HTP Mainstage

Alonzo King LINES Ballet + esperanza spalding

Alonzo King LINES Ballet, esperanza spalding

Performances

May 1 Sat 8:00PM

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May 2 Sun 2:00PM

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Performance Run Time: TBA

Alonzo King LINES Ballet returns to the Harris Theater with the Chicago premiere of LEGACY — a groundbreaking work bringing together two global artistic forces: Grammy Award-winning bassist, vocalist, and composer esperanza spalding and contemporary ballet pioneer Alonzo King.

Accompaniying the performance live, spalding shares the stage with the transcendent dancers of LINES Ballet for a dynamic dialogue between music and movement. King’s celebrated choreographic language, renowned for its sculptural beauty, emotional depth, and expansive sense of space, unites with spalding’s intricate harmonies and soulful improvisations, for an unforgettable performance.

Founded in 1982, the San Francisco–based contemporary ballet company is led by acclaimed choreographer Alonzo King. King draws on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions, imbuing classical ballet with new expressive potential. With this performance, the company shares its vision of transformative, revelatory dance through breathtaking artistry and powerful movement. LINES Ballet is known for its collaboration with extraordinary composers, musicians, writers, and visual artists, producing work of radiant beauty and fearless creativity.

“esperanza spalding and Alonzo King deliver a rare kind of magic” — San Francisco Chronicle

About Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Alonzo King LINES Ballet is a celebrated contemporary ballet company, guided since 1982 by the artistic vision of acclaimed choreographer Alonzo King. Collaborating with extraordinary composers, musicians, writers, and visual artists from around the world, King draws on a diverse set of deeply rooted cultural traditions, imbuing classical ballet with new expressive potential. He has been heralded as a visionary and thought leader on topics that reach far beyond dance, receiving numerous accolades, including a San Francisco Arts Medallion, an induction into the California Hall of Fame, and a 2020 Dance Magazine Award. The company brings new works of illuminating beauty to Bay Area audiences in biannual home seasons. LINES Ballet’s national and international tours allow the company to share its vision of transformative, revelatory dance through performances worldwide.

About esperanza spalding

Born in 1984 in Portland, Oregon, esperanza spalding is an eaabibacliitoti* artist, trained and initiated in the North American (masculine) jazz lineage and tradition. Her work interweaves through various combinations of instrumental music, improvisation, singing, composition, poetry, dance, therapeutic research, storytelling, teaching, regenerative agriculture, urban land & artist-sanctuary custodianship, and growing in love as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece, auntie, great-auntie, friend, while collaboratively decolonizing within and through her hometown community.

She founded and serves as co-director of Prismid Sanctuary, a non-profit that creates and stewards free artist residency, performance, and workshop space in Portland, Oregon (Prismid.org).

With her dance project “Off Brand gOdds” and her therapeutic music incubator “Songwrights Apothecary Lab” she co-leads performance, teaching, workshop, and therapeutic-arts research residencies in collaboration with colleges and arts venues across the Americas and throughout the world. She is a 2024 recipient of the Doris Duke Foundation Artist Award and a 2016 Ford Foundation “Art of Change” Fellow.

*European-African ancestored being influenced by American cultures living in Indigenous Territories of Turtle Island