Hubbard Street Dance Chicago to Kick Off Spring Series and U.S. Tour with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, 2/1

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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 Rose nwasser 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

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