A Report from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Downtown Dinner

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's "Downtown Dinner"on Monday night on the 45th floor of 7 World Trade Center was an electrifying affair accentuated by eye-level lightning and a strikingly eccentric crowd. For $1,000 bucks a head, guests could eat to your hearts content amidst a crowd of art world megastars such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Frank Stella, Vito Schnabel, acting chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, Patrice Walker Powell, PS1 power duo Alana Heiss and Klaus Biesenbach and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The real treat, though, was a performance of a new piece by artist Rashaad Newsome entitled "Shade Compositions," which featured over 20 pissed-off-seeming African American women performing a choreographed vocal symphony of "ghetto” phrases, all while wearing the stunning creations of Kai Kuhne.

Photos by Paul Porter