Alonzo King LINES Ballet performs in Aspen on Tuesday

Soulful music and dance meets an allegorical interpretation of fairy tales as Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Presents brings two main works by Alonzo King LINES Ballet to the Aspen District Theater on Tuesday.

It begins with an earth-toned representation of awakening, set to Maurice Ravel’s 1912 suite “Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose).” Artistic director Alonzo King said most people walk around in varying degrees of somnambulism, not necessarily recognizing the spark of divinity within. He uses movements emanating from the spine — a magic wand of sorts — to represent the will to change, while the prince’s kiss connects the sleeper to her deeper intuition.

“One thing about the music being so familiar to people is that they know it, so when they see the choreography, they ‘hear’ it in a different way, which is fascinating,” King said. “When you know something and you see it kind of played with or resisted or illustrated in a different way, it brings a new light.”

He said that its huge success in San Francisco has led to a series of requests to perform it in other venues throughout the nation.

The second half of the evening honors Alice Coltrane, a trailblazing spiritual leader, composer, pianist, and harpist. As part of a series of nationwide tributes to her legacy, LINES Ballet joins such organizations as Impulse! Records, the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Hammer Museum, and The New York Historical Society.

Introduced to Coltrane’s work when he was a teenager, King went on to choreograph his first piece to her music in 1982. He said upon hearing it, it felt both fresh and familiar.

“New and familiar and ancient, it stirred something in me that I’d wanted to hear — no, feel — for a long time. It was like: This is my world. This is where I find understanding,” he said. “When her family reached out to me and said, ‘We would love for you to do two years in the celebration of Alice,’ I said, ‘Absolutely, I would be honored,’ and I jumped on it because I revere her so much.”

He considers dance and choreography as “thought structures,” and one of his friends recently crystallized an awakened philosophy for him when she pointed out that this is not the time to fall into a “Woe is me” mindset; rather it’s a time to help people recognize their own true nature.

“I think that if we could look at other human beings, no matter their station, and realize that divinity is within them in the same way that it’s in the plants, trees, animals, skies, moon, and stars that we would change, but I think that we first have to find it in ourselves before we can see it others, and so I think the whole world should be meditating,” he said.

This program’s choreography weaves in and out of more and less enlightened states, first with “Mother Goose’s” depiction of sleep-walking and awakening to a happily-ever-after bliss, and then supported by Coltrane’s moving music.

Overall, LINES Ballet explores affinities between the Western and Eastern classic forms, as well as the natural world, elemental materials and the human spirit. Its choreography adheres to a classic linear form in terms of mathematical and geometrical principles deeply rooted in both Western and Eastern society, yet King delivers his works with unique and powerful artistry.

The name “LINES” refers to the fact that lines are intrinsic to every form.

“Whatever can be seen is formed by a line. In mathematics, it is a straight or curved continuous extent of length without breadth. Lines are in our fingerprints, the shapes of our bodies, constellations, geometry. It implies genealogical connection, progeny and spoken work. It marks the starting point and a finish. It addresses direction, communication and design. A line of thought,” King said, adding that “dance is thought made visible.”

He uses the power of “infinite” artistic investigation to unite human beings in joy, empathy, and the ability to transcend — something the evening’s performance explores through music, sound, lighting, and costume.

“What’s happening in dance training is that the human being is being transformed. People look at it visually and think, ‘Oh, they’re looking at the body,’ but actually, they’re working on the mind and the heart. When you have a form where you try to embody an idea so clearly that you disappear, it’s liberating,” he said.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet performed to standing ovations at Vail Dance Festival on Saturday night; the festival’s artistic director, Damian Woetzel has called the company “a national treasure.”