LINES Ballet’s Shuaib Elhassan and Zakir Hussain – © R J Muna
Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet celebrates it 35th Anniversary this year, with a range of highly creative and unusual presentations including a World Premiere in collaboration with tabla master Zakir Hussain, the creation of a new work for San Francisco Ballet’s Unbound Festival with a score by jazz composer Jason Moran, an exhibition of photographs by company photographer R J Muna in Terminal 3 at San Francisco International Airport, performances at the COAL + ICE Festival, a multi-media exhibition at Gallery 836M, and another world premiere collaboration – this time with the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet – an impressive line-up!
Alonzo King’s name has been synonymous with contemporary ballet, extraordinary vision and a unique brand of creativity since 1982. Known for his striking originality, King has works in the repertoires of companies such as the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Ballet Bejart, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
LINES Ballet’s Michael Montgomery – © R J Muna
In addition to collaborations with Zakir Hussain – which go back over the past 20 years – King has worked with visual artists, musicians and composers the world over – such as bassist Edgar Meyer, jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders, Sudanese composer, instrumentalist and vocalist Hamza al Din, Polish composer Pawel Szymanski, jazz musicians Jason Moran and Charles Lloyd, mezzo-soprano Maya Lahyani and architect Chris Haas.
Also an internationally acclaimed ballet master, Alonzo King was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Corps de Ballet International Teacher Conference in 2012. In collaboration with LINES Ballet’s Co-Founder and Creative Director Robert Rosenwasser, King and his company of highly skilled and amazingly gifted dancers continue to present some of the most riveting and unusual performances to be seen anywhere.
LINES Ballet’s anniversary celebrations open in San Francisco tomorrow evening – April 6th – with a work entitled Sutra, featuring tabla virtuoso, composer and percussionist Zakir Hussain. Hussain – regarded as “a national treasure” in his home country, India – is also highly regarded and extremely popular the world over. Not only does he accompany many of India’s classical musicians and dancers, but he has made a huge, and unique, contribution to contemporary music, collaborating with names as illustrious as YoYo Ma, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison, Pharaoh Sanders, Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland. April 2009 saw Zakir Hussain honored with four sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Perspective series, and just over a year ago, he was honored with the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award at the celebration of the organizations’s 5th anniversary in the SFJAZZ Center.
Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet performs Sutra in a World Premiere collaboration with Zakir Hussain at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, from April 6th to 15th, with a Gala Performance on April 7th. For more information visit the LINES Ballet website , and tickets may be purchased from the YBCA website.
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