Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Kicks Off Spring Series and U.S. Tour with Alonzo King LINES Ballet Today

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and San Francisco-based Alonzo King LINES Ballet - currently celebrating their 35th and 30th anniversary seasons, respectively - perform together in four notable American dance venues this spring. These first-time joint presentations include the debut of a New Work by LINES Ballet's founder and director, award-winning choreographer Alonzo King.

This unique collaboration, billed Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet, is the sole dance and Chicago-based recipient of a 2011 Joyce Award from The Joyce Foundation. The accompanying $50,000 grant has generously supported the collaboration in-process, as did a three-week residency at the University of California, Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The collaboration was previewed at the 2012 Laguna Dance Festival, and has received crucial funding for its tour from the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project.

The New Work by Alonzo King features 28 world-renowned dancers: all 12 members of LINES Ballet and 16 from Hubbard Street's ensemble of 18. Lighting designs are by Axel Morgenthaler, set designs by Jim Doyle, costumes by Robert Rosenwasser and original music is by composer/musican Ben Juodvalkis.

In addition, the New Work is a commission by the Harris Theater for Music and Dance at Millennium Park, in celebration of its 10th anniversary next year. Hubbard Street - one of the Chicago venue's founding local organizations - welcomes LINES Ballet to its Spring Series and the World Premiere of the companies' Shared Program: Hubbard Street presents Little mortal jump (2012) by Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo; LINES Ballet presents the Chicago Premiere of Alonzo King's Rasa (2007), to an original score by tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain; and both companies present the New Work. The New Work receives its World Premiere at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, as part of Hubbard Street's Cal Performances engagement.

The Shared Program repeats one night only in Madison, Wisconsin at the Overture Center for the Arts, and for three shows in Los Angeles, at the Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

• See below for the complete performance calendar, further details and related events.

Both companies, joined together onstage, will form a supergroup of contemporary and neoclassical dancers. While LINES Ballet's signature style is unique to King's company, Hubbard Street has proved its fluency in King's work, in performances of his Following the Subtle Current Upstream, created for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2000 and in repertory at Hubbard Street since 2011.

Hubbard Street Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton originally proposed the idea to Alonzo King for a collaboration during a visit to LINES Ballet's studios in San Francisco. He notes how King "was challenging the LINES dancers in such a wonderful way, and I thought, 'I would like our dancers to experience that.' The process has exceeded the hopes I had for our collaboration. We look forward to bringing the work to dance-lovers across the country this spring." Says Alonzo King, "Hubbard Street and LINES Ballet are uniting to build something that hasn't been built before. We will have the opportunity to re-examine how to communicate ideas clearly and how to inculcate the best qualities of humanity into movement."

Along with providing a creative development experience for Alonzo King and all of the artists involved, Hubbard Street recognizes this collaboration as an important opportunity to diversify its repertoire and, accordingly, to grow its audience. King is known for drawing inspiration for his works from diverse cultural traditions, for combining a kinetic, neoclassical extension of ballet with a broad spectrum of points of reference, aesthetic vocabularies and techniques. Based on the success of this collaboration, Hubbard Street hopes to use it as a model for future collaborations with other dance organizations.

Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet: Performance Schedule and Programs:

at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, California, presented by Cal Performances:
• Friday, February 1 at 8pm
• Saturday, February 2 at 8pm
Hubbard Street in Little mortal jump (2012) by Alejandro Cerrudo (West Coast Premiere)
Hubbard Street in Too Beaucoup (2011) by Sharon Eyal and Gaï Behar (Bay Area Premiere)
Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet in New Work by Alonzo King (World Premiere)
Tickets: From $30 at calperfs.berkeley.edu
Related events: Performance for school students, Februrary 1 at 11am

at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois:
• Thursday, March 14 at 7:30pm
• Friday, March 15 at 8pm
• Saturday, March 16 at 8pm
• Sunday March 17 at 3pm
Hubbard Street in Little mortal jump (2012) by Alejandro Cerrudo
LINES Ballet in Rasa (2007) by Alonzo King (Chicago Premiere)
Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet in New Work by Alonzo King (Chicago Premiere)
Tickets: $25-$99 at hubbardstreetdance.com
Related events: Performance for school students, March 15 at 11am; discussion(s) TBA

• Note: This collaboration is the impetus for a follow-up, standalone LINES Ballet engagement
at the Harris Theater during its 2013-14 season (to be announced in full at a later date).

at Overture Hall, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, Wisconsin:
• Wednesday, March 20 at 7:30pm
Hubbard Street in Little mortal jump (2012) by Alejandro Cerrudo
LINES Ballet in Rasa (2007) by Alonzo King (Madison Premiere)
Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet in New Work by Alonzo King (Madison Premiere)
Tickets: $23.50-$42.50 at overturecenter.com
Related events: Post-peformance discussion

at the Music Center, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California
• Friday, June 21 at 7:30pm
• Saturday, June 22 at 7:30pm
• Sunday, June 23 at 2pm
Hubbard Street in Little mortal jump (2012) by Alejandro Cerrudo (Los Angeles Premiere)
LINES Ballet in repertory to be confirmed
Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet in New Work by Alonzo King (Los Angeles Premiere)
Tickets: $28-$110 at musiccenter.org
Related events: Joint master class with Hubbard Street + LINES Ballet artists TBA

Alonzo King has created works for companies throughout the world including the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hong Kong Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and the Washington Ballet.

In 1982, he founded Alonzo King LINES Ballet, an international touring company. In 1989, he opened the Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, now one of the largest facilities for dance education on the West Coast. King has received multiple awards and honors from the city of San Francisco, where he and his company are based, from the prestigious Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and was recognized as one of fifty outstanding artists in America by United States Artists.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, under the artistic leadership of Glenn Edgerton, celebrates its 35th season in 2012 and 2013. Among the world's top contemporary dance companies and a global cultural ambassador, Hubbard Street demonstrates fluency in a wide range of techniques and forms, and deep comprehension of abstract artistry and emotional nuance.

The company is critically acclaimed for its exuberant and innovative repertoire, featuring works by master American and international choreographers. Hubbard Street's artists hail from four countries and 12 U.S. states, and comprise a superlative ensemble of virtuosity and versatility.

Since its founding by Lou Conte in 1977, Hubbard Street has grown through the establishment of multiple platforms. Each is dedicated to the support and advancement of dance as an art form, as a practice, and as a method for generating and sustaining communities of all kinds.

Hubbard Street 2 cultivates young professional dancers and identifies next-generation choreographers. Extensive Education & Community Programs are models in the field of arts outreach, linking the performing company's creative mission to the lives of students and families. Hubbard Street also initiated the first dance-based program in the Midwest to help alleviate suffering caused by Parkinson's disease.

Youth Dance Classes at the Hubbard Street Dance Center include Creative Movement and progressive study of technique, open to movers ages 9 months to 13 years. And at the Lou Conte Dance Studio, workshops and master classes allow access to expertise, while a broad variety of weekly classes offer training at all levels in jazz, ballet, modern, tap, African, hip-hop, yoga, Pilates and Zumba.

Visit hubbardstreetdance.com and linesballet.org to learn more.

Pictured: Hubbard Street Dancers Jesse Bechard and Ana Lopez in "Little mortal jump" by Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo. Photo Credit: Todd Rosenberg.

To post a comment, you must register and login.