Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2007 > September > 07 > Entry
Ballet Fete at the Butler Center
What we’ve seen of Ballet Austin’s new downtown Butler Center makes a smooth first impression: Clean lines, open spaces, plenty of support facilities (pictured here with artistic director Stephen Mills). Of course, the big innovation, at least for a dance company outside New York City, is the relationship between the studios and the street, where passersby can watch classes and rehearsals. And, as you have read, the Austin Ventures studio theater includes a super-quiet, retractable seating section for daily viewings of dance on parade.
The Ballet Fete, always one of the top parties of the year (one observer called it the “Studio 54 of galas”), moved to the Butler Center this year, and, if a bit cramped and warm, it proved once again a magnet for the city’s big names and their striking outfits, from Cassandra Hold’s 19th-century-style gown (“It’s the closest I’ll get to being a ballerina.”) to John Thornton’s ideal white, satiny open-necked tuxedo shirt (we hear that he jetted up to Tom Ford’s place in NYC for a fitting).
We sat at Julie Thornton’s table with bon vivant Mayor Will Wynn, Democratic powerbroker Ben Barnes and his wife, Ballet Austin bellweather board member Melanie, Austin Ventures partner Blaine Wesner and his wife Alexa (like the Thornton’s, they look much too young for having survived such a stressful industry for almost two decades), and American-Statesman arts reporter Jeanne Claire van Ryzin (we caught up on all the things we never have time to discuss in the newsroom).
The mayor put the ballet’s educational activities into context, saying its 1,100 or more students far outnumber those at Johnston High School, where the marching band numbers little more than a dozen musicians. Breaks your heart. Seriously.
Pre-Raphaelite vision Anne Elizabeth Wynn with hunky boyfriend Mercy Santos
Julie Thornton, Ben Barnes and Alexa Wesner
Sisters and Dell employees Melissa Smith and Barbara Davis (also of the Ballet Guild)
Heather and Alex Ladage, she of the Austin Business Journal, he of Merrill Lynch. Can you tell from the jaw he served in the military?
BA’s marketing director Lance Johnson and Endeavor and the Domain’s Kirk Rudy
BA dancers Matthew Cotter, Rebecca Johnson and Christopher Swaim
Frances Thompson in an all-local outfit
Glamor — and fitness — personified Carla McDonald, who entertained Kip with stories about reading paradise in Nantucket
