Alonzo King LINES Ballet returns to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Friday, February 7, 2025 at 7:30pm with two exciting and very different works not previously seen in the Los Angeles area. First the renown choreographer, Alonzo King pays homage to iconic Jazz musician, composer, bandleader and Hindu spiritual leader Alice Coltrane with a 40 minute work titled Ode to Alice Coltrane. Switching genres, the second piece on the LINES Ballet program is the whimsical Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) set to music by French composer Maurice Ravel. Tickets are on sale now.

Interviewing choreographers is always very interesting, but asking questions of their dancers is a totally different experience, giving one an entirely different insight into a work. LADC was able to connect with company member Adji Cissoko for a short telephone interview during her rehearsal break.

Born in Munich, Germany, Cissoko began her training at the Ballet Academy Munich and after receiving a full scholarship, she moved to New York City to study at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre. While in New York, Cissoko spent a day learning sections of the LINES Ballet repertory. She loved the work, but she and King decided that she was not ready to join the company. After finishing her training at the School of ABT, Cissoko performed with the Nation Ballet of Canada for four years. She later traveled to San Francisco to again audition for LINES Ballet. This time she was asked to join the company.

Maël Amatoul, Theo Duff-Grant, and Amanda Smith (left to right) perform in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

Maël Amatoul, Theo Duff-Grant, and Amanda Smith (left to right) perform in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

LADC: How was the transition from National Ballet of Canada into working with LINES Ballet?

Cissoko: It was quite a transition, to be honest. It was very new to me, how Alonzo works and how the company works and how much of themselves, as humans, they bring into the work.

At the National Ballet of Canada she was told to learn the steps and to always perform them the same way. Alonzo King asked Cissoko questions like ‘What do you want to express with the movement?’ ‘How can you play with the movement? How can you switch up the timing so that it feels new every time you do it?

Cissoko: I feel that I always have to be 100 percent present. So, it’s not just about what you can do but how you can do it, and how sensitive you are to every little thing. It challenged me in a whole new way because it challenged my awareness too.

Cissoko explained that at first it was very difficult for her, but once she pushed past that barrier of ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about’ it became very exciting and fun. It opened up a whole new life in dance for her.

I read in a press release that King has been captivated by Coltrane’s music since childhood and after listening to some of Coltrane’s masterpieces, he decided to venture into celebrating her legacy with a new ballet. A few of those masterpieces included music from the album Journey In Satchidananda (1971), Coltrane’s first solo album A Monastic Trio (1968), Universal Consciousness (1971), and Ptah, the El Daoud (1970).

Alice Coltrane (1937 – 2007), was an accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz. She recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other record labels. She was married to the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, with whom she performed in 1966–1967. Coltrane was a great champion of spiritual jazz and over time her eclectic music proved to be very influential within and outside the world of jazz.

LADC: Describe King’s new work Ode to Alice Coltrane which premiered in the company’s home season in September of 2024.

Ilaria Guerra and Adji Cissoko perform in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy

Ilaria Guerra and Adji Cissoko perform in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy

Cissoko: This piece is very dear to me because in a lot of the prior pieces I had a big pas a deux whereby the end of the evening my partner and I had become one. In Ode to Alice, I finish the piece with a really big solo during which the music really swells. It is like I’m being moved and it’s non-stop. It’s almost like I have to give everything. Past exhaustion. Dance your heart out and then find that bliss at the end of it. I can almost connect with everything above and beyond, in another world, in another universe. It is like traveling to another planet.

It is like I have my entire family around me. It is the most wonderful bliss I have ever felt, but I have to give it all to get there.

LADC: I imagine that Ode to Alice Coltrane is built around separated songs, each with their own mood. Can you describe some of those moods?

Cissoko: I think that there are moods that are more rhythmical, some that are like trying to fight through something. And then there are some that are just complete ease. Like I’m home, no more struggle.

LADC: Do you have a favorite section?

Cissoko: Yes, my favorite section is called Going Home. Everything begins super slow and then people come in and pass you and then you run up until the end, and then you’re home.

LADC: Is it fun to dance?

Cissoko: I love it! I love the whole journey of it. There’s also a section called Journey. It feels spiritual to me. At one point I dance with company member Amanda Smith and it feels like we are bringing peace to each other, but also to the world. Everything we do affects everyone and it forces me to be super intentional with what I’m doing – how I’m gesturing, how I’m stepping, how I’m playing with the timing because it has such a big impact. There’s a dialogue between the two of us but it represents a dialogue with the world.

The LINES Ballet dancers performing in Ma mère l'Oye at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

The LINES Ballet dancers performing in Ma mère l’Oye at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

LADC: Also on the program is King’s Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) which came out of a recent collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony. Aidin Vaziri, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, described it as “a persistently playful interpretation of Ravel’s score for the children’s fairy tale.”  Sadly, there will not be a live orchestra for this work at The Segerstrom Center.

Do you feel that quote is true?

Cissoko: Uhm, yes. For me, I really feel like I’m a character and that character also changes. It’s definitely storytelling to me and I feel it most in a pas a deux that I do with Shuaib Elhassan. The first part feels really smooth, we are one, and then it becomes very characteristic. It’s intentionally very much over the top, so it’s very exaggerated. It’s definitely storytelling and very different from Coltrane.

“I’m not trying to recreate Mother Goose fairy tales,” King explains. “My goal is to uncover the deeper allegorical meanings behind them and bring those to life through dance.”

Josh Francique performs in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

Josh Francique performs in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.

LADC: Is there anything that we have not discussed that you feel is important for our readers to know.

Cissoko: I think, in general, that the audience should not feel that they need to understand the story per se, but to come with an open mind and to be curious about what they feel. What they feel can be very different from what the person seated next to them experiences. Come and have an experience. See what thoughts or what emotions come up .

We want to inspire. The dance world is not so different from the normal world. If you keep an open mind and don’t try to figure everything out, then you will have a great experience.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet appears at The Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Friday, February 7, 2025 at 7:30pm. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit the Segerstrom Center website.


Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.

Featured image: Adji Cissoko performs in Ode to Alice Coltrane at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, photo by Chris Hardy.