Myles Thatcher
Age: 27 Provenance: Born and raised in Atlanta. Training: Harid Conservatory, Ellison Ballet and S.F. Ballet School. Career: Created his first ballets for S.F. Ballet School while a company trainee. S.F. Ballet corps member since 2010 and created his first mainstage work for the company in 2013; recent commissions include New
York City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and Charlotte Ballet. Big ups: Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky mentored Thatcher via the 2014-15 Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative. What he’s created: Thatcher’s first semi-narrative work, “Otherness” is a surreal allegory on the binaries dividing our culture — gender, race, political parties — and juxtaposes simulated violence with visual echoes of synchronized swimming. He chose John Adams’ high-impact “Absolute Jest” score for the way it explodes the traditions of Beethoven and Stravinsky. “They’re warped and bastardized in a way,” Thatcher says, “which is what we wanted to do with these binaries — make them so outrageous that they look ridiculous.”
Cosmetic fix: For fun, “I’ll paint my face into art and post a picture on Instagram.” See his spectacular creations: @mylesthatcher.
On being unbound:
“It’s important that we have the ballet community not be standoffish to what’s happening now,” he says. “I feel more and more inclined to do work that says something, rather than doesn’t.”