Alonzo King LINES Ballet to Perform ODE TO ALICE COLTRANE at The Soraya

Alonzo King will lead a program by Alonzo King LINES Ballet on Saturday, February 21 at 8:00 p.m. at The Soraya. The evening will conclude the venue’s fifth annual Jazz at Naz festival.

The program will open with The Collective Agreement, a work that examines the relationship between individual expression and collective experience. Originally commissioned by San Francisco Ballet for its 2018 Unbound Festival and later set on the National Ballet of Canada, the piece features music by MacArthur Fellow Jason Moran and a light installation by artist Jim Campbell. King has since re-envisioned the work for LINES Ballet. “When a ballet is done by other dancers, it still holds up as beautiful,” King said. “But when you have artists who are able to read your every gesture and absorb your consciousness, it is a completely different message.”

The program will also include Ode to Alice Coltrane, King’s 2024 creation set to the music of Alice Coltrane. The work was developed as part of the 2024–25 “Year of Alice” initiative, organized at the invitation of Coltrane’s children, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and vocalist Michelle Coltrane, who sought to highlight their mother’s artistic legacy alongside that of her husband, John Coltrane. The broader initiative includes performances, recordings, educational outreach, an oral history project, and other commemorative events across the country.

For Ode to Alice Coltrane, King drew in part from Coltrane’s 1971 album Journey in Satchidananda, which has been recognized by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest albums of all time. King has cited Coltrane’s synthesis of Eastern and Western musical traditions as a point of connection with his own choreographic approach. The work incorporates a range of Coltrane’s music, including piano trio compositions, harp pieces, Vedic chants, and organ works, with dancers responding through continuous, fluid movement that emphasizes reach and gesture over physical contact.