THE ALONZO KING LINES BALLET COMES HOME TO GEORGIA

Alonzo King grew up in Albany, in a family whose members were leaders in the civil rights movement.

“As a kid, I would see adults holding postures, and their body language was different than the words coming out of their mouths. There seemed to be a clarity and honesty in the physical forms,” says King, the award-winning choreographer and director of the San Francisco based Alonzo King LINES Ballet international touring company. The troupe will perform January 14 on The Ferst Center for the Arts stage at Georgia Tech.

King, who calls his innovative pieces “thought structures,” says, “Music is thought made audible, and dance is thought made visible.” Ballet then becomes a conversation between the musicians and the dancers that gets transmitted to the audience on many levels, some subliminal. “It’s soul language. What we’re trying to do is create works that touch hearts and minds,” King says. He expects the experience to differ for each person, since every human being is an original. “The constant is that the work is well and truly made,” he says. “As artists, we are trying to wake up the sleeping artists in others.”

That intention fits perfectly with the expanding arts programming of Madison Cario, director of Arts@Tech. She’s looking for innovative ways to heighten the “creative confidence” of engineering students and the Atlanta community. “We’re all taught technique and curriculum. We fix things and solve problems,” says Cario. “But we’ve lost the ability to play, to deal with ambiguity and to dream.”

Her goal is to create more “art/ tech mash-ups,” to bring artists into classrooms and students into rehearsals; to break down the separations between art and science; and to change how people see the world. She’s excited for an Atlanta audience to experience the “technically stellar and challenging movements” of LINES, and for Alonzo King and his work to experience a “homecoming” here in Georgia.

arts.gatech.edu/ferst-center-shows

STORIES: Laura Raines

Photo: RJ Muna