Pointe magazine – Inside the audition for Lines Ballet

Inside the audition for Lines Ballet

There’s a feeling of quiet intensity in the air at San Francisco Dance Center, where ballet master Arturo Fernandez is leading an open audition for Alonzo King LINES Ballet. After barre, director Alonzo King slips into the studio. With minimal fanfare, he takes up a position to one side, observing the dancers as they begin an adagio combination. Although LINES holds open calls a few times a year, it’s rare, he says frankly, to hire someone directly from an audition. King prefers to have dancers spend some time with the company in classes so he can really “see who they are” before they join the 11-member contemporary troupe. “I am drawn to people who aren’t playing Simon Says,” says King, “but who really have given a lot of thought to the science of movement.”

Read more: Pointe magazine – Inside the audition for Lines Ballet