STERN GROVE FESTIVAL PRESENTS ALONZO KING’S LINES BALLET FEATURING A WORLD PREMIERE PAS DE DEUX

LINES Ballet’s debut at Stern Grove Festival features live musical accompaniment from Pharoah Sanders

SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2008 — Stern Grove Festival is pleased to present Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet for the first time on the Festival stage with an admission-free performance of The Moroccan Project and Migration with musical accompaniment by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. The afternoon’s performance includes a world premiere pas de deux choreographed by Alonzo King and featuring former San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Muriel Maffre and former LINES Ballet dancer Prince Credell.  

Stern Grove Festival’s admission-free performance will take place on Sunday, July 20 at 2:00 p.m. in Sigmund Stern Grove, located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco. A Troc Talk with Alonzo King will take place before the performance in Stern Grove’s Trocadero Clubhouse.

ABOUT ALONZO KING’S LINES BALLET

Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, an international touring company based in San Francisco, performs unique contemporary ballets created by Alonzo King.  Established 26 years ago, LINES Ballet continues to receive acclaim for Alonzo King’s visionary choreography, and for the extraordinary quality of its dancers. Alonzo King is the 2008 recipient of a Jacob’s Pillow Award for Creativity, awarded to an innovative choreographer whose unique vision and creative abilities further the art form of dance internationally. When not on tour—performing in venues from the Venice Biennale to the Holland Dance Festival to Montpellier Danse in France—the Company also appears onstage during spring and fall home seasons in San Francisco.  Alonzo King creates works that draw on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions and imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential.  Alonzo King’s choreography is renowned for its ability to connect audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity—of vulnerability and tenderness, but also of furious abandon and exhilarating freedom. LINES has collaborated with 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 the People of the Forest project. Last spring, LINES Ballet premiered its collaborative project with the Shaolin monks, an unprecedented synthesis of Eastern and Western classical forms that intertwined martial arts and ballet.  Six years ago, the LINES Ballet School and Pre-Professional Program were established, in order to develop the potential of young dancers.  LINES Ballet continues its commitment to dance education and community involvement through the San Francisco Dance Center, one of the largest dance facilities on the West Coast. In 2006 LINES Ballet partnered with the Dominican University of California to create the Joint BFA Program in Dance—the only Joint BFA program in the country to be led by an active, world-renowned choreographer. 2007 marked the Company’s fifth Princess Grace Award, given to LINES dancer Meredith Webster. This October, LINES Ballet will present a world premiere performance with Pharoah Sanders at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

ABOUT STERN GROVE FESTIVAL

Stern Grove Festival’s 71st Season of 10 admission-free concerts runs every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. from June 15 through August 17, 2008 at Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco. Stern Grove Festival also provides outreach programs at each concert this season and on some weekdays at Stern Grove.

Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis and the concert meadow may be closed when capacity is reached. There is no public parking at Stern Grove and Festival patrons are encouraged to use public transportation to Stern Grove. MUNI metro lines K and M and MUNI bus lines 23 and 28 provide service to Stern Grove. Free shuttle service from the entrance at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard into the Grove is provided to seniors and disabled patrons.

Stern Grove Festival’s 71st Season is made possible with support from Season Sponsor Parkmerced. Additional support provided by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and media sponsors KPIX - CBS 5, KBCW - The CW 44 Cable 12, and SF Weekly. Media sponsor is KALW 91.7 FM.