The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University, the first international institute devoted to the creation and study of ballet, will present master choreographer and founder of San Francisco’s LINES Ballet Alonzo King in an open class, Thursday, March 31, 2016. As part of the public event, King will teach a ballet class for dancers from LINES Ballet, followed by a discussion with Jennifer Homans and Q&A with audience members.

Since founding LINES Ballet in 1982, King has earned a reputation as “one of the few bona fide visionaries in the ballet world today,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Collaborating with composers, musicians, and visual artists from around the world, King’s works draw on diverse cultural traditions, imbuing classical ballet with a unique perspective.

“Alonzo King is establishing ballet on a new axis, which makes him a natural fit for our programming here at the Center for Ballet and the Arts,” said Jennifer Homans, professor of history at NYU and founding director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts. “He is not a celebrity; he’s not well known outside the dance world, even though he’s won dozens of awards. His reputation stems from the dancers he leads, who are beautifully trained, sensitive, intelligent and physically elegant in ways that are rare in today’s more acrobatic and athletically inclined dance world.”

Born in Albany, Georgia to a prominent family of civil rights activists, King quickly established himself as a choreographer who imbued his dances and his dancers with a sense of mission and commitment. He has created ballets for companies and as diverse as the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and the Swedish Royal Ballet, and LINES has been featured at the Venice Biennale, Monaco Dance Forum, the Edinburgh International Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and many others. He has had collaborations with Danny Glover, Lisa Fischer, Pharoah Sanders, Bernie Krause, Hamza El Din, Pawel Szymański, Jason Moran, and tabla master Zakir Hussain.

Tickets for the open class, which are free but required for entry, are available at: https://cbanyu8218.wpengine.com/2016/01/open-class-with-alonzo-king/

About the Center for Ballet and the Arts
Established in fall 2014 by dancer/historian Jennifer Homans, the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU is an international institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new ballets, expanding the way we think about ballet and bringing vitality to its history, practice, and performance in the 21st century.