More New York coverage

[June 8th editor's note: A.L. Gordon is most certainly a woman (my apologies, A.L.), and a commenter also provides a link to a previous Gordon column about the festival. It includes this very to-the-point observation: "The Spoleto party scene tells a larger story about a new group of social movers and shakers who are transforming Charleston into the New York of the South, as it was known before the Civil War. The New Guard is made up of couples in their 30s and 40s with young children who attend the city’s most prestigious private schools together — about half the first-grade class at Charleston Day School was born outside Charleston."]  

(June 7, 4 p.m. editor's note: An anonymous commenter says A.L. Gordon may be a woman. I don't have a clue, and couldn't find out from surfing the Sun's website before I made the first post. Latent sexism? Perhaps. But I'm updating the post to reflect this tip. -- dc)

Here's A.L. Gordon's Sunday "Out and About" column from The New York Sun, written about his her Spoleto adventures in Charleston. Gordon got invited to a party at Neil Stevenson's place, which must have made him her feel right at home.

Be sure to scroll down to the photos at the bottom. There's a prominent local newspaper publisher in there...

By the way, I found this via the opera blog "An Unamplified Voice"...

The column:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Yesterday’s column ended by describing how Charleston’s New Guard has brought new money and energy to the city’s cultural and philanthropic life.With an appetite for high culture and a strong belief in supporting the arts, members of the New Guard have become important patrons of the Spoleto Festival.

    There’s another youth story going on in this city, which I discovered by veering off the Spoleto circuit for a late-night magazine launch party — not to imply that the affluent married-with-kids set is isolated from the city’s exploding youth culture. It was the New Guard’s most social animal, the artist John Dunnan, who told me about the bash.

    When I arrived at the loft of the architect Neil Stevenson,I learned that it’s the spot for some of Charleston’s wildest parties. And as I walked through, it was clear why.

    In the main room, a large screen projected blue films from the 1950s while deejays spun 1980s remixes. Everyone was tan. Some looked as if they’d come straight from the beach, while others had come from fancy Spoleto parties.

    And others weren’t dressed at all. A few women posed as strip-club dancers and wore exotic feather headdresses designed by Leigh Magar. One of them had her body painted by artist Kevin Taylor, who turned her into part elephant, part wolf. As it was a perfect summer-like night, the most popular spot at the party was the roof. From there I looked out on the church spires in the distance and the odd assortment of guests, many of whom piled into outdoor beds that the party organizers built earlier in the day. More than 500 people passed through. The party celebrated the new, glossy lifestyle magazine Domain, described on the invitation as hip, imaginative, cultured, sexy, and provocative. It has an edgy design created by its art director, Nic Laurentano,a School of Visual Arts graduate who moved to Charleston from New York for the job.The target demographic is acquisitive 21–45-year-olds. Domain’s editor is Olivia Pool, 27, who moved here six years ago, after studying French and English at Randolph-Macon College and the Sorbonne. She hopes the magazine will help put Charleston on the map as a hip place, not just a place to admire historic architecture and sweet-grass baskets. “It’s really alive with young people who are very artistic and really have some high aspirations for doing some incredible things,” Ms. Pool said. Some of those people are profiled in the magazine, such as creator of the urban clothing line Spinster, Adrienne Antonson, and a computer engineer, Jon Blossom, who designs educational toys and games. Domain looks and reads like a New York magazine — with one notable exception: the article on young professionals of modest means buying up real estate in the area. While real estate may be more attainable here, finding a solid income can be difficult. “It’s really hard to find a job that pays well,” Ms. Pool said. But she says that’s changing. “There are some big companies coming here and creating jobs,” she said. Quality of life seems to be the chief motivator for young people moving here. People at the party said they like the lack of traffic, the great weather, and access to the beach. “And it’s very social. If you like to party it’s definitely the place to be,” Ms. Pool said. Sounds better than the Hamptons any day.

***

After that foray it was back to Spoleto. The performances are enriching and the parties are fun, but most patrons agree that the best part of the festival experience is meeting the artists. They linger after performances and sit down to eat next to you. I had three such serendipitous encounters. The first was with the sole female performer in Savion Glover’s tap show “Improvography,” Ashley DeForest. What is it like to be the one woman in the show? “It’s great,” Ms. DeForest, 21, said. “My fellow dancers are total gentlemen.” Growing up with two older brothers also helped her situation. During the show, Ms. DeForest had the broadest smile and the most traditional shuffle — quite a feat since she was the only one of the performers in body-hugging jeans (the others wore a looser, more urban style). Ms. DeForest, who lives in New York, has studied tap since she was 2. Another encounter occurred on the side of the Dock Street Theatre, near the home of transplanted New Yorkers Michael and Janice Doniger. It was Margaret Lancaster — a highly regarded flutist and actor who plays the maid in “Mabou Mines Dollhouse” — standing on the sidewalk warming up. Because she was in costume and beside a peeling wall, the photograph I took looks like it’s from another century, or, as I often feel walking around Charleston, some sort of Disney-like land. I and a few others jumped up on stage to photograph Renaud Garcia-Fons,a French bassist with Spanish roots. His concert was a treat, and so was the setting: outdoors under a canopy of oaks on the charming College of Charleston campus.

***

And how is the festival faring financially? The Spoleto Festival USA needs to raise $138,188 to have a balanced budget for 2005. The festival’s annual budget is $7.2 million. The Spoleto board met Monday.Among the topics discussed were lowering ticket-sales projections after a slow opening weekend. The chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia, attended the board meeting as a guest.

***

The big newspaper in town, the Post and Courier, splashes Spoleto on its front page every day during the festival. In addition to the newspaper’s regular critics in dance, opera, and theater, the newspaper has added a new columnist to provide a daily overview: Blair Tindall, who lives in Manhattan but has roots in the area. After her Spoleto assignment, Ms. Tindall returns home to launch her first book, “Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music” (Grove/Atlantic Press).

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