The dancers' bodies look like subatomic particles in a wild universe of motion, or some sort of scientific experiment magnified before our eyes. Such is the style of Alonzo King, royal overseer of San Francisco's LINES Ballet and the opening show for both the Pittsburgh Dance Council and African American Cultural Center seasons at the Byham Theater on Saturday night.

Marty Sohl Alonzo King Alonzo King's LINES Ballet Where: Byham Theater, Downtown. When: 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $19 to $40; 412-456-6666.

It is a style with an eclectic and artistically juicy upbringing.

King developed a bicoastal flair growing up in both Georgia and California, where he was surrounded by a continuous stream of artists in his parents' homes. His training includes the School of American Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, plus a range of modern and ethnic idioms embodied by Bella Lewitsky, Donald McKayle and the great Indian dancer, Balasaraswati.

He tosses it all off with "I've kind of done it all. I really see them just as language."

It has all played a part in the hyperkinetic vocabulary -- where en pointe is frequently off balance and pirouettes dissolve into a sweet surprise -- that he has developed for LINES.

"Ballet is a misnomer," King says. "It should be called Western classical dance, because even when you look at new techniques, it's all ballet."

Some LINES viewers still look back to George Balanchine for King's inspiration in the playful hip thrusts and jazz inclinations of pieces such as "Rubies," set to music by Igor Stravinsky.

But Balanchine's core motivation came expressly from the music. King, who often works against the music, has borrowed Balanchine's impetus -- the often florid arms, off-center balances, the ever-morphing technique -- and condensed it into a base pattern for his own vocabulary.

To hear King tell it, his style stems from the universal appeal of his chosen art form. "Where is there not dance?" he says. "What are these planets doing that are balanced in space? What are constellations if that's not choreography -- the collisions that are avoided, the gravity that supports these stars and asteroids? That is choreography, that is movement. Movement is the principal expression of life."

King selects dancers, all principals by design, who he believes possess honesty, fearlessness, loyalty and commitment. He also chooses artists who are "impeccably articulate" and not "just empty cups that want to be filled [but] who bring a life's experience to their work."

The Dance Council program will tap that artistry when it presents the LINES Ballet in "Koto," inspired by a traditional Japanese seventh-century instrument that resembles a zither, and "Who Dressed You Like a Foreigner?," which captures the "trance-like fervor" of Indian tabla drummer Zakir Hussein.

It will be a glimpse into King's own universe, his vault of ideas that reveals a seemingly never-ending microcosm of movement.

"Whether you're an architect or a mother with little means, creativity is our birthright," says King. "It's what inventors are obsessed with. Part of the fun is finding a different way that hasn't been done before."