Lineage Performing Arts Gala
Pasadena is home to a performance venue and dance company with a mission like no other.
By Debra Penberthy
The Lineage Performing Arts Center is on Fair Oaks, just South of Green Street, and in this space some sublime and life-affirming artistic performances are created. The most recent performance that I attended there was a truly inspiring full staging of one of the musicals that put Jonathon Larson, the creator of Rent, on the map. It was a rock musical called Tick, Tick…Boom!, and it parallels Larson’s life struggling to hold onto his dream of writing music in his own style for the Broadway stage while living in squalid conditions in New York’s Hell’s kitchen. Thankfully for us, Larson held fast to his dreams and Rent became the soundtrack to so many lives.
Tick, Tick, Boom performers (R – L) Sarah Stallman and David Hemphill (Photo – Lineage Performing Arts).
Lineage itself was founded on a grand vision. In 1999, Pasadena’s Hilary Thomas formed the Lineage Dance Company based upon the idea that through dance a more just society could be promoted. The first project of this company was to host a benefit performance for Young and Healthy, which provides access to quality health care for underserved children and families. As the company continued to perform and to raise thousands of dollars for non-profit partners, the need for a company home and an affordable, mid-size performance space for dance and other performance arts became apparent. Thus, in 2010, Lineage Dance opened the Lineage Performing Arts Center (LPAC). This black-box theatre is now a hub for the Pasadena arts community and hosts not only music, dance, theater, and multi-media performances but also a wide range of dance classes, including Lineage’s Dance for Joy series—free classes for community members with Parkinson’s’, those who are recovering from strokes, and those who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Another memorable show that I saw at Lineage this year was The Brain in Motion: a Dancing Journey Throughout the Human Brain, in which a dancer with Parkinson’s shared the story of her life with this disease and how the Lineage dance classes had greatly enriched her life and broadened her community.
(Photo – Lineage Performing Arts).
The company is now outgrowing its current location and seeking to move to a space that will allow for simultaneous events, such as rehearsals and performances, a testament to the way that they’ve become a woven into the fabric of Pasadena and beyond. This Saturday, October 1, they are throwing a fundraising gala in partnership with Vijay Gupta, first violin with the LA Philharmonic and Artistic Director of Street Symphony, in a live performance with the Lineage Dancers.
On Sunday, October 16 at 7pm, they will be offering their show, which deals with women and breast cancer called Healing Blue. Click here for tickets.
I saw this show several years ago, and I can still feel the empathy that it stirred in me. We at ColoradoBoulevard.net wish Lineage all the best at their gala and in relocating to a space that is large enough for their dreams.
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