Rolex announces four new mentorships in architecture, music, dance and literature and changes in the Arts Initiative’s timing and funding. 

Four renowned artists − Sir David Adjaye (architecture), Zakir Hussain (music), Crystal Pite (dance) and Colm Tóibín (literature) will be the mentors for 2018 – 2019 in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The company also announced a new programme schedule that will allow more time for the mentorships along with increased funding.

The names of the new mentors and their protégés were announced in February at a public ceremony in Berlin celebrating the completion of the 2016 – 2017 mentoring year, the 15th anniversary of the programme. Leading arts figures from Germany and around the world joined the new and past Rolex mentors and protégés at the gala event. From this year, the Rolex Arts Initiative mentorships will address disciplines in alternating periods. In 2018 – 2019, mentorships will take place in architecture, dance, literature and music. The change will give each mentoring pair up to two years of collaboration, doubling the 12 months of the original model used from 2002 to 2017.The first pairs to benefit from this extended mentorship are:

ARCHITECTURE: Ghana-born British architect Sir David Adjaye – renowned for major commissions worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington DC – has chosen as his protégée Mariam Kamara, 38, who is dedicated to designing spaces and structures that respond to the needs of people in her homeland, Niger, and all of Africa.

DANCE: Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, famed for her passion to communicate ideas, emotions and stories, and her strong theatrical sensibility, has chosen as her protégée Khoudia Touré, 31, from Senegal, a pioneer in urban street dance. Touré has helped enrich African dance through her work as a dancer and choreographer with her hip-hop dance-based company.

LITERATURE: New York-based writer, essayist and journalist Colm Tóibín has depicted his native Ireland and the experience of exile in his much-acclaimed novels; he will mentor Colin Barrett, 35, also from Ireland, whose first collection of short stories, Young Skins, received three major prizes in 2014 in the UK and Ireland.

MUSIC: Indian musician Zakir Hussain – widely viewed as the world’s greatest tabla player, this composer, actor and producer will mentor Marcus Gilmore, 31, a New York jazz musician and startlingly innovative young drummer.

In 2020 – 2021 the programme will address film, theatre, visual arts and a variable eighth mentorship. In this expansion of the programme, the variable mentorship will take place in other fields of the arts; it will be announced in 2020.