Yannis Adoniou - Director, KUNST-STOFF

Why do you mentor?
The exchange between emerging and established choreographers is such an important action that helps to establish healthy and strong individual artists and creates a community that is connected and engages in a truthful dialog with each other. It also stimulates the artistic growth of emerging choreographers and allows for the sharing of career experiences, observations, and the history of the art form.

How has being a mentor helped your career?
As a mentor, when giving feedback about the work it is not only the mentee but the mentor who is learning. Mentor/mentee exchanges improve the choreographic skills of both parties…one has no choice but to learn from the other.  I personally get inspired not only as a dance maker but as a producer/director as well.

How did you connect with your mentee(s)?
The mentees have come to me and after conversations on what they are looking to get out of the relationship we place goals for the time we will spend together.

How long have your mentoring relationships typically lasted?
A year is a good time to get to know the artist, see what they are up to, and find ways to exchange ideas and practices and identify ways to support them.

How do you keep in touch with your mentee(s)?
Meetings, going to their rehearsals, having them come to my company`s rehearsals, and having them take part in workshops or other forums that may help them get ideas that will eventually support them in finding their own paths and deepening their own voices
 
What has surprised you most about being a mentor?
Even with set goals I realize that there are always more discoveries to be made.
 
What have been some of the challenges of being a mentor?
In order to exercise the rigorous, critical analysis of choreography, a specific forum needs to be established so it finds more articulation within the overall picture.

What do you look for in a mentee?
Good chemistry. I also must respect them for who they are as people, as artists, and who they become afterwards.
 
Do you have any tips for other mentors?
To not say too much and/or find the way to make your mentees discover whatever it is on their own so they do not get spoon fed

Do you have any tips for mentees?
Trust yourself first, and then be open to see what vibrations you create, how you may affect the world around you, and learn from it.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
In a way it is not only just how much you learn but also it is very important to recognize how much you may or may not know!
 
Born in Greece, Yannis Adoniou began his career at 16 when he was selected for a full scholarship to study at the State School of Dance in Athens. At 17, he moved to Germany where he began his professional career as a performer with Hamburg Ballet and Bonn Ballet. At Bonn, he was encouraged to begin a choreographic career, and early works demonstrated a kinship with the artistic ideals of the American master, Alonzo King. A meeting with Mr. King in Frankfurt led to an invitation to join King's LINES Ballet in San Francisco. There, Adoniou danced and created leading roles from 1993 to 1998, at which time he went on to found the critically acclaimed dance company, KUNST-STOFF. An accomplished filmmaker (with works presented at Dance Forum Monaco, Dance Camera West Film Festival, Cinedans Amsterdam, and REDCAT among others) Adoniou's performance works are often set in unexpected visual worlds, drawn from his equally profound gift for visual art. Mr. Adoniou has received the prestigious Isadora Duncan Award, a 2005 Goldie Award, and choreographic excellence awards from the James Irvine Foundation and Dance/USA, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Fund, and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. He was part of the 2008 American delegation to Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf, and as an acknowledged master teacher, he conducts classes and workshops across the United States and Europe.