a&e | DANCE PREVIEW
THE KING OF MUSIC AND MOVEMENT Alonzo King Returns to Santa Barbara by Elizabeth Schwyzer
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RJ MUNA
he new season of dance at UCSB Arts & Lectures kicks off next week with a company that’s got strong Santa Barbara ties: Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Now based in San Francisco, King spent his teen years here on the Central Coast and danced with Santa Barbara Ballet before going on to study and perform in New York. He founded LINES more than 30 years ago, and the company has developed an international reputation for sleek, contemporary ballet choreography and worldclass performers. Last in town in 2004, they return on Wednesday night with two ensemble works from the recent repertory: “Resin” (2011), which explores Sephardic musical traditions, and “Meyer” (2013), set to a commissioned score by celebrated composer and double-bassist Edgar Meyer. Last week, King spoke to me about finding humanity in dance, as well as the inextricable link between music and movement.
You work in close collaboration with your dancers. What do you look for in a performer, and how do you know when you’ve found it? You look for people who are dancing their consciousness. We dance who EN POINTE: Alonzo King LINES Ballet brings 2011’s we are, sing who we are, talk who we are, and “Resin” to life at the Granada Theatre on October 2. exhibit who we are by our actions. In someone’s voice you hear a lot about who they are. You can There is a huge belief in sports and even social dance hear whether they are angry, self-righteous, vain. A lot of heart and mind are embedded in voice. You get a similar in our communities, but theatrical dance is really sufsense when someone auditions. You can see when people fering. It has been ripped out of our education. Art has are imitating, when they’re self-conscious, looking for a become elitist because it’s a thing of choice and therefore reward, or posing. You can also see when they are inebri- is about who can afford it. In America in particular, people ated by being in dialogue with a form — when they want to feel threatened when they don’t understand something serve the art, not show themselves off. That is what you’re because they have not had experience with it. Theatrical drawn to. When you see someone who is being herself, dance is less and less known, and that’s horribly sad. Yet then you have an original, and that’s whom you want to if every bit of money was taken away, it would still occur: work with. Someone has to do something because they have to do it, and that’s always been the case. You talk a lot about process over product. How do you teach this philosophy to your dancers? What can audiences expect from your Santa There’s an idea that your occupation is nine-to-five, and Barbara program? What they will really be seeing prior and post you have nothing to do with that, but the is artists at the highest level discussing — in a physical reality is that who you are and what you think is really your treatise — what life is about. What people have in comlife’s job. The goal is to discover who you are. The artists mon on the planet is the avoidance of pain and suffering, I work with, they’re thinking about how they approach and the aim for some kind of joy that’s ever new. We’re all everything in terms of honesty — that means from the engaged in a balancing act of trying to obtain that with all moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, what the obstacles that come into life. That is what the audience they put in their bodies, what they drink and eat, how they is going to be seeing. And they’re going to see it danced by greet people — being present so they are not multitasking extraordinary artists at the top of their game who perform around the globe. or hiding. If we really boil it down, we are not our personal stories. I think it’s important that people come to the theater Marital status, sex, race, age, skin tone, geographic location, and stop thinking — that they come without expectations, where you grew up — those things are not who we are. At sit down, open their hearts, and allow themselves to feel. It’s the end of our lives, the real questions will be: How much not important to be smart. The work is sculpted to speak did you love and give back? How much did you partici- to the soul. pate? How much were you really present? That is done in seconds of thought. People have this idea that they’re going UCSB Arts & Lectures to do something big. But we are transformed by how we presents Alonzo King LINES think, second by second. Ballet at the Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) on Wednesday, Why does dance matter? Because everything is October 2, at 8 p.m. Call 893-3535 or visit dance. There’s nothing that’s not dance. The big bang artsandlectures.sa.ucsb.edu for tickets — what was that but a big ballet? You cannot make sound and info. A community dance class with without movement, so they’re inextricable. What we have the company will be held at the Gustafson in the earliest primordial cultures is sound and movement. School of Dance (2285 Las Positas Rd.) What’s going on in our bodies but blood pumping through on Tuesday, October 1, at 4:30 p.m. vessels, hearts beating, speeding and slowing; what is the Call 966-6950 or visit sbdancealliance.org principal expression of life but movement? What is not to reserve a space. dance? is really the question.
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september 26, 2013
THE INDEPENDENt
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