Vancouver presenter Jay Hirabayashi first saw LINES Ballet when he was talent-spotting at the Montpellier Dance Festival in France in 2007. "In Europe, there's a trend for conceptual work and there are lots of dancers who don't move very much, and who seem more interested in props and theatrical elements," says Hirabayashi, who saw 24 shows in 10 days in Montpellier. "What was so refreshing about LINES was that they were all about movement. I knew right away I wanted to bring them to Vancouver."

During the company's subsequent tour of Canada's West Coast in October 2008 -- to Vernon, Victoria, Nanaimo and North Vancouver -- there were excited word-of-mouth reports about this must-see event. But it's not just British Columbians (who are, admittedly, starved for large-scale dance companies) that jump on the LINES bandwagon; 12 shows booked in Lyons at the Maison de la Danse in March 2009 sold out months in advance. In LINES' hometown of San Francisco -- where the company has been based since King co-founded it in 1982 -- houses are good and local critics rave. One critic, Allan Ulrich, wrote in 2007: "No single-choreographer company hereabouts has soared so irresistibly and kept its place at the top."

King, a tall man with a calm presence and warm smile, was born in the U.S. state of Georgia. He left at age five, growing up in California and taking his first ballet lessons at age 10. Surprisingly, he isn't keen to talk about the specifics of his formal training, and the biography that comes in the press material contains no details. His father, a civil rights activist, had a large library and introduced him to Jung; his mother, an amateur modern dancer, encouraged him to dance as a child. "That was important training because it meant I already existed in a world of movement and sound that was real to me and internal, so when people began to teach me form, it was just another language." Janet Lynn Roseman, in her book Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance, managed to discover some formal details. According to Roseman, King studied on full scholarship at the Harkness School of Ballet, the Ailey School and American Ballet

That deeper sense of presence is something King encourages his dancers to bring to his choreography and is probably what made him a valued guest ballet master, a post he has filled for the National Ballet of Canada, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Rambert and others. Seen through King's eyes, ballet -- he prefers the term Western classical dance -- is a universal art form that arose from nature. "It's not some social bauble that somebody created," he insists. "What is a whirlpool? It's a pirouette."

He believes in the "exactitude" of ballet technique, but stresses that technique is a device, not a final goal. The goal, of course, is "great dancing," and to attain that, King says, "there are some things we know, like you have to live in the moment and you have to go beyond being self-conscious. Great dancing is a balancing act between will and surrender; it's not about execution of steps." Company member Meredith Webster, who grew up in Wisconsin and trained at the Harid Conservatory and at Pacific Northwest Ballet School, believes King is unique as a teacher. "He doesn't mandate

King's commitment to training is evidenced in the San Francisco Dance Centre, the company's home since 1989, and now one of the largest community dance facilities on the U.S. West Coast, with six dance studios and a Gyrokinesis studio. In 2001, King started the LINES Ballet School and pre-professional programme, which nurtures about 45 students; in 2006, LINES Ballet and Dominican University of California's joint BFA programme in dance was founded (with about 30 students in 2008).

With so much responsibility around training, and given the amount of touring the company does, how does King find time -- and inspiration -- to choreograph? "Balance is the key thing in life, but who knows when you're going to be snatched away from the earth?" he explains. "So while you're here, put out! Art is a life of service. All of life should chiefly be service -- what else are we here for?"

So he creates through good days and less-good days (no day is bad for King as long as he works, he says), and his perseverance has paid off -- his choreography is received enthusiastically around the world. It was obvious why from the moment the company's nine dancers came onstage in King's Irregular Pearl (2007) at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre; they showed immediate presence and absolute clarity in every move. The choreography, set to a mixed baroque score, was inventive but not quirky, retaining a formal sense of shape and carrying dramatic force.

Excerpts from Irregular Pearl featuring Caroline Rocher, Keelan Whitmore and Ricardo Zayas. (Source: LINES Ballet's YouTube channel)

Webster's first impression of King's work, which she saw before joining LINES Ballet, is apt, "There was no line between the obvious technical training, which all the dancers had, and movement that didn't resemble any steps in ballet I'd seen before."

The second half of the double bill, Rasa (2007), was another ensemble piece, this time with bharatanatyam-inflected movement. Set to music commissioned from tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, who performed live at the premiere, it featured a long, exquisitely erotic duet.

Highlights from the East-meets-West Rasa. (Source: LINES Ballet's YouTube channel)

Other commissions have gone to jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, Japanese classical composer Somei Satoh and Nubian oud master Hamza El Din. King describes these commissions as "collaborations," explaining, "I don't think there's anything that's not a collaboration. When I want to get out of bed in the morning, my body and all its parts have to work together with my brain. When I'm working with dancers, these are individuals with their own life experience; they're not Lego -- they are living sentient humans who have ideas, so you collaborate." Some of King's more unusual collaborations were The People of the Forest (2001), which brought in 16 musicians and dancers of the BaAka people from the Central African Republic, and Long River, High Sky (2007), which featured Shaolin monks in martial arts. In June 2008, King received the second annual Jacob's Pillow Award for Creativity, a $25,000 cash gift given to a "visionary artist." What, then, is King's vision? During the talk-back after his North Vancouver

Alonzo King dreams big -- for himself and for all of us. "One of the biggest myths," he says, "is that we're weak, whining mortals. Great works help us to remember that we are capable of unlimited possibility." <end>

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"'The costumes are opulent and the sets are abstract without being odd; [Kandis Cook] designed a black-box space where we can jump through time and space.'" -- Stanton Welch, artistic director of Houston Ballet     Kandis Cook : Great Dame of Design Canadian Kandis Cook sets the scene for dance productions around the world. By Marene Gustin

Getting Canadian-born designer Kandis Cook to sit still for an interview isn't easy. Phone calls and emails bounce between Germany, London and Houston, where the award-winning artist's latest creations for Houston Ballet's Marie premiere in March of this year. But then her globetrotting schedule is a testament to her talents. "At present I am working on a new play called Roaring Trade written by Steve Thompson about the credit crunch and short selling, which led to the recent collapse," Cook said via email in December. "And I am designing costumes for Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice for Hamburg Stat-Opera and Vienna and I am designing Britten's Turn of the Screw for Aldeburgh, opening at Snape." From the economic meltdown of 2008 to the opulence of the 18th century, Cook always meticulously researches her subjects and comes up with wondrous sets and costumes like those she created for the ballet based on the life of Marie Antoinette. Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch first met Cook in 1998 when he chose her to design Powder for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, a production that evoked the Mozart era of Europe in the 18th century, the same time frame of Welch's new full-length ballet Marie. "I think she does that time period very well," says Welch. "The costumes are opulent and the sets are abstract without being odd; she designed a black-box space where we can jump through time and space." Cook isn't exactly sure how her affinity for the 18th century came about, but says that the period fascinates her for many reasons. "The explosion of music, primarily Mozart," says Cook. "The changes that were taking place throughout Europe, the new world in creation and being established in 1776. The period is called the Enlightenment, driven by the wealth of the few who were willing to enable invention and creativity and new thought, which led then to the industrial revolution." All of which is very fertile ground for artistic types. The best part about working on Marie, Cook admits, was the excuse to research the period further. Cook travelled to Versailles to drink in the grandeur of the chateau and the epic proportions of the surrounding gardens, then studied portraits of the period by Jean-Baptiste Charpentier, especially The Cup of Chocolate from 1768; the family portrait Maria Theresia im Kreise ihrer Familie by Temperagemalde von Heinrich Fuger from 1776; and Marie-Antoinette playing the harp in her bedchamber in Versailles painted by Jean-Baptiste Gautier-Dagoty. What she came away with were designs for more than 150 costumes depicting 1770-1795 Austria and France: powdered wigs and perukes, corsets, panniers, silks, lace, jewels, braided waistcoats and jackets, jabeaux, the ancient regime of France in strict formal dress, Marie and her world that was less restricted and more in tune with nature and, finally, the rags of the public in the throes of the French Revolution. Cook says it was a joy working with those in the Houston costume department. "They were so professional, committed and come with their own knowledge and huge experience." A glimpse of the elaborate and varied costumes in a party scene in Marie. (Source: Houston Ballet's YouTube channel) While the costumes for Marie are opulent, the sets are more simplistic. "There are these Versailles scrims that bleed through to a very minimal set," Houston Ballet Production Director Thomas Boyd explains. "And she [Cook] uses photographs and a few antique furnishings to evoke the era, like the giant frame in the background created of entwined bodies. It's a key Kandis style." Cook's design aesthetics add poignancy to this bedroom pas de deux in Marie. (Source: Houston Ballet's YouTube channel) The sparse Versailles set evokes Marie's loneliness in France while an ornate golden bed reflects the expectations of both countries for the progeny that could cement the two politically. The bed is so ornate, so large, in fact, that when it was brought in for rehearsals it took out a water fountain on the way. Other grand ideas for the production included a flying set that breaks apart and reforms as a broken image to depict the impact of the French Revolution. "I do envisage how the costumes and set pieces will work, that is part of the design," Cook says. "But, as I have said, the experience of the team is essential for the realization of each item." Cook was raised in Alberta and, at age 15, studied painting at the Banff School of Fine Arts followed by Alberta College of Art and Design. She received a bachelor of fine arts in performance art and independent filmmaking from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In 1974, she relocated to London and studied under Percy Harris, who was then with the English National Opera. Her work in opera, ballet, theatre, television and film is widely known, with her designs featured in such companies as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Manchester Exchange, Opera North, English National Opera, Wexford Opera Festival, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal and even for the Royal Court Theatre in London. Married to a photographer, Cook has two grown children and a dog. And, incredibly, she does occasionally have some down time to paint. "I walk the downs in Sussex," Cook says. "I love to cook, to catch up on reading and I love being by the water for rest." But with all of her globetrotting projects on tap for this year, it doesn't appear that Cook will have too much time to relax, which suits this designing grand dame just fine. <end> [top]

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