PS21 Dances Its Way To A Successful Fundraising Evening
The gala featured a special performance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
PS21 Executive and Artistic Director Elena Siyanko, artists Alex Melamid and Katya Arnold, Ilse Melamid, Bella Meyer, Valerie Goodman, and Douglas Hamilton, director of individual giving.
It was a celebrity-studded night, especially if you happen to be a dance aficionado. Guests at the PS21 Gala Evening on Friday, Aug. 6 included prominent dancers, choreographers, dance company directors and the Paul Taylor Dance Company dancers themselves. Supporters enjoyed a boxed supper in the fields, and then settled into the new state-of-the art Pavilion Theater for the highlight of the event — the performance of “The Green Table,” a reconstruction of choreographer Kurt Jooss’ politically charged masterpiece that premiered in 1932. The powerful and still relevant work was reconstructed and restaged for the company by Claudio Schellino and Jeanette Vondersaar, who had taken part in a pre-dinner discussion about the history and meaning of the work. Of course, none of this would have happened without the late Judy Grunberg, the visionary philanthropist who in 2006 founded the performing arts organization in an old apple orchard in Chatham, New York to bring world-class performances to Columbia County and the surrounding region.
Photo: Steve Taylor
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
