Exploring Leadership With Alonzo King
Exploring Leadership is a series of conversations hosted by Kathryn Goldman Schuyler in which she introduces viewers to leaders who dance with possibility and whose creativity, depth, and vision bring leadership to life.people from many arenas whose lives add vitality and meaning to our planet.
In this episode, Kathryn interviews Alonzo King, Founder/Artistic Director/Choreographer of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet in San Francisco, California and 2019-2020 Artist-in-Residence for San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. King has works in the repertories of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Hong Kong Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and many others. Since launching LINES Ballet in 1982, he has collaborated with distinguished visual artists, musicians, and composers across the globe including Pharaoh Sanders, the Kronos Quartet, Jason Moran, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, and Zakir Hussain. King was recently granted an honorary doctorate by the Juilliard School.
King’s parent were civil rights leaders; as a child he grew up around Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and other leaders of societal change. In the interview, he discusses both his unique approach to ballet and how he was influenced by the environment in which he grew up.
In addition to performing around the world, LINES Ballet offers education programs that go into schools around the Bay Area, conducts a summer training program for young dancers, and co-sponsors a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance that is the only BFA offered in the United States led by an active master choreographer. Alonzo King has been called a "visionary choreographer" who is altering the way we look at ballet.
Kathryn Goldman Schuyler has many years of experience in leadership development, organizational consulting, research, and somatic learning. She has helped hundreds of executives to cultivate healthy organizations and is Professor Emeritus of Organization Development at Alliant International University. Kathryn has published widely on leadership and change and is the author of Inner Peace – Global Impact (IAP, 2012) and the lead editor of Leading With Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity (Jossey Bass/Wiley, 2014), and Creative Social Change: Leadership for a Healthy World (Emerald, 2016). Her recent research focuses on awareness and mindfulness at work: her published work in this area highlights how being fully present enhanced participants’ connectedness with others and with the natural environment and renewed their sense of purpose in their work. In addition to earning a Ph.D. at Columbia University (NY) as a sociologist, she studied with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais who developed a sophisticated approach to somatic system learning. As a somatic educator, she helps children and adults with moderate to severe neuro-motor challenges to move, learn, and live fully. She has studied mindfulness and awareness with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and other masterful teachers of meditation. Kathryn and her husband, a composer, live overlooking San Francisco, a view that encourages them to pause and appreciate gleaming sunsets and foggy mornings, the calls of ravens and the circling of hawks, and the sparkling city lights.