Movers & Shakers Converge at Pillow

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The New York Sun

There’s a lot of talk about collaboration in the Berkshires, but so far this year, only one summer-season gala has brought together so many of the region’s heavy hitters: the season-opening fund-raiser for Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Add the choreographers, dancers, and teachers assembled (Sandra Burton, Garth Fagan, Bill T. Jones, Anna-Marie Holmes), and there was a preponderance of talent, delighting in a thoroughly charming place — the festival’s campus in Becket, Mass., where exhibits are in a converted barn, administrators work in a converted farmhouse, and dancers can choose to perform on an outdoor stage in the woods.

Governor Patrick of Massachussets was there. So were the director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Michael Conforti; the director of MASS MoCA, Joseph Thompson; the director of the Berkshire International Film Festival, Kelley Vickery, and, of course, the executive director of Jacob’s Pillow, Ella Baff.

Gordon Travers, the chairman of Edith Wharton’s estate and gardens, the Mount, was looking dapper as usual despite carrying a burden: The Mount needs to raise $3 million before October to avoid foreclosure. A reduced staff is making efforts to draw in visitors by adding early-evening drink service on the home’s stately porch. If only Brooke Astor were still alive (she once had a house here, and it is easy to imagine her grasping the importance of preserving a Gilded Age landmark). The Mount’s experience isn’t unfamiliar to Berkshires veterans; board members have bailed out the Pillow a few times, although it has been financially stable for more than five years, and has even accumulated a modest endowment.

Sitting together during dinner were business partners and venture capitalists Matthew Harris and Bo Peabody, and their pregnant wives (Jessica Harris is due in July, Katherine Kollath in August). It’s a good sign to see affluent, under-40 couples at any gala, but especially in the Berkshires; and these couples already have a deep interest in the region’s cultural institutions. Mr. Harris, 35, is chairman of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, which tonight gathers its major donors for a dinner and performance of the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick musical “She Loves Me.”

Two men who together capture, on paper, the creativity, energy, and style of the region were on the scene: the founder and publisher of Berkshire Living LLC, Michael Zivyak, and its editor in chief, Seth Rogovoy. The company, for which I have written, has just released its first guide to the contemporary art galleries in the region, a joint venture with Berkshire Creative Economy Council and Berkshire Visitors Bureau.

Also in the press klatch was journalist Dan Shaw, who with fellow journalist Marilyn Bethany has launched an online lifestyle chronicle of the region, Rural Intelligence.

Tonight, James Taylor brings the first big crowds of the season in to Tanglewood, the heaviest hitting institution in the region. But the Tanglewood season doesn’t officially open until Saturday night, when maestro James Levine conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Berlioz opera “The Trojans.” A gala will take place before the concert, with décor including a Trojan horse. Who knows which surprise guests will be hidden inside (last year, Mr. Taylor brought along his friend John Travolta), but one thing is sure: The scale of the event alone will make it just a bit more difficult to pick out the local luminaries.

agordon@nysun.com


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