Toe Tapping at the Astaire Awards

My fabulous makeup artist friend Michiko (www.michikoboorberg.com) hooked me up big time with a ticket to the Fred Astaire Awards at FIT this week. She was hired to do makeup backstage and ended up doing makeup for Alan Cumming who was hosting and wanted a smokey eye and Liza Minelli (who just wanted a little rogue darling!) The two gentlemen to my left were very friendly and gave me their extra ticket so that I could get into the VIP Party. Wow talk about attracting wonderful experiences into my life. I was a dancer when I was younger and loved the opening tap number ‘Luck be a Lady’ perfromed by Art of Dance. Just when you thought the stage was crammed full of adorable dancers tapping, more dancers came out younger, smaller, and cuter. As the number went on I fell in love with every single tiny dancer. My young seat mate thought they were pretty hot too-getting a jump on robbing the cradle. Overall as award shows go it was pretty entertaining. There were a fair number of bold faced names introducing other bold faced names. Alan Cumming introduced Marisa Berenson who spoke about awardee Stanley Donen and introduced Liza Minelli who awarded (off script) Stanley Donen. The production level was sporatic and audio problems plagued the entire show. One of the best moments was when Fred Astaire’s daughter (no spring chicken) asked the audience “you hear that too?” referring to the echo voice as a result of a audio snafu. Alan Cumming was witty and funny, seeing Stockard Channing was a highlight, and the dancing of Martha Plimpton as sexy seductrice pretty stellar. I thought the quality of the people involved was really high but the event would do better in a more sophistocated venue next year. My girlfriend and jeweler to the stars Donna Distefano designed the handmade awards which sadly I didn’t get to see because of a projection snafu. Wearing a black form fitting cocktail dress and on the host committee was Countess Luann Lesseps (whose countess title was omited from the program-I wonder why?) Strangly even though she is on tv, a lot of people didn’t know who she was. I was more excited by Geoffrey Rush but left him be. The VIP with the ambiance of a school gym was interesting as I found myself hit on my men too young and tap dancing older married ones. The nibbles weren’t bad and crowd seemed refreshingly sophistocated after fire island. I was left thinking though that none of the winners have come close to the impact that Fred Astaire had an american cinema. I can only dream that dance will rise again.
more review info http://blogwaybaby.com/archive/2009/05/the-astaire-awards.html