 I will say, this is not me.
16:49 This is what Jesse said.
16:50 So if Jesse said it, this is golden.
16:52 The program is also about forging
16:55 inspiring relationships.
16:57 Good evening, everyone.
16:59 For me, I can offer you what I've lived.
17:05 I can share with you what I know I will give to you
17:11 and what I think I will offer.
17:16 I cannot really say what I would expect.
17:19 It's just whatever that happens or whatever she does or she is,
17:27 I am inspired, and I'm going to learn everything.
17:32 Five-times Grammy winner and legendary jazz singer Diane
17:36 Reeves joined the program this season.
17:38 She is mentoring Song Chi-shun, a South Korean modern jazz
17:42 singer and composer.
17:43 [MUSIC - SONG CHI-SHUN, "SORANGABALA"]
17:54 For me, that was the highlight, to see this person just shine
17:59 and stand in her power and work her magic
18:04 through her improvisational skills.
18:05 But more than that, pull up from somewhere
18:10 that is real rich and really, really deep.
18:13 That was extraordinary.
18:15 [MUSIC - SONG CHI-SHUN, "SORANGABALA"]
18:19 Coming here, that everybody does what they strongly believe in
18:24 and surely believe in themselves and welcomed
18:29 by everybody, it's all amazing.
18:32 And that really, really inspiring
18:35 me to continue my journey.
18:41 Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain.
18:49 We all have sorrow.
18:55 But if we are wise--
19:00 Mentorship, for me, means that I have something
19:05 that was given to me that I have worked very, very
19:08 hard in developing that I can do the same for someone else.
19:14 That is the true gift.
19:17 Lean on me when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend.
19:25 I'll help you carry on.
19:29 For it won't be long till I'm going to need somebody
19:38 to lean on.
19:41 Lean on me.
19:43 Lean on me.
19:46 Yeah!
19:48 [APPLAUSE]
19:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:55 "Musica" was proudly presented by Rolex.