Out & About
An Evening of Pillow Talk
Patrons' elbows brushed evergreens and barn walls, dancers' feet sprang high, and their legs flew even higher. The party celebrating the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival's 75th anniversary stretched both muscles and the imagination.
"The Pillow is a beacon and epicenter in the cultural world," the executive director of the festival, Ella Baff, said. "I often say, ‘intimate thing, big resonance.' "
The event did feel intimate, starting with a charming greeting from the Becket, Mass., festival's chairman, Neil Chrisman. Gala committee members never let any of the 611 guests stand alone for long. A sense of openness prevailed.
The performers put themselves out there. Dutch choreographer Nanine Linning wore not very much for her performance, which included pouring champagne while suspended from a chandelier. Actor-dancer Bill Irwin did a tap dance, then disappeared into a trunk on stage of the Ted Shawn Theater. Oddly, Governor Patrick of Massachusetts, who read a proclamation in honoring the Pillow's 75th anniversary, received the most applause.
The most ethereal creature of the evening was an MGM dance star of the 1940s and 1950s, Marge Champion, who as a teen served as a model for Disney's Snow White.
The fashionistas of the evening were the choreographer of Big Dance Theater, Annie-B Parson, who accepted the festival's first creativity award in a Diane von Furstenberg dress from a Brooklyn Heights boutique, Tango; Pamela Fink, in a gold tunic by Tory Burch, available at her family's Great Barrington boutique, Gatsby's, and the co-chairwomen of the gala's Diamond Committee, Adrienne Vittadini and Candace Beinecke, who dressed just like the glamorous New York art patrons they are.
The crowd included some refugees from the Hamptons who wished to remain anonymous; the hosts of a National Public Radio show, "From Scratch," Jessica and Matt Harris, and the general manager of the Tony-award winning show "Spring Awakening," Abbie Strassler.
The chairwoman of New York City Opera, Susan Baker, fresh from her coup — hiring Belgian impresario Gérard Mortier as the company's new general manager and artistic director — proved she's still on a winning streak: the key she purchased at the live auction opened a box that contained a handcrafted Flora pendant from the jeweler McTeigue & McClelland, valued at $8,500.
The Pillow is on its own winning streak: It has raised $6.1 million for its first endowment, and this season is bursting with talent, including Nederlands Dans Theater II (July 4-8) and Paul Taylor Dance Company (July 18-22).
