Ballet choreographer leaps into action
With U.S. arts funding under threat from Donald Trump, American Alonzo King says it’s time to make a stand
What: Alonzo King LINES Ballet Where: Royal Theatre When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday (free pre-show chat, 6:45 p.m. in west lobby) Tickets: $29 and up (250-386-6121)
When the going gets tough, the bona fide artist is spurred to greater heights.
So says San Francisco choreographer Alonzo King, who is bringing his LINES Ballet to Victoria’s Royal Theatre this weekend.
In a phone interview, King was asked how Donald Trump’s government might affect King as an artist. The U.S. president is said not to be a fan of arts funding. The new regime is reportedly considering eliminating American arts and humanities agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts.
King said, without hesitation, that his spirit remains undiminished. He said all artists must rise to the challenge in the face of political adversity.
“Listen, it’s an inspiration to be more creative. Because when there’s darkness, you have to bring light,” said the choreographer, whose father was active in the U.S. civil rights movement.
King has overseen his LINES Ballet since founding it in 1982. Renowned for melding elements of classical ballet with contemporary dance, he’s well known on the international dance scene.
Leading companies such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Royal Swedish Ballet and the Frankfurt Ballet include King’s works in their repertoires.
In Victoria, the company, which has performed here several times, will present two works.
Sand is set to a score by jazz musicians Jason Moran and Charles Lloyd. Shostakovich — one of King’s most popular creations — is danced to four of the Russian composer’s string quartets.
Sand exemplifies King’s notion that the artist must persevere during difficult times.
“I think the music is sublime,” he said. “It is largely about the indomitable will that is built when struggle and obstacle are introduced to the human psyche.”
King was born in Albany, Georgia, to a politically active black family. His father worked with Martin Luther King, and counted Malcolm X and Bertrand Russell among his friends. He was president of the Albany Movement, a nationally known coalition that worked to promote desegregation in the 1960s.
King, whose mother was a dancer, started dance lessons as a 10-year-old. His interest in the art form began earlier, however.
“I was always moving, just nonstop. It seemed an escape from the world of ordinariness. And it was fun.”
King, who later studied at New York’s School of American Ballet, intuited as a child that human movement conveys truth like nothing else.
“I remember when I was a kid, when I observed people’s body language, that seemed to be more accurate than what was coming out of their mouths,” he said.
He is something of a polymath. As well as creating dance, King likes to paint, write, sing and play the harmonium.
He reads expansively, everything from philosophy to science. These might seem wide-ranging interests, yet King sees it differently. Whether one is a farmer or a scientist, he said, it’s all about delving deeply to find the essential truth within any subject.
“With all of us makers and doers, regardless of what we title our occupation, we’re all looking for the gold thread. We’re looking for those places where things become a kind of poetry.”
King views art — and everything else, for that matter — from a global perspective.
He finds it mystifying that, in such a technologically advanced age, territorial wars still break out.
Nonetheless, King believes that, one day, borders will disappear and people will realize we are all “citizens of the world.”
Meanwhile, the choreographer said he’ll continue to create in the tradition of artists who rise up in the face of misfortune, whether it’s “deep personal suffering” or outside adversity such as persecution or wars.
“Those works are still illuminating the planet and still exist today,” King said. “The goal for all of us is to continue to build, to continue to create and to continue to bring light.”