The Alonzo King Lines Ballet comes to Staller Center’s Main Stage on Sunday, May 3, at 7 pm with a program that features Writing Ground, a dance collaboration with award-winning author Colum McCann, and a new work set to music by Bach, Concerto for Two Violins. Tickets are $42 online at www.stallercenter.com or by calling the Staller Center Box Office at (631) 632-ARTS.
Alonzo King Lines Ballet is a celebrated contemporary ballet company from the San Francisco Bay area. King is a visionary choreographer who collaborates with noted composers, musicians and visual artists to create works that imbue classical ballet with new expressive potential. He has guided the company since 1982.
Concerto for Two Violins is a full-company work set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, one of the composer’s most famous pieces. Concerto for Two Violins surrenders to the rhythms of Bach, utilizing music first immortalized by choreographer George Balanchine last century. From its opening, the ballet unfurls with energetic passages of uniform formations and exploding solos, the exacting movements defining King’s brand of “muscular classicalism.” Called “smart and satisfying” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Concerto for Two Violins delivers emotions equal to the rich voice of the accompanying strings.
Writing Ground is set to a collection of sacred early music from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Commissioned in 2010 by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, King’s masterful work draws inspiration from writings by Colum McCann, winner of the National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin. A lyrical work, Writing Ground challenges the Company to explore new territory.
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