Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at the Edison April 21-23
Classical dance meets African soul, and dancers as ferociously sleek and fearsomely virtuosic as cheetahs take ballet technique to a new extreme, when Dance St. Louis and Edison Theatre’s OVATIONS! Series present the St. Louis debut of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet at the Edison on April 21-23.
The rich, Baroque structures of George Frideric Handel and the vibrant drumming and song of North African folk tradition find common ground in the choreography of San Francisco visionary Alonzo King, a superb craftsman imbued with profound originality who creates with a global attitude and honed-steel kinetic edge.
The Moroccan Project draws on the extraordinarily diverse forms of North African music to express the intricate rhythms of emotion and community. The vibrant drumming of the ceremonies of the Gnawa people, who originated in West Africa and came to Morocco as slaves in the 16th century, is a backdrop for the haunting strains of oud, violin and women’s devotional singing in a landscape of shifting rhythms and echoing voices.
The work also includes Berber (Amazigh) songs from the Middle Atlas Mountains; Chaabit, a form of popular song that is the Moroccan equivalent of American country music; classical Arabic music rooted in the 9th century; and the catchy and danceable Algerian Ra’i music that combines North African rhythms with a solid bass line and synthesizer.
In Handel, exploring the music of 18th-century German composer George Frideric Handel, King takes up the drama and elegance of Baroque musical expression to create a complex music of dancers’ bodies. King’s evocative choreography is deeply resonant with the nobility of the music.
In 1741, Handel said of his latest composition, “Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it, I know not. God knows.” In his own Handel, King seeks to give audiences that same sense of seeing ethereal beauty given shape and form, of being present in the moment when creativity is embodied and experienced.
King’s dancers are among the most extraordinary on stage today. They produce “dancing of sleekness, fervid sensuality and commitment so deep you suspect these performers would jeté off the nearest cliff if King requested it,” said Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance, of the November 2005 world premieres of Handel and The Moroccan Project.
“A dancer in Lines Ballet, Alonzo King’s San Francisco company, has to have lines and then some,” wrote Deborah Jowitt in The Village Voice. “When his nine company members dance, I think of diamonds – twisting in the light or rapidly scratching complex codes on glass.”
Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet has become a San Francisco institution with a cadre of impassioned fans since King founded it on a shoestring in 1982. King’s work has increasingly been coming into the international spotlight. He has made dances for companies including Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Hong Kong Ballet.
An entirely new voice in contemporary ballet, he is especially known for his unusual collaborations with world musicians, including Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, the founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock; tabla master Zakir Hussain, one of India’s national treasures; and Nzamba Lela, 16 BaAka musicians from the forests of the Central African Republic. He also has collaborated with legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, actor Danny Glover.
Performances are at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, April 21-22, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 23. Tickets are $28 for the general public, $24 for students and seniors. They are available at the Dance St. Louis box office at 3547 Olive Blvd., Edison Theatre box office at the Mallinckrodt Center at Washington University, and all MetroTix outlets.
Tickets are also available by calling Dance St. Louis at 314-534-6622, MetroTix at 314-534-1111, or Edison Theatre at 314-935-6543 and via dancestlouis.org.
