Alonzo King, Kronos Quartet finally find ‘COMMON GROUND’
Famed choreographer and renowned music group have long sought the chance to work together
The surprise surrounding the world premiere of “Common Ground,” the first time that choreographer Alonzo King has worked with Kronos Quartet, is that these two signature Bay Area institutions haven’t previously joined forces. Presented at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from Friday through Oct. 14, the new work is paired with the revival of “Handel,” King’s 2005 exploration of George Frideric Handel’s intricate Baroque structures. Over more than three decades, King’s company, Lines Ballet, has carved out a creatively charged realm defined by on-stage collaborations with master musicians, from tabla genius Zakir Hussain and powerhouse vocalist Lisa Fischer to tenor sax titans Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd. It’s not that working with Kronos, the dauntless champions of new music, didn’t occur to King earlier. The stumbling block was their unforgiving calendars.
“We’ve been wanting to work together for a long time,” says King, 66. “Since we both travel and perform so much, it’s taken almost 12 years to find a
find a period of time when we could do it. We’re all thrilled about it.”
A seemingly inexhaustible precious resource, Kronos has worked with some of the world’s most celebrated choreographers over the years, artists as different as Nederlands Dans Theater, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Eiko and Koma, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company and Oakland Ballet. Many more choreographers have set dances to Kronos re- cordings, including Paul Taylor, who designed an entire New York City Center residency around pieces from the 2002 Kronos album “Nuevo” (Nonesuch).
“A lot of companies have used our music,” says Kronos violinist and leader David Harrington. “We really value that. Working with Alonzo King has felt like something that should and would happen. It’s going to be very vibrant and musical. We will be on stage playing, behind the dancers.”
For “Common Ground,” King has gleaned five pieces from the Kronos Performing Arts Association’s “Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire.” An ongoing commissioning project and educational initiative launched three years ago, “Fifty for the Future” was conceived to provide aspiring amateur and early career professional string quartets with material to hone the skills required to play contemporary music. Digital versions of the scores, recordings and other materials are all freely available on the Kronos website. (Cal Performances presents Kronos playing new “Fifty for the Future” works at Zellerbach Hall on Jan. 25.)
King selected a diverse program reflecting Kronos’
global reach for “Common Ground,” with Dutch composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven’s “Play”; Dutchborn, Israeli-raised Yotam Haber’s “From the Book”; Polish composer Aleksander Kosciów’s “Hílathi” and Secret Chiefs 3 guitarist Trey Spruance’s “Séraphîta: I. Séraphîta” and “Séraphîta: II. Le Baphomet.”
One of the challenges is that the works have already subtly evolved in performance. With familiarity, a piece’s tempo often accelerates, and since King is creating the ballet and his dancers are learning the steps via recordings, all parties need to make adjustments when they come together for the premiere.
“You want to keep the dance alive, but you don’t want the music to go stale,”
King says. “They can’t repeat what they did two years ago. We both are relying on spontaneity. The work is how we marry ourselves.”
King can speak about the technical details of dance making, but rather than about craft, he prefers to discuss art creation as a human endeavor that flows from relationships. For an artist who has created brilliant works reaching across cultures, it’s a utopian world view that’s emotionally insightful and disarmingly pragmatic.
“What we’re really talking about is how to behave as human beings,” King says. “Other than questions of justice, when you want to be fixed and unmovable, we need to be flexible. Art is telling us how to live. You’re meeting people, and if you’re going to have a conversation, you have to listen. And listening is not easy. Have to get out of the way and let the music talk. You have to put aside all of your superior knowledge and observe another culture and point of view.”
In Kronos Quartet, King has found fellow practitioners of radical empathy.