King Taps Zakir

Comments (0) By Nirmala Nataraj Wednesday, Oct 31 2007

Marty Sohl

LINES Ballet.

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Alonzo King's LINES Ballet has taken a circuitous, strange, yet ultimately inevitable road toward greatness. King, an innovator of modern dance, whose pet projects include collaborations with jazz legend Pharoah Sanders and obscure African tribes, has never been content to follow in the footsteps of other movement stars. His pieces are unapologetically "modern," complete with moves you're unlikely to encounter anywhere else. He fuses the personal and the global, the emotive and the intellectually rigorous, into works that draw from a plethora of cultural traditions. In a LINES ballet show, you get the beauty and grace of the typical ballet performance, but there's something feral, primitive, and ultimately more captivating that slinks alongside all the prettiness. In the Fall 25th Anniversary Season, the troupe offers two world premieres, accompanied by an original score from renowned tabla player and percussive genius Zakir Hussain. Hussain, who has collaborated with King before, creates a global journey perfectly befitting the company’s penchant for exploration. North Indian classical pieces blended with the vertiginous, full strains of baroque music sweep viewers up in an experience that is both timeless and entirely unfamiliar.
Nov. 2-11, 8 p.m., 2007