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Born in Georgia to Civil Rights activists, raised in California, and trained at the School of American Ballet, choreographer Alonzo King planted his company, LINES, in what may seem an unlikely place for ballet — San Francisco — in 1982. The city, he has said in conversation with the Kronos Quartet’s David Harrington, had a “unique feeling” to it. 37 years on, feeling — its emotional and kinetic weight — underlies King’s choreographic vision. Onstage, dancers push and comb space; elongations function like cantilevers, balancing meticulous partnered arrangements. Last at Duke Performances in 2010 with Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, LINES returns for a paired program at Reynolds Industries Theater. On the bill: the company’s 2018 world premiere Common Ground, a lively, winding work whose score combines several Kronos-commissioned pieces, as well as repertory classic Handel, a set of movement studies created for the Swedish Royal Ballet in 2005.

Contemporary ballet scholar Dr. Jill Nunes Jensen, who has chronicled the company for years, will give a pre-performance talk prior to the Saturday, November 16 performance. More information about the event here.