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The choreographer Alonzo King sees ballet differently. A dance is never just a dance. It\u2019s a kind of faith, and the training necessary for it \u2014 day in and day out \u2014 is a way to keep that faith alive. His ballets have a way of sailing through sensations, of calming the nervous system, of realigning the body and mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep River,\u201d which will have its New York premiere at Lincoln Center\u2019s Rose Theater<\/a> beginning Feb. 22, is named after the spiritual, which is part of its score, and is rooted in ideas about courage and hope. It\u2019s about a belief that King has: Within every person, a river flows.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t live a full life without having gotten in contact with the river that is inside of you,\u201d he said in a video interview from San Francisco, where he lives and where his company, Lines Ballet, is based. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a knowing, it\u2019s a knowledge. It\u2019s your internal world. You want to tap into the knowledge that is waiting inside of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That can seem like a lot to put into a dance. But \u201cDeep River\u201d<\/a> is driven by more than choreographic invention. When he was speaking to the composer Jason Moran about the score for \u201cDeep River,\u201d King told him that it needed to be deeply soulful and heartbreaking. \u201cI want it to get past intellect and touch people\u2019s hearts,\u201d King said. \u201cTo wake them up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n King sees behavior as movement, or a dance: \u201cIt begins in thought,\u201d he said. \u201cThought leads to behavior and behavior is movement. How do you move in the world? How do you see and treat other people? That\u2019s it.<\/em> And so if we look at the lives of great folks that we admire, those<\/em> are dances. You look at the life of Harriet Tubman. That\u2019s an incredible dance.\u201d<\/p>\n One quality present in King\u2019s choreography, which can be rapturous one moment and grounded the next, is elongation. His dancers, agile and lean, ripple as they seem to stretch their bodies past their skin. They\u2019re never stuck in positions; movement flows through them. And in \u201cDeep River,\u201d the music has a way of swimming alongside them, too, especially the voice of Lisa Fischer, a transcendent singer who appears onstage with the dancers. (A longtime performer with the Rolling Stones, Fischer is featured in \u201c20 Feet from Stardom,\u201d the Oscar-winning documentary about backup singers.)<\/p>\n In \u201cDeep River,\u201d King\u2019s idea of a pas de deux seems to expand beyond just two bodies; Fischer feels that, too. \u201cIf I\u2019m doing a hand movement that is reacting to the dancers\u2019 hand movements, it\u2019s almost as though I can see the energy between the space,\u201d she said, referring to the air between those hands. \u201cIt\u2019s not just reaching without a purpose. But for me, the purpose is throwing energy and exchanging the energy.\u201d<\/p>\n At times in \u201cDeep River,\u201d Fischer touches the dancers \u2014 a shoulder, the back of neck. \u201cIt’s like you feel their sweat, you feel all these years of preparation for that moment,\u201d she said. \u201cI keep that in mind, because everything that they are is in that moment. They\u2019re breathing life into it and I get to share it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The dancer Babatunji said that Fischer \u2014 both her singing and presence \u2014 \u201cunlocks a latent ability for us to give more.\u201d Adji Cissoko, a dancer who performs a solo with Fischer, said, \u201cIt\u2019s the craziest experience because she becomes me, and I become her, and it is as if her voice is coming through my body.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Moran, who works often with King \u2014 Moran said he has five albums worth of music from their collaborations \u2014 first started the process for this ballet by recording with Fischer. They began with spirituals, including \u201cDeep River\u201d and \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe way Alonzo and I generally work is he puts out his open call into my brain,\u201d Moran said, \u201cand then I try to flood him with things I think he might like.\u201d<\/p>\n Moran said he knew that Fischer would help to carry the level of soul that King was after: \u201cShe has such an incredible instrument, whether she\u2019s singing with text or with syllables.\u201d Moran said. \u201cShe knows how to pull your soul out of your body and let you kind of shout in joy or cower and mourn.\u201d<\/p>\n Onstage, their collaborations create a rare back and forth in which both dance and music seem radiantly present. King\u2019s enthralling \u201cSingle Eye,\u201d<\/a> created for American Ballet Theater in 2022, featured music by Moran; together they created a mingling of ballet and the natural world that was eerily beautiful. \u201cOne of the first things I noticed years ago when we started working together was just how much air he loves in music,\u201d Moran said. \u201cNew Yorkers want to make things dense. In San Francisco, he really appreciates air.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Moran has changed his own approach because of it. \u201cI think with Alonzo, he has been able to let me ease up off the gas and really send pieces that have more line and more shape and allow the mind to linger,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause the dancers will do the rest of the work. The music does not need to do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And the movement is potent on many levels. \u201cDeep River\u201d dates back to the days when, because of the pandemic, dancers weren\u2019t allowed to touch. The work began during a bubble residency with dancers quarantining together. \u201cEvery gesture, every hand grip, every movement meant so much more,\u201d said Cissoko said. \u201cI think that\u2019s why it still feels like such a precious piece.\u201d<\/p>\n In a pas de deux she dances with Shuaib Elhassan, the first thing they do is touch hands. \u201cThat still is the most special thing to me \u2014 how we touch hands\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s different every time, but it\u2019s going back to that moment of when that was so vulnerable and true and appreciated. It\u2019s like we become one.\u201d<\/p>\n Working with King, the Lines dancers know that they are not just performing steps \u2014 though the steps are there, and rigorous at that. King, Babatunji said, encourages them to think of \u201cevery movement as a prayer, or a declaration of, \u2018I want to be a better person,\u2019 \u2018I want to spread love,\u2019 \u2018I want to affect others in a positive way.\u2019\u201d Bringing that to the stage, he added, \u201cthere\u2019s no way that we cannot have a ripple effect.\u201d<\/p>\n