Next at the Kennedy Center

KING: My father made a huge difference in my life in terms of spiritual path.

We may all look different, but we are in unity, mentally.

BABATUNJI: Alonzo would be like, "Again, again, again," 'cause it wasn't there.

KING: Those gifts that no one can give you, that obstacle brings, that's where you have to tap.

CISSOCO: There's so much more in me that can speak.

I had to like open the door and be like, "Please speak."

[theme music playing].

KING: I think understanding was always a big preoccupation.

What does this mean?

What does this shape mean?

What is its origin?

It didn't just pop up.

Where in nature is this referring to?

What is tendu, what is arabesque?

Where are the circles and squares and their sacred geometry in terms of meaning?

How you think is how you behave.

Whatever you believe in, you're going to move that way, that behavior is movement.

ROSENWASSER: The first times I saw Alonzo perform, there was a stillness to it and at the same time, there was so much going on and it was, it was, it was, there was something transporting about it, it really took your consciousness to another place.

KING: My father was a civil rights activist.

He was the president of the Albany Movement, and it was one of the big movements that Martin Luther King came to assist and what he believed in he lived, you know, he was often taken to jail and brutally beaten up.

He was just a very kind man.

Once he said to me, I was, I was squealing on something my brother was doing while he was reading the morning paper.

I said, "Daddy, Daddy."

And, and then he looked at me and he said, "What, what are, what are you, why are you, why are you doing this?"

Um, "Is, are you a snitch?

Is that the role you're playing?"

And then he said, "Or are you jealous that it's not you?"

And it was like, boing, you know, he hit the nail on the head and it was just like a revelation and he did that all the time.

But I think in his corrections, for me, he was trying to steer me to be a truth-teller and to seek the truth and not be distracted with what was unnecessary.

I am not trying to think of my ideas, I'm trying to think of the universal ideas that have existed since the beginning of time and tapping into them, how can I make it clearer?

How can I be truthful?

How can I have it resonate so deeply in me that it's felt by a viewer.

The choreographic text is usually very tight, and the dancer is challenged on one level in finding freedom in the restriction.

CISSOCO: One of the first ballets that I did joining the company was called "Constellation" and there's a part where a solo figure improvs from stage right to stage left.

My first show, I just secretly planned it all out.

I created my own steps, I felt confident, I felt good about them, and so I did them and right after the show, Alonzo came up to me and he said, "That was not improv, that was all plans, and I could see it and it doesn't work," like "It does not work."

And he said, "Please, that can't happen again, you have to improv, you have to be in the moment, and you have to just let it happen."

And that was so scary to me.

KING: Most of us have an internal roommate who won't shut up in our heads.

And that distraction or that noise has to be quieted.

And when that happens, when that internal stillness occurs, you instantly and immediately feel larger.

CISSOCO: It was hard for me to just let go of that and go on stage and feel so naked in a way, because I don't know what's about to happen.

But after we talked, and the next day I did go on stage, and I remember I just walked on.

I was like, "Wow, I'm, I wonder, I wonder what I do."

And something happened, and I can't even tell you exactly what, where really, like my inner spirit, my inner voice did take over.

And it was so wonderful to give up that brain part that I was always so holding onto, like, control it all and do it through your mind and your head.

And there's so much more in me that can speak, but it just, I had to like open the door and be like, "Please, speak."

KING: When the room is safe, when it feels safe to people, and they know that there's trust and that there is not, um, harsh judgment, but there is a way of speaking to them in a language that they understand because they may really want to learn, but they're stuck.

Obviously, there's some negative thinking in there about themselves or a fear of achievement.

And it's concomitant failure, you know, do I jump across the stream?

Maybe I won't make it, maybe I'll fall in.

And, um, this is another thing that's so interesting because the, the love has to be greater than the fear.

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) FISCHER: In this world, Mother, no one can love me.

In this world, they do not know how to love me.

In this world, Mother no one can love me.

In this world, they do not know how to love me.

Where is there pure loving love?

Where is there truly loving me?

There my soul longs to be.

There my soul longs to be.

In this world, Mother, no one can love me.

In this world, they do not know how to love me.

In this world, Mother no one can love me.

In this world, they do not know how to love me.

Where is there pure loving love?

Where is there truly loving me?

There my soul longs to be.

There my soul longs to be.

Where is there pure loving love?

Where is there truly loving me?

There my soul longs to be.

There my soul longs to be.

(audience applause).

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (audience applause).

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) FISCHER: When there's hours are the frontmen, hours broken, but breathing, Let the light come, billowing.

Human treason, shameless, sick reasons, darkness is the season.

Let the light come, billowing.

Bearing seedlings that breakthrough, dirt ceilings, And share shade so it shall be, but the light comes, whirling.

Calming.

Power.

Your holy power, faithfully, I'm waiting, for the light to come through me.

(vocalizing) Let it go.

Let it go.

Calmly, faithfully, let the light come.

Let it come, through me.

Let it come, through me.

(vocalizing) Faithfully, waiting for the light to come, for the light to come.

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go.

(vocalizing) Let the light come, let it come.

(audience applause).

KING: When I was very young, um, my father had a meditation room, this is after I had, we'd gone to Santa Barbara, but I used to go back, you know, as a kid, to visit my dad, usually in the summers, I had brothers and sisters from a stepmom, and my father and mother and my stepmother and stepfather, all of them got along really well and the four of them used to travel together.

And I thought it was normal until I got older, people said, no, that's not normal.

But, um, they loved each other.

My mom said, "I love him, I can't live with him, but I love him."

And so they stayed close.

And I remember one story where my... one event where my mother said that, um, she was on the phone, the four of them were on the telephone for six hours, six or seven hours because they were in jail and they thought that they would be killed that night.

And so they just supported each other just talking on the phone for hours.

And so there was a real bond there.

But my father had a meditation room and he would tell us to come in when he would do his meditations.

And he said, "I want all of you to come in and sit down."

And he would point to the direction, you know, sit over there and he said, "Be very still, and when you're finished, I want you to be quiet as you leave."

And so my brothers and sisters, we'd go in and we would sit down and we'd try to do lotus, and we'd kind of look at each other and giggle, you know, quietly.

And then we would, after a few minutes tiptoe out.

But it planted a seed.

He made a huge difference in my life in terms of spiritual path.

And yoga is really where I'm learning everything about how to live life.

WOETZEL: "LINES" is a, is a personal vision of Alonzo's, what his dream world of what a company can be in itself.

It's unique in its, in its aspiration, in its inspiration and its incarnation, all of it, there's nothing like it.

KING: I know that, um, early on people just didn't get it you know.

We may all look different, but we are in unity mentally, but it doesn't have to be uniformity.

And so that's an idea that I love and play with all the time.

From watching birds, from watching migrations, from observing.

There's a unanimity with birds where they can be completely in sync and then come out of it and then meet again.

And so that joining is through the mind.

WOETZEL: I feel like, you know, "LINES" is about alignment in some way, and it is in fact alignment with, with nature, alignment with flow, creating texture and revisiting constantly the sense of kind of flow.

So I think it's about that alignment and nature is a perfect parallel.

ROSENWASSER: The genesis of "LINES" uh, was in 1982, Alonzo had been teaching, um, in San Francisco.

He had a big reputation as a master teacher, like nationally before he even began choreographing.

And then we started producing shows in San Francisco.

I think within a year we were performing at the Olympics.

We collaborate with incredible composers and musicians.

MORAN: Alonzo calls, and every time I say, "Am I ready?"

Every time.

It's like, 'cause he's not gonna sit still and want to rehash anything he's done before.

And he doesn't want me to send him anything that sounds something like I already have given him.

KING: There's a, I don't know the term for it, but there's a, a practice where you put a musician in the forest, you know, being put into the forest by yourself, we have to all go through that.

Solitude is really, um, the door to greatness.

There's that period of solitude where you have to be still and tune in again for transformation.

MORAN: I need a collaborator that does not speak the same language I do, that does not have the same belief systems that I do, um, that wants to look for a different kind of output.

I'm not looking for things that lot that align with my vision.

I need things that intersect it.

And maybe even jettison to another island, you know, with some of my ideas.

I'm ready to leave the place where I am, so I'm looking for a collaborator that wants to pull further away from the place that I feel most comfortable.

ROSENWASSER: When Alonzo starts a work, he creates a vocabulary for that work.

He's listened to the music, he's listened to all of Jason's, you know, music material that he sent to start the process.

And he creates phrases, choreographic phrases, and all the dancers learn each of the phrases and they each have their own way of doing it.

And so Alonzo builds a piece with this vocabulary and with this language specific to the work that's being created at that moment.

MORAN: "Deep River" came at a moment when a lot of dance companies needed music.

A lot of choreographers were looking for inspiration.

A lot of composers were at home writing because this was a intense moment, uh, uh, in global history to write from, this might not occur again.

And I'd say that it helped me produce a body of work that I wasn't sure I would ever get to without the gravity of that situation of what Covid did to the world.

KING: Jason is so intuitive and his intuition is not indulgent or guessing, it is right?

And he allows it to flow through.

Same with Lisa.

She has such a humility and this astronomical art with no airs and graces, no pretense, just present.

FISCHER: We'd sit with Alonzo, we'd hear him speak about movement and sound and watch him work with the dancers and watch the dancers react to him.

And then we would create on the spot some things, and then we would take that and take video and then, you know, kind of work on it in the studio and bring back something else to see if that was close to what he imagined or went beyond his imagination or, or if it needed tweaking or he was always really open and honest about what he needed.

There's something magical about that timelessness that Alonzo and the dancers bring you through.

DEVRIES: Her voice is, it carries us and moves my heart to want to dance harder with her.

It's, it's incredible to partner with her.

I feel like it just, yeah, makes me wanna, makes me wanna fly.

FISCHER: The most important thing is the sense of freedom that he would allow me and the, and, and, and the freedom to shift and change even within the performance because every breath is gonna be different.

No one single breath is the same.

It's going to be a different moment and a different time, and it could be our last.

So I felt very grateful to be able to shift and honor the spirit and just the sense of play.

MORAN: And that makes it more improvisational and that feels like a lot of fun.

And so we found a sweet spot last year in Chicago when we performed it and, and then we said, oh, this is worth continuing to do.

They hear every nuance because they hear those songs over and over again, and they find cues in where their actions are that the musician most of the time has no clue about.

ELHASSAN: I think when Jason is performing live, I don't think he stays the same every show.

And I think he switches it up and I've had many shows with him where I can see him and I can see that he sees us at the same time and he's playing off of us and we're playing off of him.

KING: That's the wonderful thing about live music is that it can change your consciousness.

You know, you have a great pianist and it just happens, and dancers will tell you, when so and so plays, I can turn more.

When so and so is in class, my body feels freer.

And so that environment, you know, of live music is phenomenal.

There was a teacher once who would say, which I thought was amazing, a yoga teacher actually who said, "If you feel dry, listen to Chopin because that consciousness will change you, if you feel you have no courage, listen to Beethoven."

And so what is, what, what is music?

It's consciousness, and when you are absorbed in that consciousness, it can change you.

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (footsteps) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(laughing).

(audience applause).

KING: Once I'd come from school and I had received an award and I said, "Mom, mom, look, I got this award."

And she looked at it and she said, "Oh, uh, does that make you happy?"

Not the reaction I was expecting.

And then she said, "Do you think I love you more now because of this award?"

And what she was saying was, don't seek external approval, you know, be, be who you are, head there, just stick to the work, you know, don't become a beggar in this world.

Just stick to the work.

ROSENWASSER: I don't think that he was ever that driven to be a performer.

KING: The idea of performing was never attractive to me.

In the very beginning of my dance romance, where it was very clear that the external world would dim and I would step into another world that was occupied, and supportive, and inspiring.

But the idea as I grew older of show, um, or under the direction of certain people to display oftentimes presented itself as a struggle because that was not my nature.

ROSENWASSER: But he had decided that he really wanted to get a really thorough understanding of ballet technique.

He wanted to steep himself in that.

I think he wanted to use those techniques and that science to find his own expression.

WOETZEL: I mean, I've watched Alonzo choreograph, I've watched him teach sort of the same thing in many ways.

And it's about, about his own sense of destiny that everything has a direction it's going in.

And he looks for that.

And, and it's different in different individuals.

And he has extremely high standards and is extremely experienced and is an amazing eye.

And it comes from, I will say, uh, also a sense of wonder, which is incredible.

PECK: I mean, he really wants to get to know you as the person, and not every choreographer does.

You know, they look at the body and they look how it moves and that's what interests them.

But he was really, it was important for him to get to know me.

He is very like a spiritual teacher in a way.

I don't know how to describe it, but it's, it's beautiful like it feels sacred being in the room with him.

And I just think he's a wonderful mentor.

ROSENWASSER: His vision from the very beginning was, um, having a company that looked like the world, which was very unusual for a ballet company at that time.

And, um, for the last few decades, that's what we've been doing.

BABATUNJI: I think I was always kind of like a rowdy kid, I had a lot of energy.

ROSENWASSER: So Babatunji came to see "LINES" ballet perform in Hilo, Hawaii where he grew up.

BABATUNJI: I'm a huge student of YouTube, like I would watch so many videos, hours and hours of videos, and then I would go in front of the mirror and try and, um, emulate it or mimic it.

ROSENWASSER: He had trained as hip hop dancer, he had no background in ballet at all.

BABATUNJI: From there found a couple of like-minded, uh, kids that were gonna school with me.

And one dude knew how to pop, another person knew how to break dance, and so we kind of just all came together and formed a little collective.

ROSENWASSER: One of his teachers told him to go to the university and check us out.

BABATUNJI: But it was a gorgeous day and me and my friends were like, let's skip class and let's go to the beach.

Like, why would we go and take ballet when we can like surf?

Um, and our teachers chewed us out and was like, you all have to come back.

ROSENWASSER: And he was fascinated by the way the company moved, he had never seen dancers move in that way.

BABTUNJI: It was my first time watching anything like that and it woke something up inside of me, I don't know what it is.

The movements that Alonzo has created and the movements that Alonzo pulls out of us at times seems really otherworldly.

And as a kid, it just seemed so purposeful.

And so I dropped everything.

ROSENWASSER: He came to our training program and he studied for two years and he had virtually no ballet training background.

Very hard worker, very smart, and he's just developed also into a beautiful artist.

BABTUNJI: Let's talk about this piece and in particular, "Lift Every Voice."

Like... (makes sound) Uh, that's a huge weight to carry.

(laughs).

Um, when you really think about what that song means to so many people and, and how many people it's touched, it's easy to fold underneath that.

And Alonzo would be like, "Again, again, again," 'cause it wasn't there, and he knew that it wasn't... like I needed to build stamina, but I also needed to build strength.

But then I also needed to build this mental fortitude that when my physical stamina and physical strength wane, can my like emotional, mental, and spiritual like, uh, um, goals still be in sight and can I still have the fortitude to reach and try to achieve those goals even when everything else is kind of melting away.

KING: You know, we are here to transform ourselves and in all of our commitments, you know, which are marriages to whatever discipline we have to, um, they, they're like anvils that we build ourself against, that we hammer and chisel.

ROSENWASSER: I mean, ballet training takes so much, so many different shapes.

And, um, I think that he doesn't distinguish technique from creativity.

He doesn't want, you know, mannequins, he wants, you know, great artists.

COPELAND: I look back on that time and I feel like it was one of the most honest explorations of my artistry that I've experienced in my career.

And, you know, a lot of that had to do with the incredible dancers, um, who are individuals and that are being challenged and pushed as artists and as company members, um, but also because of Alonzo King's directorship.

Uh, I think it's been the most challenged I've been, especially as a young person, um, but not just challenged physically and artistically, but nurtured.

BABATUNJI: It's amazing.

He does a really good job at like holding you and pushing you at the same time.

And shout out to Robert Rosenwasser, he really would come up to me all the time, I'd be like, "It was terrible, wasn't it?"

And he'd be like, "No, that was gorgeous.

Get up and try again.

Get up and try again."

ROSENWASSER: I mean, dance is just a very, a very hard field.

We didn't really concern ourselves with the obstacles, we just, you know, moved over them.

KING: I think "Deep River" is addressing obstacle and that no matter what happens to us, there is a way to get beyond it.

There is a way to figure it out.

And so it's saying "Never give up.

Die trying.

There is a way.

Go in."

Whatever the obstacle is, you're more powerful than the obstacle, whether you realize it or not.

CISSOCO: Every piece we do, every new creation, every ballet, even a ballet that we've been doing for years, you do have to ask yourself these questions.

What, what, why are you doing this?

What is behind it?

Because if we just do steps, it gets lost.

DEVRIES: It's hard work and it's not easy and we have to do it again and again and again.

But it like creates this like web between us all that is, um, bigger than ourselves.

ELHASSAN: He makes you dig deep and push yourself to where you think it's your limit.

But I think it's to show you that it's not.

I think he thinks there's nothing we can't do.

And the longer you work with him, the more you agree.

KING: You are radiant and inside of you, you have the wisdom and the perseverance.

Those gifts that no one can give you, that obstacle brings, that's where you have to tap.

These things that have happened to people, there are stories of incredible victories, and again, they have to do with self-transformation.

And so that's really what it's addressing, there is a way, there is a way.

FISCHER: Lift every voice and sing.

Till the heaven ring.

Ring with the harmonies, of liberty.

Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies, let it resound loud as the roll-oll-oll-oll-ing sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.

Facing the rising sun, of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.

(audience cheering and applause).

(audience applause).

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) FISCHER: Oh deep river.

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) Oh-oh deep, deep river, Lord, I want to cross over in campground.

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh deep river, I want, I want to cross over, 'cause my home, my home is in Jordan, and I wanna cross over in a campground.

Oh, I want to go-oh-oh, to that Gospel feast.

That Promised Land, where, where all, all, is peace.

Deep, deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground.

Oh-oh-oh-oh I wanna cross over to campground.

I need to cross over into campground.

(audience applause).

(vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (vocalizing) (audience cheering and applause).

(audience cheering and applause).

(audience cheering and applause).

(audience cheering and applause).

(audience cheering and applause).

KING: What's interesting about teaching is you have to change yourself.

That's what it is.

The goal is for the teacher to awaken the latent teacher in the dancer or the dancer who is at a period in their life or a point in their education where something is half asleep and it needs some fire.

To see someone turn on the heat, going in a focused direction, and transform themselves is inspiring.