Why Jane Fonda showed up at a San Francisco ballet this weekend
Jane Fonda did not take the stage, however her presence through the opening week of Alonzo King Lines Ballet’s spring residence season spoke volumes concerning the stakes of the second.
The Oscar-winning actress and activist, identified for championing the humanities, was in San Francisco because the keynote speaker for the Livelong Women’s Health Summit at the Masonic on Saturday, April 18, however made a cease at the Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA for the afternoon to catch this system.
The double invoice, which concludes Sunday, April 19, options “Legacy,” a new collaboration between Alonzo King and Grammy-winning bassist, vocalist and composer Esperanza Spalding, and the return of King’s 2024 work “Ode to Alice Coltrane,” a tribute to the legendary jazz composer, pianist and harpist.
“I’m deeply moved by what I saw,” Fonda informed the Chronicle backstage after the matinee efficiency, visibly emotional.
Invited by her good friend Lucia Choi-Dalton, former Lines Ballet board chair, Fonda was among the many viewers as Choi-Dalton delivered a rallying cry.
“The arts play a crucial role generating joy and inspiring imagination about a better world. The power of that joy and creativity threatens dark forces that want to stifle the freedom we will feel here together today,” Choi-Dalton stated earlier than “Legacy” started.
“As you experience this performance, I hope you will treasure how it makes you feel and think about how the arts are being targeted by authoritarian forces that want to skew what we experience,” she added, noting that “joy is resistance.”
Saturday’s look marked the most recent in a collection of public exhibits of assist for the humanities by Fonda, who at 88 continues to make use of her platform to advocate for civil liberties, environmental causes and humanities organizations at a time heightened of concern throughout the US over political strain, management shake-ups and funding uncertainty.
On March 27, Fonda participated within the main “Artists United for Our Freedoms“demonstration in front of the Kennedy Center. She joined Bay Area folk great Joan Baez and other musicians, actors and writers to protest President Donald Trump’s complete overhaul of the national arts institution.
“Arts are critical. That’s why arts are the first thing that authoritarians go after… because we show that there’s alternatives,” Fonda said Saturday, adding that creatives “speak across margins.”
This isn’t the only time Lines Ballet has attracted celebrity attention.
Last spring, “Saturday Night Live” alum Cheri Oteri flew in from Los Angeles only for the dance firm’s gala to catch her good friend Aaron Walton, a Lines Ballet board member, for a particular walk-on through the night time’s efficiency.
“I had to see my friend because he introduced me to Lines Ballet,” Oteri told the Chronicle at the time, her luggage still in tow at the gala dinner.
But more importantly, she added, “once you witness this sort of artwork type, you are so blown away by the fantastic thing about it… you wish to preserve it going. And now greater than ever, the humanities must be supported.”
Correction: A earlier model of this story misidentified a particular person in a picture with Jane Fonda. It was Lines Ballet dancer Adji Cissoko.
