ABSTRACT
In the year 2000 it seemed imperative to make a case for the ways by which Alonzo King's ballets diverged from the known codifications of ballet. There was not a great need to individualize Alonzo King LINES Ballet (AKLB) from other companies at that point; rather the responsibility was to insert King into a canon that seemed to have little regard for work that did not replicate ballet's norms. Sixteen years hence new questions are emergent about why King's dances consistently operate on another frequency when compared to a host of others who use a similar movement aesthetic. Taking Biophony as a manifestation of the idea that a shared humanity can respond to various resonances, the piece does much more than present itself in performance; it summarizes an ideological perspective that has for years been both foundational and a point of extension for ballet's LINES.
