"Beautiful things are naturally attracted to each other.
It's only natural that beautiful people flock to this
beautiful house and hostess," said Youth America Grand
Prix's Sergei Gordeev as he thanked jewelry designer Laura Lobdell and
her husband, who graciously opened their TriBeCa duplex to
the Mariinsky Ballet company and nearly 80 guests including Larissa
Saveliev, founder and artistic director of YAGP, last
Friday evening. The hostess, noted for her
champagne-inspired gold and silver jewelry, lived up to her
reputation with cases of bubbly on hand as well as
mini-knishes from Lower East Side baker Yonah Schimmel. “For
the past 20 years Youth American Grand Prix," Gordeev
continued, "has made it it's business to travel the world,
find the most talented young people we could possibly find
all over the planet and make it, help them get to the
companies like the Mariinsky and mare than 30 other
companies around the world where Youth America Grand Prix
dancers are dancing at the world's largest scholarship
audition."
Guests
included all eight of the Mariinsky dancers visiting from St.
Petersburg including the recently knighted Xander Parish, OBE and
the director of the Mariinsky Ballet, Yuri Fateev, the
evening's guest of honor. Also there were ABT dancers Skylar
Brandt, Patrick Frenette, Connor Holloway, Calvin Royal III, Hee
Seo, Gabe Stone Shayer, and Christine Shevchenko, as
well as ballet lovers Maria-Cristina Anzola, Delin Bru, Marie
de Foucaud and Renaud de Tilly, Peter Hay Halpert, Krystn
Hammond, Kristina Allegra Kingston, Michèle Gerber Klein, Susan
Leslie, Helen Marx, Roxanne Motamedi, Wendy Perron, Cole
Rumbough and Emily Mohr, Irene Shen, Benny Tabatabai, and Adrienne
and Gianluigi Vittadini, plus devoted YAGP board members Suzanne
Dance, Judith M. Hoffman, and Richard Osterweil.
Youth America Grand Prix is
the largest global network of dance with more than 10,000 young
dancers – ages 9 to 19 – auditioning
annually. 450 Youth America Grand Prix alumni
are now dancing with 80 professional companies around the world.
100 of these alumni are soloists and principal dancers. YAGP fulfills
its mission through scholarship auditions, master classes,
alumni services, performances, educational and outreach
activities. On April 16, 2020, YAGP will host its annual Gala at
Lincoln Center. For more information see https://yagp.org |