Thoughts behind the Movement
Alonzo King loves movement. And he knows that movement does not lie. “When I was a child, one of the first things that struck me was the way people moved. No matter what they said, it seemed it was the way they moved that told the true story,” he says. King grew up in Albany, Georgia, where he began making dances as a child. And when he arrived in the ballet studio, he immediately sensed “that this was home.” From an early age he recognized European ballet’s deep-rooted connection to all dance, and to the truths of geometry, symbolism, and a quest for transcendence, which he traces back to the ancient world. This is the same ancient world in which he places the African Pygmies, that is, the BaAka people with whom he created Forest. Turnbull, who traced the Pygmies to a record of an expedition sent from Egypt in the Fourth Dynasty (cited by Homer in the Iliad), suggests that Pygmy singers and dancers were present at the Egyptian court some forty-five hundred years ago. (note 2)
Although King remains devoted to the practice of classical ballet, he believes that we underestimate ballet’s continuity with world dance. “Most people think of ballet as a style, and associate it with the Romantic period in Europe. It’s not a style. It’s a language that can be used in limitless ways,” he says. Wordless abstraction can be a powerful force of expression; one that can make dance the envy of the other arts. King’s abstract dance imagery, suffused with narrative possibilities, offers a different point of entry for each viewer. His works have been enjoyed for their qualities of symmetry, beauty, and rhythm. Their appeal comes in both the neoclassical virtuosity of his performers and expressionist quality of his compositions. In practice, he asks his dancers to discard the artifice of classical ballet’s poses and shape-making. More radically, he urges them to transcend the customary separation between dancer and audience in order to allow themselves to be seen for who they really are. “I want dancers to discover their own voices,” he says. Thus exposed, his dance artists draw in the viewer through display, narrative, spirituality, and interpersonal drama.
Alonzo King has a lot to say—in conversation and in print—about what he does. Forthright and didactic in his diction, he peppers discussion of his art with references to God and transcendence. King is one of seven choreographers featured in a recent book about the spiritual aspects of contemporary dance by Janet Lynn Roseman, Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance, in which he shares company (and unconventional commentary) with such dance icons as Merce Cunningham, Edward Villella, Michael Smuin, and Mark Morris. Roseman, a San Francisco author who has followed King’s work for years, writes that she is drawn to King’s work for the way “his choreography pries open the heart . . . . Whenever I watch his choreography, I feel washed clean, as if I have just engaged in a powerful and prayerful ritual. He has the unique sensibility to turn the theatre into a sanctuary, echoing dance’s earliest intention.” (note 3)
One of the cornerstones of King’s career in ballet is his work as a gifted and charismatic teacher and coach. Known for his ability to draw on a dancer’s inner resources, King describes his process as one that helps dancers to “find their own song.” Pam Hagen, Lines’s executive director, says, “I think Alonzo gets as much satisfaction in working with a dancer and seeing them blossom, in being able to say the right thing to that dancer that unlocks the door to them—I think that gives him as much pleasure as creating work.” Among the dancers King has worked with closely over the years are Fernando Bujones, Eleanor D’Antuono, Karen Kain, Muriel Maffre, Tracy-Kai Maier, and Veronica Tennant. He has choreographed solos for Christopher Boatwright (Prayer, 1987) and Natalia Makarova (Après un rêve and Quand ma mère m’apprenait, 1986). He has worked as a master teacher with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, London’s Ballet Rambert, National Ballet of Canada, and San Francisco Ballet. Every year, he also teaches an intensive one-week professional course that covers technique, choreography, yoga, and discussion, to help dancers “get back in touch with what dance is about.” In 2001, more than a hundred dancers applied for the session’s fifteen places.
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