Well known for his collaborations with composers, musicians and visual artists – including Edgar Meyer, Pharaoh Sanders, Hamza El Din, Pawel Szymanski, Jason Moran and Zakir Hussain – visionary choreographer Alonzo King presented a highly successful program in 2015, which featured vocalist Lisa Fischer on stage with his LINES Ballet.
Entitled The Propelled Heart, this work paid tribute to the power of song, and those who enjoyed this production will be delighted to hear that King is bringing it back to San Francisco to celebrate LINES Ballet’s 35th season.
Fischer, who has performed as a backing artist for her mentor Luther Vandross and for The Rolling Stones, has also appeared with a range of stars, including Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Beyoncé and Sting. She won a 1992 Grammy for her single How Can I Ease the Pain from her 1991 album So Intense, and was one of the stars who performed in the Academy Award-winning documentary Twenty Feet From Stardom, which also won a 2015 Grammy Award. Other illustrious artists with whom Lisa Fischer has collaborated include pianist Lang Lang, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and jazz pianist Billy Childs.
On tour with her trio, Grand Baton, she has received rave reviews from The New York Times – “She brought down the house in the single best show I’ve seen in the many years I’ve visited Birdland”; The DailyStar – “Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and bask in the raw talent of an artist… a powerhouse with a monumental range”; and Broadway World, which wrote of her “astonishing range, perfect intonation, mastery of the stage. Her glamorous-girl-next-door quality makes fans all over the world think she’s their own secret discovery”.
Alonzo King describes her as “…. a brilliant artist with a fully throbbing heart and expansive mind … an inspiration of sound, body and being”. He’ll be taking The Propelled Heart on tour to Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris in March 2018.
Alonzo King and his LINES Ballet present The Propelled Heart, with Lisa Fischer, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater from November 15-19, 2017. For more information and tickets, visit linesballet.org, or call 415.978.2787.
Sources of information:
LINES Ballet Company program notes