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Alonzo King's LINES Ballet of San Francisco is a celebrated contemporary ballet company that has been guided since 1982 by its uniquely global artistic vision. Collaborating with noted composers, musicians, and visual artists, Alonzo King creates works that draw on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions and imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential. Alonzo King's visionary choreography is renowned for its ability to connect audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity-of vulnerability and tenderness, but also of furious abandon and exhilarating freedom.
In 2006, the newly formed United States Artists organization recognized 50 outstanding living artists in America: Alonzo King was honored with one of the four Fellowships in Dance nationwide, and the only one given in California. The USA Fellowship is the third major award bestowed upon Alonzo King in the past few years, following the Bessie Award for Choreographer/Creator in 2005 and the Jacob's Pillow Creativity Award in June 2008. He has also been the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, the Irvine Dance Fellowship, five Isadora Duncan awards, two honorary doctorates, and the 2007 Community Leadership Award. In fall 2007, dancer Meredith Webster won the Princess Grace Award, becoming the fifth company member to receive that honor.
In 2001, the LINES Ballet School was established, in order to develop the potential of young dancers. LINES Ballet continues its commitment to dance education and community involvement through the San Francisco Dance Center, now one of the largest dance facilities on the West Coast. In Fall 2006, LINES Ballet embarked on a partnership with the Dominican University of California, inaugurating the Joint BFA Program in Dance. This is the only Joint BFA program in the country to be led by an active, world-renowned choreographer.
LINES Ballet has collaborated with legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders; India's national treasure, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain; Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock; actor Danny Glover; Japanese classical composer Somei Satoh; celebrated Polish composer Pavel Syzmanski; and Nubian oud master Hamza El Din. One of the Company's great successes was bringing sixteen musicians and dancers from the Lobaye Forest of Central African Republic-the BaAka-for the People of the Forest project. Recently, LINES Ballet has been receiving accolades for its collaborative project with the Shaolin monks, an unprecedented synthesis of Eastern and Western classical forms that intertwines martial arts and ballet.
As San Francisco audiences flock to LINES Ballet's annual spring and fall home seasons, the last three seasons have sold-out, the Company is also enjoying tremendous success abroad at venues such as the Venice Biennale and the Maison de la Dance in Lyon. LINES Ballet has been featured at several prestigious festivals, including Montpellier Danse, the Wolfsburg Festival, the Holland Dance Festival, and the 50th anniversary of the Spoleto Festival. The extraordinary quality of the dancers continues to receive glowing reviews in the US and abroad: in France, Le Monde described the performance as "a vision that remains inscribed in memory" as the dancers "glide from one halo of light to the next...with distilled grace," while the Village Voice compared the dancers to "diamonds- twisting in the light or rapidly scratching complex codes on glass."
Click here to read our 2006/07 Annual Report
