On Tuesday night, as a blistering heat wave swept across New York City, Chanel fashioned an elegant evening at Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi in Lincoln Center, where artists across disciplines gathered to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the BAAND Together Dance Festival. As part of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City programming, the festival fosters a rare collaboration between five esteemed dance companies—Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem—bringing them all together, with pay-as-you-wish ticketing, on one stage for five nights.
“Each company speaks a different language,” Misty Copeland, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer, tells Vanity Fair. “To see them come together and represent their language and their community so beautifully—but yet we’re all speaking the same language of dance—this is what dance should be doing. It’s unifying. It should bring communities together. It doesn’t matter what genre of dance. I get emotional every time I see one of the BAAND Festival shows.”
From Copeland to Thelma Golden (director of the Studio Museum in Harlem), photographer Tyler Mitchell, Antwaun Sargent (director at Gagosian), Sade Lythcott (CEO of the National Black Theatre), and Barbara Pierce Bush (now NBA’s vice president of social impact), guests found respite from the heat while sipping on spicy margaritas, chilled rosé, and vibrant floral Jell-O shots before packing the sold-out David H. Koch Theater on the festival’s opening night.
Back in 2021, as the world began to slowly open back up after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the BAAND Together Dance Festival originated in partnership with Chanel, who has a long-standing patronage in the dance world, as a seed of hope for the dance community and an opportunity for New Yorkers to gather once again. The aim was not only to celebrate the arts during a time of uncertainty, but to offer dance as something both accessible and healing.
“It was about the audience, and it was also about the dancers—about the future of dance and really believing that we were stronger together,” says Shanta Thake, chief artistic officer of Lincoln Center.
“The fact that these companies can be humble enough to share the stage with one another, and you can see it in the dancers watching from the wings; you can see it in the artistic directors talking to one another. It’s just this feeling of unending possibility and growth,” says Thake.
Throughout the evening, each company brought a distinct point of view to the stage, from traditional, moving ballet duets to thrilling, boundary-pushing group numbers, all unified by their shared celebration of collaboration. Looking out onto the crowd, the joy was palpable as it spread through the room and spilled out onto the steps of Lincoln Center, currently adorned with a massive disco ball, because that night, there was truly something for everyone at the theater.
“It means the world to me because I fought my whole career to get a diverse audience in the Metropolitan Opera House when I’m performing,” says Copeland. “To see Lincoln Center really hold on to that messaging, even if I’m not on the stage, that’s something that really remains a priority.”
This year, the festival is expanding their reach beyond the theater to offer dance workshops, curated by each company, to all ages and abilities, bringing the joy of dancing together off the stage and onto the streets of New York City.
“This is what it’s all for. This is the best part of it,” says Copeland. “Because they’re really following through with what it is they’re trying to do. It’s not just getting people who can afford it in the theater, but reaching out to the next generation, giving them access and opportunity.”
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The post Misty Copeland, Tyler Mitchell, Antwaun Sargent, and More Celebrate the Power of Dance and Community appeared first on Vanity Fair.
