Alonzo King, artistic director of his LINES Ballet, choreographs dances that flow like water, constantly splashing into new ideas. His creative process prioritizes deep collaboration with dancers, designers, and musicians—an approach that will be on display as Alonzo King LINES Ballet continues its 44th home season. Running from April 11–19 at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the program honors two visionary female musicians. It includes King’s Ode to Alice Coltrane, which returns to California after the company’s tour to France in January and February, as well as LEGACY, a world premiere King is creating in collaboration with five-time Grammy Award–winning singer, bassist, and composer esperanza spalding. For each performance, spalding will perform live onstage with the dancers.
“Collaborating with esperanza is such a rare opportunity, because she is not simply accompanying the choreography, she is composing in real time with the dancers’ bodies,” says King. He and spalding met at the San Francisco Symphony’s 2021 gala, which featured performances by both the musician and LINES Ballet. King said they immediately hit it off and discussed collaborating in the future. Both LINES Ballet and spalding tour extensively, and when she’s not traveling, the musician’s home base is Portland, Oregon. Now that their schedules have finally aligned, King and spalding have been able to commit more time to the creation process than the usual ballet premiere allows. “Amazingly, esperanza came out early in December for a week of rehearsals,” says King. “She’s been playing in the studio, conjuring, and sharing ideas. The ‘getting to know you’ period has happened, and we still have two more weeks of work prior to opening.”
For the premiere, King describes being devoted to the process, creating new material for as long as possible and trimming only when the premiere date approaches. “When you are vibing with someone and are both after the same goal, the work is not categorized,” he says. King is also clear on the purpose of collaborating and of his craft. “To be in a room full of brilliant artists, it’s a fun room,” he says. “One of the repeating themes is that love is important and transforming, selflessness is liberating, we are all connected—we are not weak, whining mortals. We are immortals capable of limitless possibility.”
King was so zoomed in on the creative process, he says, that it was LINES creative director and co-founder Robert Rosenwasser who pointed out that the spring season centers two brilliant female composers. For spalding, sharing a bill with Alice Coltrane’s music is meaningful. In a video interview with the company early during the creation process, she said that for LEGACY, she’s focusing on lineage: “It’s about the inheritance that we live inside of and that we are nourished by and that we offer forward through our life and after our life,” she said. “And when I think of Alice Coltrane, I think of like the consummate steward of lineage.”
Spalding has also been taken by the lineage present in each of the dancers. “I think that the biggest kind of ‘aha’ or impact for me has been being blasted with the recognition of how many lifetimes of dedication this work represents. The work that the dancers are doing represents the immeasurable dedication that’s implied by their ability to do what they’re doing here today.”
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