Forensic Scientist Turned Dancer
Dancers struggle with the perennial tug-of-war between dance and education, generally viewing education as the back up plan. Not so Mukhtar Omar Shariff Mukhtar, a featured dancer in Cirque du Soleil's new show, "LOVE," at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. He sees his dance career as the back up to his education, giving him the money to finance his studies whenever he decides he's had enough of the spotlight. Trust me - that won't be any time soon.
It is perhaps not surprising that Mukhtar would have unconventional views. Everything else about his 24 years has been unconventional, so why not his take on dance as a back up to education? Born in Somalia, educated in Saudi Arabia, he abandoned his Forensic Science studies in England to take up hip-hop. He said, "Well, I'm a student. I studied Forensic Science back at home. Like, it was my second year and then I got this job, so when I go back and I finish this job, then I'll finish my degree in Forensics. While I was in college studying sciences, I saw a group of people perform on stage. It was like a showcase type of thing, cabaret, and I really enjoyed what I saw."
He enjoyed it enough, it seems, to postpone his education to pursue it full-time. "Well, I was kind of intimidated but I thought that I had to do it because I was really, really in love with it from the first time I saw it and I thought, 'Oh well. The first few months is going to be embarrassing. Let me just get over the embarrassing period.'"
So for the past five years, Mukhtar has given himself, body and soul, to learning his craft. He said, "I started really late but I had a lot to catch up on in terms of seeing everybody around me dance. They'd been dancing all their lives and me dancing with them on the same stage, I had to, when I first started, I had to make sure that obviously my standards were similar to theirs, if not better, so I had to train twice as hard as they did."
The dedication resulted in a world hip-hop championship but oddly enough, as much as the choreography, he credits interpretation as an essential ingredient in setting him apart. "I see two types of dancers. I see dancers who dance because they have to dance and I see dancers who dance because they love to dance, and the ones that love to dance and have character with them onstage are the ones who will always catch your eyes because they're the ones that want to show you something."
And when you have something to show, you can bet Cirque du Soleil will come calling. "I didn't know who Cirque du Soleil was. Someone phoned me with a French accent. I was in London and I was like, 'Who the heck is phoning me?' and they were like, 'Cirque du Soleil,' and I was like, 'Cirque du who?'"
"I thought they were pulling my leg and they just told me, 'No, we're one of the biggest circus companies in the world,' and I said, 'I'm a dancer. I'm not a clown.' And they were like, 'No, no, no. We're looking for dancers,' and they explained to me what they were trying to do with the project and I was like, 'It sounds really interesting.' And I had to do up a demo and then send it to them so they could see, because they wanted to see me do yoga as well as dance and I knew a bit of yoga so I just put that in there."
Still, as successful as he has become, he keeps returning to the education thing. "Well, I can't dance forever. After forty or forty-five, what can you do? You can't really dance. Or I might break a leg. Hope not, but you never know. You have to have the degree."
"Back up for me was the dance. I'm just doing this at the moment to prove myself as a dancer and make more money so that when I go back home, I can finish up my education and then I'll see where I go from there, but I can see a dance school still being there."
"Like you'd have to see me onstage in my prime when I'm dancing and I guarantee you, you'll not look away. You will not look away. I'll pull you in to what I'm doing." What he's doing is taking the stage and commanding attention from the first bar of music. For the foreseeable future (or at least until he's forty-five), Mukhtar has his priorities down pat.
For more about "LOVE," the show composed of Beatles music, go to www.cirquedusoleil.com.