Alonzo King LINES Ballet Comes to Yerba Buena Center with Vocalist Maya Lahyani

Alonzo King LINES Ballet is pleased to announce its Fall Season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, for a limited six-performance engagement, November 2-6.

The season features two works: a world premiere ballet featuring the regal mezzo-soprano Maya Lahyani performing live; and Meyer, Alonzo King's collaboration with the Grammy Award-winning composer and bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer. Immediately following the company will set off on a tour to Russia, France, Switzerland and Italy.

Israeli mezzo-soprano Maya Lahyani, a 2010 grand finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the recipient of an Adler Fellowship at San Francisco Opera, is fast becoming one of the most sought-after young singers today. She first performed with the company in Alonzo King's 2012 work, Constellation. She takes the stage again as a vocal soloist for this season's world premiere. The new work also features a solo by former LINES Ballet dancerMeredith Webster, a beloved performer who danced with the company for nearly a decade.

Also on the program is King's 2013 work, Meyer, a collaboration with Edgar Meyer, a musician celebrated by the New Yorker as "...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument." Meyer draws audiences from all music corners - his styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Of his aspiration to work with Meyer, King said, "When I first heard the second movement of Edgar Meyer's Violin Concerto, I was knocked off my feet. Its profoundly mesmerizing beauty and wave like repetitions interrupted by rhythmic shifts was an ideal world to construct choreography. The music seemed to embody the ancient with the new, with a stillness that moved."

Created for the Company's 30th anniversary, Meyer is lusciously textured with a striking backdrop of synchronized water created by the Academy Award-winning designer Jim Doyle. Meyer speaks of the complexities of human behavior in a piece that pulses with playfulness. King's solos and duets alternate from exhilarating tear-up-the-space dancing to sensitive and at times contentious partnering.

Alonzo King is a visionary choreographer who has changed the way we look at ballet. Understanding ballet as a science rooted in universal, geometric principles of energy and evolution, he imbues the classical form with new expressive potential. His work is known worldwide for connecting audiences to a profound sense of shared humanity.

Heralded by William Forsythe as "one of the few, true Ballet Masters of our time," King has works in the repertories of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frank­furt Ballet, Ballet Bejart, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. He has collaborated with distinguished visual artists, musicians and composers across the globe includ­ing Pharaoh Sanders, Hamza El Din, Pawel Szyman­ski, Jason Moran, and Zakir Hussain. Renowned for his skill as a teacher, King was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Corps de Ballet International Teacher Conference in 2012. An inter­nationally acclaimed guest ballet master, his training philosophy undergirds the educational program­ming at the Alonzo King LINES Dancer Center of San Francisco, which includes the pre-professional Training Program, Summer Program, and BFA Program at Dominican University of California.

King's work has been recognized for its impact on the cultural fabric of the company's home in San Francisco, as well as nationally by the dance world's most prestigious institutions. Named a Master of Choreography by the Kennedy Center in 2005, King is the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, the Jacob's Pillow Creativity Award, the Irvine Fellowship in Dance, the US Artist Award in Dance, and the National Dance Project's Residency and Touring Awards. In 2014, King was appointed to the advisory council of the newly established Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York Univer­sity; in 2015 he received the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award in celebration of his ongoing contribu­tions to the advancement of contemporary dance. Joining historic icons in the field, King was named one of America's "Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2015.

Bank of the West is the 2016 Season Sponsor for Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Alonzo King LINES Ballet benefits from the support of Bank of the West for the development of its projects.

The creation of Meyer was made possible with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund, and the Bernard Osher Foundation.

IF YOU GO:

Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Fall Season featuring a world premiere with Maya Lahyani and the reprise of Meyer

November 2-6, 2016

Wednesday, November 2, 7:30pm
Thursday, November 3, 7:30pm
Friday, November 4, 8pm
Saturday, November 5, 8pm
Sunday, November 6, 2pm & 6pm

At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard Street, San Francisco

$35-$80, 415.978.2787, www.linesballet.org

Pictured: Michael Montgomery, photo by RJ Muna

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