This spring, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (MJDC) brings back the popular speaker series “Leaders at the Lab: Conversations with Working Artists” to the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab in San Francisco. Artistic Director, Margaret Jenkins will host a conversation with national and local leaders in the dance field about the innovative models and career choices they have developed to stay inspired and thrive. Each salon-style discussion will include a question and answer period with the audience and be followed by a reception.
Alonzo King has been called a visionary choreographer who is altering the way we look at ballet. King calls his works ‘thought structures’ created by the manipulation of energies that exist in matter through laws which govern
the shapes, and movement directions, of everything that exists. King has works in the repertories of, the Swedish Royal Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Hong Kong Ballet, NCDT, and Washington Ballet. He has worked extensively in opera, television, and film. Known for collaborations, seminal works include 2001, People of the Forest choreographed with Baka artists from Central African Republic, and Long River High Sky, 2007, with China’s Shaolin Monks. He has collaborated with actor Danny Glover, legendary jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders, Hamza al Din, Pawel Szymanski, Jason Moran and tabla master Zakir Hussain. Renowned for his skill as a teacher, Mr. King has been guest ballet master for dance companies around the globe.
King is the director of the international touring company, Alonzo King LINES Ballet housed in San Francisco with the AKLB School, Training Program, Dance Center, and BFA program in Dance in partnership with Dominican University of California.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom presented the Mayor’s Art Award to Alonzo King in October 2008, calling him a “San Francisco treasure.” In June 2008, Alonzo King was honored with the Jacob's Pillow Creativity Award, in recognition of his contribution to "moving ballet in a very 21st-century direction," In 2006, King received the US Artists award, and in 2005, received New York’s Bessie Award for Choreographer/Creator. He is also the recipient of the NEA Choreographer's Fellowship, Irvine Fellowship in Dance, National Dance Project and the National Dance Residency Program, as well as an Isadora Duncan Award. He has received the Hero Award from Union Bank, the Los Angeles Lehman Award, and the Excellence Award from KGO, and was chosen a recipient of the San Francisco Foundation's 2007 Community Leadership Award.
In 2005 he was named a Master of Choreography by the Kennedy Center. He is a former commissioner for the city and county of San Francisco, and a writer and lecturer on the art of dance. He was awarded the Green Honors Chair Professorship from Texas Christian University, and holds an honorary Doctorate from Dominican University of California and California Institute of the Arts.
