It seemed that fairy dust was in the air
at Tuesday night’s gala fundraiser for the Brooklyn Academy of
Music, as well as on the Opera House stage in choreographer Philippe
Decoufle’s whimsical production, "Tricodex."
Overflowing with floating ballerinas, imaginative flora and fauna
and exhilarating world music, "Tricodex" proved to
be a triumphant, magical return to BAM for the Lyon Opera Ballet.
At the pre-show cocktail reception in the BAMcafe, gala chairman
Roberto Pesaro, chief operating officer of Giorgio Armani, passionately
gushed about the experience of supporting this season of dance
programs at BAM.
But partygoers and BAM President Karen Brooks Hopkins were just
as impressed by the Armani gift bags, each of which included
a small key. One of them unlocks a safe which holds a $10,000
Armani gift certificate, so there’s little doubt about whether
the revelers will be storming the Emporio Armani store on Madison
Avenue this weekend to find out if their key is the one to unlock
the lavish shopping spree.
Celebrities from all the arts came to Fort Greene Tuesday night
for the fundraiser, which raised $600,000 for BAM’s general operating
expenses. Among them were actress Glenn Close, artist Christo
and Jeanne-Claude, composer Philip Glass, musician Lou Reed,
performance artist Laurie Anderson, actress Kitty Carlisle Hart
and Brooklyn Museum head Arnold Lehman, among others.
Close, who told GO Brooklyn that she is a great friend of Giorgio
Armani and has had "a very lucky relationship with him for
many years now," came to BAM at his invitation. The visit
to Brooklyn brought back memories for Close, an Oscar-nominated
actress ("Fatal Attraction," "Dangerous Liaisons")
and Broadway star ("Sunset Boulevard").
"I actually performed a play at BAM years ago, called ’The
Crazy Locomotive,’" recalled Close. "I came to BAM
before the whole thing is as fabulous as it is now."
In BAM’s current production "Tricodex" the company’s
classically trained dancers moved about gracefully despite having
either large fins, blocks of wood or enormous discs attached
to their feet. Two dancers struggled in what appeared to be large,
air-filled pastry bags. Ballerinas-turned-acrobats cavorted from
bungee cords and moved about while attached to curved bases that
transformed them into wobbling human Weebles.
Costumes by Philippe Guillotel morphed some dancers into insect-like
creatures, with undulating appendages, and others into caveman
straight out of a Natural History Museum diorama.
The third in a trilogy of works inspired by Italian artist Luigi
Serafini’s "Codex Seraphinianus," a fanciful encyclopedia
published in 1981, Decoufle’s "Tricodex" has costumes
as fantastic as those in Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatic virtuosity
of "De la Guarda," and as Lyon Opera Ballet artistic
director Yorgos Loukos told Time Out New York this week, the
mechanical devices incorporated into the production are reminiscent
of "Jules Verne beginning-of-the-century technology."
Think "The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci" meets the
illustrations of Dr. Seuss.
And then there was an utterly unexpected homoerotic beauty-pageant-of-sorts
with preening, posing men on pedestals.
At the $600-a-ticket post-show dinner, catering company Great
Performances transformed the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux Arts court
with a riot of fresh spring flowers, that dangled from centerpieces,
and tangerine-colored linens that infused the room with a warm
glow. While the gala dinner was originally slated to take place
at Manhattan’s Spirit New York it was later moved to the Brooklyn
Museum just in time for gala patrons to see the museum’s recently
unveiled front entrance.
The last performance by Lyon Opera Ballet of Philippe Decoufle’s
"Tricodex" will be April 24 at 7:30 pm at the BAM Howard
Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland Place in Fort
Greene). Tickets are $25 and $50. For more information, call
(718) 636-4100 or visit www.bam.org.
