Party Pictures 10/14/05 - Americans for The Arts National Arts Awards; The Hispanic Society of America's annual Gala; Caramoor's benefit evening with Leonard Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti."

Go in to your dance ...

Clockwise from top left: Mikhail Baryshnikov and Victoria Rowell at the Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards; Tina Fanjul and Jesus de Polanco at the Hispanic Society of America's annual Gala; The cast of Trouble in Tahiti at Caramoor's benefit evening featuring Leonard Bernstein's "Trouble in Tahiti."

The Arts to the rescue during these troubled times. Rainy days, rainy nights in New York, guests ducked into cavernous and stately Cipriani 42nd Street, lightly misted as if just coming from the moors (in black tie, in this case) for the Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards last Tuesday night. Americans for the Arts advocates for and celebrates the arts in all of its forms all across the country and the evening’s honorees celebrated the organization right back!! As the very charming chair of the evening, Maria Bell noted, “where would we be as a nation, without inspiration ... without the arts ... because of Americans for the Arts and the people who support the organization, we’ll never need to know.”

Kerry Washington

Americans for the Arts is the largest advocacy group for the arts in America and strives to create an environment in which the arts will become a regular part of family life, school life, and community life for all Americans. www.americansforthearts.org.

Tuesday night they honored Mikhail Baryshnikov with the Kitty Carlisle Hart Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts; John Baldessari, Lifetime Achievement Award; Eli Broad with the Frederick R. Weisman Award for Philanthropy in the Arts; Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau of American Ballroom Theater with the Arts Education Award; Target Corporation with the Corporate Citizenship in the Arts; and Kerry Washington received the Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence. The group created a sparkling, powerful and hopeful collage of all that we look forward to in the arts - and all that has inspired us.

The evening saw a brilliant list of arts-related guests including Co-Chairs Jeff and Justine Koons, film director Doug Liman; President and CEO Americans for the Arts Robert Lynch, Dancer/Choreographer Tommy Tune, Author and Actor Michael York and his photographer wife Pat, Director of Collections Tate Galleries London Jan Debaut, Choreographer Trisha Brown, Director of MoMA Glenn D. Lowry; Larry Gagosian, Alec Baldwin, Actress Victoria Rowell, David and Danielle Ganek, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Aimee and Robert Lehrman, Leo Villareal and Yvonne Force Villareal, Shelton Stanfill, Steven D. Spiess. Board Chair Jeffrey Deitch, Peter Findlay, Harry and Linda Macklowe, Richard Oldenburg, Kenny Scharf, Tony Shifrazi, Adam Lindeman, and Amalia Dayan.

Steven Spiess, Michael York, Pat York, and Robert Lynch

Leo Villareal and Yvonne Force Villareal

L. to r.: Laysha Ward; Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kerry Washington, Maria Bell, and Robert Lynch.

Maria Bell and Alec Baldwin

Jeff and Justine Koons

Eli and Edye Broad

John Baldessari and Jeff Koons

Kitty Carlisle Hart and Mikhail Baryshnikov

Michael and Pat York

Doug Liman and Kerry Washington

Trisha Brown and John Baldessari

Tommy Tune, Yvonne Marceau, and Pierre Dulaine

Linda Silverman and Milton Dresner

Yvonne Force Villareal and Dr. Lisa Airan

Tony Shafrazi

Robert Lynch and Dianne Brace

Victoria Rowell

Meanwhile the Thursday before, October 6th, the Hispanic Society of America held its annual Gala at the Rainbow Room and honored Mexican philanthropists Claudia and Roberto Hernandez, along with media titan Jesus de Polanco with the Hispanic Society of American Sorolla Award, for their exceptional dedication to the preservation of Hispanic culture and art, worldwide.

Claudia and Roberto Hernandez

More then three hundred distinguished guests from Spain and the Americas attended the black tie dinner dance to celebrate the Society’s long history, enduring excellence and ambitious plans for the future.

The Hispanic Society was founded in 1904 by Archer Huntington to promote the rich arts and culture of Spain and its influence throughout the world. The Society’s museum and library collections remains to many New Yorkers one of the secret treasure troves of this great city with museum and library collections of more than a half million works, unparalleled in scope and quality.

The 2005 Gala chairs were Sarah and George Baker, Cristina and Fernando d’Ornellas, Francisco Lorenzo, and Calvert and George Braniff Moore. Funds raised will help the HSA to conserve and exhbit its holdings and realize its plans to relocate the Society to a new and more accessible site so that the world who’ve not visited can see what they’ve been missing.

Inmaculada de Habsburgo and Daniel P. Henninger

Martha Bograd and Dayton Carr

Peggy and Alberto Mejia

Susan and Coleman Burke

Chairman of the HSA George Moore

Patty and Gustavo Cisneros

HSA Dir. Mitch Codding and Claudia Hernandez

Lorenzo Zambrano among friends

Peggy Mejia and Desmond Fitzgerald

Teresa and Clark Winter

Tina Fanjul with Honoree Jesus de Polanco

Yolanda Garza with friends

Susan and Philip Warner

Claudia and Roberto Hernandez

Jennifer Thung and George Soros

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And then, on the following Saturday, last Saturday, cara mia, at Caramoor they presented Leonard Bernstein’s one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti with Michael Barrett conducting a young casting including the participants from Caramoor’s Bel Canto Soloist program.

The Music Room

Dinner is served

Honorary chair for the evening was Mr. Bernstein’s great friend Lauren Bacall. Co-chairs were Jay Langner and Eileen Caulfield Schwab. Cocktails and dinner preceded the concert.