Dancers in the Dark

At the premiere of “Slow Dancing” Thursday night at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, a video project that shows various dancers’ rapid movementsinslowmotionagainstthefaçade of the New York State Theater, the project still had surprises for its creator, photographer and filmmaker David Michalek.

“Oh my God, I love it,” Mr. Michalek said from the balcony of Avery Fisher Hall, an ideal vantage point for looking at the three giant video screens across the plaza that had lit up moments before, a culmination of months of painstaking work. “The one thing I saved for myself was seeing the triptych,” Mr. Michalek said.

Mr. Michalek’s wife, New York City Ballet principal dander Wendy Whelan, stood against the railing with other participating dancers, watching the project closely.

“You have a good butt,” Ms. Whelan said to dancer, choreographer, and painter Shen Wei as they both watched his turn.

“From a dancer’s point of view, I find it tortuous to watch, because every mistake is amplified,” a dancer and choreographer, Karole Armitage, said.

Others of the project’s dancers on hand were a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Holley Farmer, and a retired member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, Fang-yi Sheu, who has formed her own company, LAFA & Artists.

The video engineer who did the post-production, Manu Sawkar, was glad to see the project complete. He was responsible for stretching seconds of footage into sequences of 8 to 12 minutes. “I spent a lot of time with a lot of computers,” Mr. Sawkar said.

The director of the Lincoln Center Festival, Nigel Redden, had the president of the Alliance for the Arts, Randall Bourscheidt, in tow when he came up to the president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Reynold Levy.

“Isn’t this beautiful?” Mr. Redden said.

“These are spectacular. I am mesmerized,” Mr. Levy said.

The project is an example of the way Lincoln Center would like to use the outdoor spaces of this cultural mecca: “We’re exploring the potential of animating these spaces in every possible way,” Mr. Levy said.

‘Taste’ of Lincoln Center

With 40 restaurants serving small plates of their signature dishes, “Taste their of Summer,” Lincoln Center’s fundraising event, offered something for everyone Thursday.

Two stars from the Collegiate School’s track team who attended, Chris Williams, who’s attending Villanova in the fall, and Itse Begho, who is headed to Yale, loaded up on the pesto pasta at San Domenico’s station. Mr. Williams’s parents, Christopher and Janice Savin Williams, served as co-chairmen of the event along with Jennie and Richard DeScherer.

The author of the novel “Don’t Make a Scene,” Valerie Block, liked the crostini at Fig & Olive. Her husband, Alexis Romay, also a writer, took to the tuna sashimi ice cream cones served by Restaurant Associates, which caters the concessions at Lincoln Center. (The cones were less exotic than they sounded: tuna sashimi served in a cone-shaped tortilla wrap.)

When not stuffing themselves, guests chatted with the chefs under a tent in Damrosch Park. The chef and owner of Land, David Bank, described how he made the banana leaf cups in which he served spicy Thai mackerel salad. The chef and owner of Dani, Don Pintabona, took compliments on his plates of homemade ricotta cheese with white balsamic peaches, wildflower honey, and grated Marcona almonds.