Out & About

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The New York Sun

The ballet stars of tomorrow danced beautifully at the School of American Ballet’s workshop performance Monday night, attended by the school’s most devoted patrons including Alexandra Lebenthal, Elizabeth Farran Tozer, and Ulla Parker. The event raised more than $550,000 for the school, which is in a phase of expansion and is building new studios this summer.

The evening began in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater with “Scenes de Ballet,” a frenzied ensemble piece that traced the evolution of a dancer by employing the youngest students at the school, ages 10-13, as well as the eldest, ages 16-19. The next piece, “Square Dance,” was quieter and put the spotlight on David Prottas, 18, and Brittany Pollack, 17. Mr. Prottas and three other students, Kathryn Morgan, Tabitha Rinko-Gay, and Anthony Huxley, received the Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise from the chairman of the faculty, Peter Martins. The finale was “Bourree Fantasque,” which showed off the comic skills of 19-year-old Masahiro Suehara, who was a tad bit shorter than his partner, Ms. Rinko-Gay. And what fun they had in the costumes borrowed from American Ballet Theatre.

The setting for dinner was the school’s studios, with the mirrors and bars helping everyone feel graceful as they headed to their tables. Meanwhile, the dancers showered and changed and headed to a studio of their own, where they danced without their ballet shoes and ate oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies. The most lighthearted adults stopped in there after dinner to join in the fun.

agordon@nysun.com


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