Alonzo King LINES Ballet Reveals Fall 2026 Season With Two World Premieres

Alonzo King LINES Ballet has announced its Fall 2026 Season, highlighted by a major collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony, featuring two world premiere dance works by the company's Artistic Director and Co-Founder, Alonzo King. Set to iconic scores by Claude Debussy and Aaron Copland, the program includes new interpretations of Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) and the Suite from Appalachian Spring, reimagined through King's singular choreographic voice. This program inaugurates the 45th anniversary of Alonzo King LINES Ballet.

Performances will take place Thursday, November 19 at 7.30 p.m.; Friday, November 20 at 7.30 p.m.; and Saturday, November 21, at 7.30 p.m., at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue. Internationally renowned conductor James Gaffigan will be on the podium for all three concerts, which will include Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante with SF Symphony principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis. For LINES Ballet, these performances will be presented in lieu of the company's traditional fall season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

This collaboration marks the fifth partnership between LINES Ballet and the Symphony, continuing a dynamic artistic relationship that brings together two of San Francisco's most celebrated cultural institutions. Known for transcending traditional boundaries between dance and music, LINES Ballet's work with live orchestral performance creates an immersive, interdisciplinary experience that resonates deeply with audiences.

Previous associations between the San Francisco Symphony and Alonzo King LINES Ballet include the following:

• The Symphony's 2021 season opening performances of Alberto Ginastera's Estancia Suite;
• June 2024 performances of Maurice Ravel's complete Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose);
• A 2021 digital SoundBox performance of Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel featuring LINES dancers Adji Cissoko and Shuaib Elhassan;
• Cissoko's improvised performance in the Symphony's 2022 digital concert film, Stravinsky: The Soldier's Tale.

“Returning to collaborate with the San Francisco Symphony feels both like a homecoming and an evolution of a shared artistic language,” said Alonzo King. “Creating world premiere works with these extraordinary artists—reimagining the expansive Americana of Copland's Appalachian Spring and the evocative, impressionistic textures of Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun—is an invitation to explore how movement and sound breathe together in real time. When dancers and musicians meet in this way, something larger than either form emerges: a living architecture of emotion, memory, and the human spirit.”

Both musical works programmed for next November have deep roots in dance history. Debussy's Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune first premiered in 1894 as a concert work, became a landmark ballet in 1912 through the groundbreaking choreography and performance of Vaslav Nijinsky. Debussy's lyrical and haunting score is considered to be a masterpiece of the Impressionist period.

Copland's Appalachian Spring, composed in 1944, was originally created for choreographer Martha Graham and remains one of the most beloved works in the American ballet canon. The orchestral suite debuted in 1945 and earned Copland the Pulitzer Prize. King's new interpretations promise to bring fresh perspective and contemporary resonance to these musical masterworks. Company Creative Director and Co-Founder Robert Rosenwasser will design the costumes.