Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Alonzo King LINES Ballet is recognized internationally for its signature contemporary dance vocabulary rooted in classical ballet. Each year, it performs for more than 50,000 people in the United States and abroad, including two seasons in San Francisco. In addition, LINES Ballet provides more than 75 weekly classes at its Dance Center in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood, and a suite of other education and community programs that reach more than 5,500 people each year.

LINES Contemporary Ballet (San Francisco, CA), under the artistic direction of choreographer Alonzo King, is one of the preeminent American dance companies, and presents an annual series of new and original works reaching an audience of 8,000 people at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (a Hewlett Foundation grantee). Through a fusion of world cultures and collaborations with unlikely partners such as the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (a Hewlett grantee), martial artists from a Shaolin monastery and musicians from the rainforests of Central Africa, LINES embodies an innovative, riveting approach to ballet. Founded in 1982 Alonzo King’s works are now in the repertories of more than fifty companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Joffrey Ballet, and Mr. King was recently acknowledged by the Kennedy Center as Master of African American choreography. In addition to the classes Mr. King teaches LINES operates the San Francisco Dance Center which provides training for thousands of professional and recreational dancers throughout the Bay Area. In the most recent grant period the organization matched its artistic success with crucial progress on enhancing its management capacity and increasing compensation for its world-class dancers. Lines matched a $1,000,0000 challenge grant provided by the Hewlett Foundation in 2006 in just 15 months and with renewed general operating support will continue to increase fundraising capacity, undertake board member training and increase salaries for dance instructors and scholarship opportunities for dance students. (Renewal, $300,000/2, 6%)