November 13, 2008
Ballet group returns with new work, ‘Long River, High Sky’
Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet returns to the UW World Series Nov. 20-22 to present the new work Long River, High Sky. King’s visionary choreography is renowned for its ability to connect audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity and for its unique capacity to imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential. In Long River, High Sky, King has combined contemporary ballet with the centuries-old martial arts forms of China’s Shaolin monks. With utter calm and fierce precision, the LINES Ballet dancers and the Shaolin monks of China share the stage to create an unprecedented synthesis of Eastern and Western classical forms.
Based in San Francisco, Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet 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 dance works that draw on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions in order to push classical ballet in new directions.
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 its People of the Forest project. UW World Series audiences were privileged to see the Pharoah Sanders collaboration, Before the Blues, as part of the UW World Dance Series in March 2005 and the People of the Forest project as part of the World Dance Series in November 2001.
Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet performs at Meany Hall Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Nov. 20, 21, and 22, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $38 ($35 for subscribers and $20 for students). Tickets may be purchased by phone at 206-543-4880, online at www.uwworldseries.org, or in person at the UW Arts Ticket Office.
Ticket-holders are invited to come early to learn more about the performance at a free, informal talk in the main auditorium at 7:10 p.m. The talk lasts about 30 minutes.
