Elevated forms of thought allow art to thrive. Works that challenge the audience to think and feel in foreign ways are the products of artists whose thoughts stretch beyond their own art form.
Alonzo King is an artist whose curiosity, knowledge and spirit has shaped his artistic vision.
His extensive study and understanding of science, philosophy, culture, history and mathematics has molded his work. King’s choreography does anything but rest on exquisite form and technique. He breathes life into the work, teaching his dancers to move from the inside out — to be guided by feeling.
LINES Ballet, King’s renowned ballet company based in San Francisco, has been putting his eloquent artistic vision into motion since 1982.
King recently paid a visit to the University of South Florida School of Dance, teaching workshops and classes. He has choreographed a portion of DanceUSF’s 2015 Spring Dance Concert, which will run from March 20-28. The performance will also include a work by Robert Moses, founder of Robert Moses KIN and directed by faculty member Bliss Kohlmyer (who has worked with San Francisco based KIN for most of her career); a piece by faculty member Andee Scott that experiments with light/projections in dance, original contemporary ballet pieces choreographed by Paula Nunez and Jeanne Travers, and original works choreographed by some of USF’s most talented dance students.
A serene, soft-spoken presence with enormous ideas, an in-person conversation with King is intoxicating. His warmth and eagerness to forge a mental connection encompass you. When it comes to truly dissecting truths about love, fear, art and technology in the 21st century, King is game.
King refers to his own work as “thought structures,” based on the idea that energy is shaped and manipulated to form everything that exists in nature.
“These are thoughts that are built into ideas in the same way that novels are,” King said. “And, when you have an audience that has given you their focus and attention, and they are absorbed in it, there is union. And that’s the goal in everything — union.”
According to Andrew Carroll, Assistant Professor of Dance at USF, King took special care to shape his portion of the Spring Dance Concert, as well as time to influence the dancers on an individual basis.
"Each dancer was impacted by thoughts regarding their individual artistry, their individual physical approach to dance and about tenacity in the field of dance," Carroll said. "In addition, Mr. King actually created a section that did not formerly exist specifically for the dancers here at USF. This is a very big honor."
Classical ballet is a discipline that uses the limbs as a language. Bodies in motion tell a story. According to King, the story being told by a dancer is the true treasure of a performance.
“There has to be accuracy in the technique and the form,” King said. “But, the larger idea is the content and what you are saying — what the meaning is.”
Although the body is a dancer’s primary tool, King said that the body can be a trap. He believes that it is a mistake to rely solely on physicality to create an impactful piece.
“When we identify with the body, it doesn’t work. That narrow circumference is a trap,” King said. “If the dancer thinks this is their periphery, then it’s end of them. The whole idea is that they are stepping into a cosmic rhythm that has existed for eons, when it is done right.”
With the rise of hand-held technology and all-encompassing social media, it is becoming increasingly challenging to be a patient, attentive audience member in the art world. A sea of lights from cell phones taking video recordings of concerts (which will most likely be uploaded to some form of social media) eclipses the vision of those still committed to seeing things with their own two eyes.
The use of cell phones and recording devices is typically prohibited in theater/dance community. King said that this has given him a greater appreciation for the audience presence at performances.
“To leave your routine and come to a theatre for two hours and give you concentration to something that's living and to cut off your cell phone is a wonder,” King said. “So, as an artist, you have to really give it, because the mind is so fractured and so neurotic and noisy. You have to pull that mind into concentration by what you're executing.”
On stage, King’s elevated form of thought translates into something raw, ambient, organic. LINES employs a sense of ambiguity — lines are blurred between softness and strength, masculine and feminine, fluidity and rigidity.
King’s teachings defy the constraints of modern dance. He said it is necessary to challenge what constitutes exceptional art.
“In art making, there is often a hierarchy. In dancing, it is about how bodies are constructed, particularly in classical ballet — about form and proportion and how that reads on large stages,” King said. “It has nothing to do with art, because if the art is deep, it doesn’t matter.”
Ultimately, King is trying to create art comparable to that he has devoured, and that which has nourished him throughout his life.
“It always seems funny when I say ‘dancers,’ because it is just human beings. It is human stuff,” King said. “I think that if I can get them to just experience, to taste it, they are transformed. The thing is, once you've tasted the experience of having been danced — and that can be in a disco or in a room with the lights out — once you've experienced that, something's changed.”
The USF Spring Dance Concert is March 20-21, 26-28 at 8 p.m. and March 22 at 3 p.m., Theatre 1, USF Tampa Campus. $15 general admission. theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu.
