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Alonzo King
ALONZO KING (Choreographer, Artistic Director) has works in the repertories of companies throughout the world including the Swedish Royal Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Washington Ballet. He has worked extensively in opera, television, and film, and has choreographed works for prima ballerina Natalia Makarova and film star Patrick Swayze. Mr. King has also collaborated with artists such as actor Danny Glover, legendary jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, and tabla master Zakir Hussain. Renowned for his skill as a teacher, Mr. King has been the guest ballet master for National Ballet of Canada, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, San Francisco Ballet, Ballet Rambert, Ballet West and others.
In 1982, Mr. King founded Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, which has developed into an international touring company. Seven years later, he inaugurated the San Francisco Dance Center, which has grown into one of the largest dance facilities on the West Coast. In 2001, Alonzo King started the LINES Ballet School to nurture and develop the talents of young dancers. Expanding the scope of his educational visions to the college level in 2006, Alonzo King and LINES Ballet embarked on a partnership with the Dominican University of California, creating the West Coast’s first Joint BFA program in Dance. It is the only Joint BFA program in the country to be led by a living master choreographer.
In 2006, Alonzo King was recognized as one of the fifty outstanding artists in America by the United States Artists organization. In the first year that these awards have been given, Alonzo King was one of only four Fellows in Dance, and the only Dance artist outside of New York to be honored by the USA Fellowship. The Fellowship is the second major national award Alonzo King has received in the past three years—in 2005, he won the Bessie Award for Choreographer/ Creator—and one of many such honors he has received over the course of his career. He is also the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, Irvine Fellowship in Dance, National Dance Project and the National Dance Residency Program, as well as five Isadora Duncan Awards. He has also received the Hero Award from Union Bank, the Lehman Award, and the Excellence Award from KGO, and was chosen as the recipient of the San Francisco Foundation’s 2007 Community Leadership Award. In June 2008, Alonzo King was honored with the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award, in recognition of his contribution to “moving ballet in a very 21st-century direction,” in the words of Ella Baff, Executive Director of Jacob’s Pillow.
Alonzo King has served on panels for the National Endowment of the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Columbus Arts Council and Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Arts Partners Program. In 2005 he was named a Master of African-American Choreography by the Kennedy Center. He is a former commissioner for the city and county of San Francisco, and a writer and lecturer on the art of dance; his contributions appear in the books Masters of Movement: Portraits of American Choreographers and in Dance Masters: Interviews with Legends of Dance. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Dominican University of California, and the following year was given the Green Honors Chair Professorship from Texas Christian University. Last spring, he received a second honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) in Los Angeles.
In January 2005, Alonzo King was honored with the prestigious Bessie Award for Choreographer/ Creator:
"For building a graceful bridge between tradition and innovation in LINES Ballet and other companies, and for infusing classical ballet with cultural expansiveness and a contemporary slant on human vulnerability."
--Bessie Awards Committee, 2004-05
About Alonzo King
Family History:
Slater King, Alonzo King's Father
C.B. King, Alonzo King's Uncle
Preston King, Alonzo King's Uncle
Oona King, Alonzo King's Cousin
Article by Alonzo King:
Look Behind the Eyes (doc)
Alonzo King Profile Video:
Press Quotes:
"Alonzo King is one of the few, true Ballet Masters of our times. His intimacy with Ballet's multiple histories has made his choreography rich with the complex refractions that demonstrate a full command of the art's intricacies..."
--William Forsythe, Frankfurt Ballet
"(Alonzo King's) works exemplify innovation, artistry and depth, and reveal him to be an artist of exceptional talent."
--Violette Verdy, Former Director, Paris Opera Ballet
"The most sophisticated modernism in classical dance. The number of ballet choreographers who live - and create - solely in the present are so few that one of his distinction must be accounted the artistic equivalent of a shooting star."
--Los Angeles Times
"For those who don't know, it's worth stating plainly: Alonzo King is the real deal as a choreographer, one of the few bona fide visionaries in the ballet world today, and we are fortunate to have him and his Lines Ballet in San Francisco."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Alonzo King, a choreographer who pushes against the limits of the medium... dazzling, enigmatic..."
--San Jose Mercury News