The Chicest Young Balletomanes Gathered for a Dinner in Celebration of the American Ballet Theatre

In 1939, the American Ballet Theatre was cofounded by Lucia Chase. She was a dancer who trained under Mikhail Mordkin, a Bolshoi Ballet-veteran who was partnered with Anna Pavlova—the prima ballerina famous for her soul-stirring performance as the dying swan but also the sweet meringue dessert she inspired. After the loss of her husband in 1933, Chase spent the rest of her life as a champion of the ballet, cofounding the American Ballet Theatre and almost single-handedly financing it.

“She was a force!” said Sarah Hoover to her dinner guests on Tuesday night, waxing poetic about Chase, her can-do attitude, and her enormous impact on the art form at large. The occasion was the 80th anniversary of the ABT, which was celebrated with a multipart itinerary. Across town, various dinners would be hosted and attended by ballet fans and ABT dancers before everyone ended up at the Blavatnik Upper East Side townhouse for a champagne toast. Hoover’s dinner, which was set at the lovely home of CeCe Thompson and was cohosted by Indre Rockefeller and Chai Vasarhelyi, represented a small subsect of ABT supporters; those four women are the founding members of the ABT Accelerator program or the company’s “baby board,” as Hoover jokingly puts it.

In attendance was a group of women with the same entrepreneurial spirit of Chase—there was Alexandra O’Neill (designer of Markarian), her sister Krissy O’Neill (responsible for the dinner’s enchanting table settings), Adair Ilyinsky (of Tenoverten), and ABT soloist dancer Zhong-Jing Fang.

Over a dinner of caviar-topped pasta and braised beef, the ladies chatted—mostly about ballet. Nearly everyone in the room, from Hoover to Thompson to Rockefeller, had at one point in their lives spent time in pointe shoes. But now, they’re proud audience members and young patrons. Fang, who is gearing up for Giselle at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, took the opportunity to speak of her own history with the ABT, a company she calls her family. She told her life story—which sounded a lot like the plot of a Hollywood, how-I-made-it flick—and moved everyone in the room. “I came to New York from Shanghai when I was 17 and I spoke no English. I’ve been at ABT for 18 years,” she explained, “it’s my home.” Her words would inspire a round of cheers and a Happy Birthday to ABT! Here’s to another 80!