Artistic Vision

As classical arts of movement, ballet and Chinese martial arts share both their form—a precise, deliberate series of movements—and the concept that the shape of bodies in motion can be meaningful, even spiritual. The history of classical ballet sometimes glides over this dimension of dance, just as popular kung fu movies depict martial arts as showy, violent stunts. One of the extraordinary corollaries between the Shaolin monks’ kung fu practice and Alonzo King’s choreography is their mutual dedication to clarity of vision, and to renewing the forms of movement whose profound meanings have sometimes been forgotten over time.

In the studio, Mr. King works with the dancers of LINES Ballet to explore the opportunities for expression and connection through movement. He encourages them to be fearless, and to connect to a deeply-rooted reason for dancing, instead of “assuming” a “position.” Alonzo King’s teaching style embodies his belief that each dancer can find an authentic, expressive voice; with this voice, a dancer can transcend the separation between stage and audience, and between individual and universal. For example, Mr. King often expands traditional ballet vocabulary to relate to principles of energy and alignment. “What is tendu? It’s a non-stop line addressing eternity,” he said during a talk in Philadelphia in 2003. This commitment to the dancers’ potential and to the idea that dance can be understood as a form of truth, rather than as a set of correct or incorrect poses, is inspirational for audiences as well as for the professional dancers and young students Mr. King teaches.

“In all cultures, there's one instrument that we share in common in dance: the body,” Mr. King explained during a lecture in Los Angeles in 1996. Specifically, he helps dancers and audiences re-define ballet as a meaningful form of dance by reminding them, “Ballet is really a science, and it's a science that is rooted in universal principles, the same principles that informed Copernicus, the relationship of the sun to the earth, the moon, how they revolve around each other, the galaxies, the circle, the straight line. Now those universal truths, they're the same ones that you'll find in other cultures... they'll be expressed in different ways, but they're the same ones.” Using the example of the tendu to illustrate this in concrete terms, he concludes, “The idea of tendu - people think, well, I'm trying to get my hip placed over my foot, getting turned out, but the presentation of a tendu, really, in its conception, is a ray, coming from a being of light.” LINES Ballet also takes its name from this radiant geometric form.

The Shaolin monks practice kung fu in order to refine their concentration and breath, to prepare for long seated meditations. Martial arts help the monks to channel mental and spiritual energy through a physical process of focusing the body. It is this same energy which is dedicated to pursuing enlightenment—to “seeing through” worldly illusions, and to understanding a universal essence. From Buddhism, Shaolin philosophy takes its guiding principle of enlightenment through meditation and self-examination; the Shaolin emphasis on a dynamic balance of energies comes from Taoism. As in Indian yogic practices, the preparation for meditation is movement, and the basis of movement is ch’i, translated as “life-force” or “breath.”

The dragon style of Shaolin kung fu, for example, is strongly oriented towards ch’i, and is close to Taoist concepts of consciously moving energy around, by deflecting or re-directing it. In the dragon style, a monk moves as if “riding the wind,” not as if he has decided to reach out his foot and kick a wall, or is planning to clench his muscles to block a strike. This also explains how Shaolin martial arts fit into the Cha’an Buddhist system: Shaolin monks do not “attack” or engage their opponents with hostility. If they are attacked, they simply “refuse” the harmful energy intended for them, and return its violence to the perpetrator.

The role of animals like the dragon, crane, tiger, and praying mantis in Shaolin philosophy demonstrates a connection with the natural world, and a sensitivity to the manifestations of its different qualities. If the dragon style draws primarily on ch’i for inner strength and concentration, for example, the snake—who is the guardian of the dragon—uses the ch’i to move the body in sinuous, undulating ways. The snake’s spirituality is defined by its physical ability to flow, to coil, to glide effortlessly; its body relates it to earthly qualities. In this sense, animals in the Shaolin martial arts are both powerfully imagistic and expressive of internal qualities.

This awareness of energetic potential, a vision of harmonic and meaningful movement, and a vigorous new investment in classical forms: these are three of the specific qualities that Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet shares with the Shaolin monks. Their current collaboration is, simultaneously, an expression of these mutual ideas and values, and an exploration of emerging forms of interconnection and reinvention. By working together in the studio—in the universal language of movement, each bringing a “dialect” of their own—the monks, the dancers, and Alonzo King are creating a kind of evolving conversation in motion. This project evokes its deep classical roots in both Eastern and Western traditions, and also points forward to a shared language of new forms.