We asked Forum’s producers to each pick their favorite arts shows from 2013. Producer Judy Campbell explains her pick:
It seems like it would be hard to translate dance — or as he called it in the interview, “thought made visible” — into good radio, but I could listen to Alonzo King talk about dance and the artistic process all day long. The way he describes choreography and dancing has changed the way I view all sorts of performances. A lot of us are intimidated by dance and worry we’re missing something that we’re supposed to be getting out of a performance. King makes art accessible by expanding our ideas of dance and art, instead of simplifying them. In this interview for the 30th anniversary of King’s LINES Ballet, Michael Krasny talked to King alongside composer and double bassist Edger Meyer, who collaborated with King on the company’s anniversary show. It was great to hear the two of them talk about the relationship of dance and music and about artistic collaboration. Michael did a fantastic one-on-one interview with Alonzo King back in 2011, which is also worth listening to.
Interview Highlights
On the Benefits of Collaboration:
“It’s interesting for me when working with other artists — or people who look at your work — and they bring different ideas to it, or they will show perspectives that you hadn’t thought of. That’s interesting to do when you work with another artist and also interesting to hear from when you work with another artist… And I’m saying that because I don’t think the author is the definitive at all. I love the fact that Chopin would say, ‘Listen to what this one is doing with my music,’ because who is the definitive?”
On Ideas Being Bigger Than Words:
“Everything is consciousness, everything is thought… so I think of music as thought made audible and I think of dance as thought made visible. And in our search for material, when I heard Edgar’s music this was a thought, especially that adagio, that words are far too clumsy to try to communicate or illustrate or be and I think that that’s the aim. If I’m doing a work and I’m really able to describe it, I feel that I’ve failed somehow.”