Friday, January 22, 1999
Unlock mysteries behind ‘language of movement’
ONCAMPUS: Choreographer brings contemporary ballet to UCLA
tonight
By Laura Zhang
Daily Bruin Contributor
Ballet is like watching the sky, at least if you listen to
nationally acclaimed choreographer Alonzo King.
According to King, who brings his much-touted LINES Contemporary
Ballet to Royce Hall tonight at 8, ballet is a language of movement
that people should look at the way astronomers scrutinize the sky:
The more they look at it, the more they will understand.
Since 1982, King’s LINES Contemporary Ballet has been touring
the nation with 14 dancers. Tonight marks their second appearance
at UCLA in two years.
King believes that his dance should transcend the dancers’
formal training and touch the inner beings of the audience.
"When people come to the program, they should come in the way
that they meet people, in the same way that you want to come and be
open and experience what it is all about," says King, who has
choreographed for the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago and the Dance
Theater of Harlem.
King extends this vision to his work with the National Endowment
for the Arts, and as art commissioner with the city and county of
San Francisco.
This weekend’s program at Royce Hall features the Southern
California premiere of "Three Stops on the Way Home" composed by
Pharoah Sanders and "Who Dressed You Like a Foreigner?" composed
and performed by Zakir Hussain.
Sanders, a Grammy Award winner, is renowned for producing
saxophone music resembling traditions of African and Third World
music.
Combined with the work of such acclaimed artists, King’s unique
contemporary dance choreography has established him as one of the
leading dance artists of the country.
"King’s ballets look like worlds in which people really think
about each other," praised the Village Voice.
The show-stealer, however, may be special guest percussionist
Hussain.
Son of famous tabla (a highly resonant instrument played by
hand) drumming master Ustad Allarakha, Hussain learned his trade at
his father’s knee. After composing music for several film scores,
as well as the opening music for the 1996 summer Olympics in
Atlanta, he won a Grammy award for Best World Music Album for his
part as performer, composer and co-producer of Planet Drum, and is
now the most widely recorded North Indian tabla performer.
The combination of King’s trademark dance movements and
Hussain’s fiery tablas will undoubtedly make a deep impression on
the minds of the UCLA audience.
And that’s just what King wants.
"You should look at dance the way people look at nature: When
you watch something for a long time, it begins to reveal itself to
you," King says.
DANCE: Alonzo King’s LINES Contemporary Ballet performs Friday
and Saturday at 8 p.m. at Royce Hall. Tickets are $28, $24, $19 and
$10. For more information, call (310) 825-2101.
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