Ballet-Dance Magazine - a magazine covering all forms of dance - Focus on Alonzo King LINES Contemporary Ballet

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LINES Contemporary Ballet - 'The Patience of Aridity, Waiting for Petrichor,' 'Coleman Hawkins,' 'Baker Fix,' 'The Rite of Spring'
By Mary Ellen Hunt - April 9, 2004 - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
"Baker Fix," anchored by the engaging Kerr, was less of a ballet than an excuse to dress up this statuesque beauty in Colleen Quen Couture."
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Arturo Fernandez: A Line on Ballet's Ballets
By Dean Speer and Francis Timlin - August 7, 2004, San Francisco
"And when we work with composers (which is very exciting) on commissioned scores, they compose to the movement, rather than the other way around. Both of us are very interested in the process (of creating)."
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LINES Contemporary Ballet - 20th Anniversary Home Season Opener
By Mary Ellen Hunt - October 6, 2002, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Opinions about Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet may always be polarized. If you are a devotee, then artistic director King is a visionary, creating works of affecting spirituality and choreographic power. If you’re a detractor, King’s ballets are twitchy, derivative, and unnecessarily “California woo-woo.”
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LINES Contemporary Ballet - Fall Repertory Preview
By Mary Ellen Hunt - October 6, 2002, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
There will be new works as well, with a premiere danced by Thomas, a San Francisco native who became the first American dancer to join the Kirov Ballet, as well as a new piece featuring the renowned local Spanish flamenco dancer La Tania.
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LINES Contemporary Ballet 'The Heart's Natural Inclination,' 'Koto,' 'Splash'
By Mary Ellen Hunt - August 7, 2002, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Choreographer and artistic director Alonzo King has fallen lately into a kind of habitual approach to his works, but while “Koto” exhibits a few of his formulaic characteristics, it also transcends them with fascinating imagery, tight musicality, and above all, concision.
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LINES Contemporary Ballet - 'BaAka: The People of the Forest'
By Mary Ellen Hunt - October 23, 2001, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
"The People of the Forest" opens with two singers singing a hunting song. Juxtaposed against this are the imperious Marina Hotchkiss, Maurya Kerr and Chiharu Shibata as a trio that seems to recall three graces, or three fates dancing in costumes that had the unfortunate effect of hiding their lines and resembling cannoli.
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Image Gallery

LINES Ballet 2004-2005
"It looked like contemporary ballet vocabulary turned inside out and upside down, with relatively ethereal costumes for a jazzy, blues piece. The solo sax playing of Pharoah Saunders was indeed virtuosic as well."
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Last Minute-ness
"... there has been a certain amount of consternation over the fact that two weeks before the show, the repertoire was not listed. It was mentioned: 'I don't know of another company that could really get away with that.'"
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LINES Ballet 2002 San Francisco Season
This haute couture dress may be purely for publicity in advertising the concept. Spring has sprung with chic flair! I rather like it. I won't be able to fly up for this performance (which I'm quite sad about) anxious to get the views and read all about it.
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LINES Contemporary Ballet 2000 Season
"I too enjoyed the LINES dancers, as usual. The dancers are indeed gorgeous and the lighting was lush. However, do you get the sense that you've seen all the steps before? It's just an observation some people made to me before."
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