Alonzo King

Alonzo King moved to San Francisco and founded LINES Ballet in 1982, today one of the most important and exciting companies on the other side of the Atlantic. A visionary choreographer, he has also been invited to work with some of the world’s leading companies, including Frankfurt Ballett, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Swedish Royal Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Hong Kong Ballet… Highly acclaimed in the U.S., he regularly collaborates with opera, television and film.

Seven years after the creation of LINES Ballet, Alonzo King inaugurated the Dance Center in San Francisco. In 2001, he created the LINES Ballet School to discover and develop the talent of young dancers. In 2006, Alonzo King began a partnership with California’s Dominican University, creating the first Joint BFA dance program on the West Coast.

In 2008, the Mayor of San Francisco honored him with the City Arts Award, calling him “a San Francisco treasure, bringing together the best of San Francisco, the city’s excellence and cultural diversity”. The same year, he received the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award for his contribution to “bringing ballet into the 21st century”, in the words of Ella Baff, Executive Director of the company. He has also received numerous other distinctions: the Bessie Award in 2005, the NEA Choreographer’s Fellowship, the Irvine Fellowship in Dance, the Lehman Award, the KGO Excellence Award and the San Francisco Foundation’s Community Leadership Award in 2007. In 2005, the Kennedy Center named Master of African-American Choreography.

In 2005, he was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa at Dominican University in California, and a few years later, the Green Honos Chair Professorship at Christian University in Texas. Last spring, he received a second honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

An admirer of Balanchine, Alonzo King develops inventive, sensual and vibrant dance with dancers of impeccable classical technique, building bridges between tradition and modernity. Through his collaborations with artists from different disciplines and cultures, he offers work that is always fresh and nourished by cultural diversity.

He is one of the few true ballet masters of our time.” – William Forsythe

Source : Company press kit

More information : linesballet.org