Dale Stewart reports from Annandale-on-Hudson. The first signs of the season’s end came on Sunday, August 18 at the closing party for Bard’s SummerScape series housed in Spiegeltent, the rare authentic Belgian “mirror tent." The eight-week-long festival featured live jazz music, salsa, tango and swing dance, bawdy cabaret acts, and, of course, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, whose founders, Keith Nelson and Stephanie Monsue, are pictured at left. During the evening's festivities, the colorful house band, The Mayday Kingdom and its host Michael McQuilken (of Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra) performed a clever mix of 40’s swing and Michael Jackson covers. The erecting of the Spiegeltent is always a sign that summer has begun and its end a reminder that the season’s days are waning, but the celebrants partied as if it were still solstice time.
AraBella Fischer and Adina Verson; Cindy Hacunda with Deborah and David Temple and Jody Harvey.
Stephen Dean, David A. Nagy, Debra Pemstein, Bob Bursey, Raissa St. Pierre, Irene Zedlacher, David Steffen.
Dorothee Leifer, Sabine Hierlemann, and Eric Leifer; Kellie Cromin and Kelly Grace.
Vassar Assistant Professor Dara Greenwood and Coleen Connors; Tent staff Shannon Thomas and Jenny Ghetti.
Spiegeltent house band The Mayday Kindom.
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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
