For Immediate Release Contact: Elizabeth Cooke Communications Manager [email protected] (212) 691-6500x210

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS presents the 2012 Gala November 13 at Robert at the Museum of Arts and Design

New York, NY, October 15, 2012 – New York Live Arts will host the 2012 New York Live Arts Gala on Tuesday, November 13th, 6pm at Robert, at the Museum of Arts and Design. The Gala celebrates the courage of our artists, audiences and supporters. Join us as we honor Steve & Ruth Hendel and James C. Hormel, three important Live Arts supporters who inspire us and exemplify courage in the face of adversity.

The evening will feature a special performance by Bill T. Jones, Executive Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and Artistic Director of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and dinner designed by David Waltuck, Executive Chef of Ark Restaurants. Funds raised through the Gala support the full range of Live Arts’ activities, advancing our mission to serve as an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry.

The Honorary Chair of the 2012 New York Live Arts Gala is acclaimed British-Indian novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie. Chairs of the Gala are Bill T. Jones & Bjorn Amelan, and Richard Levy & Lorraine Gallard. Cocktails begin at 6:00pm, with dinner following at 7:00pm.

Event information:

The 2012 New York Live Arts Gala

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Robert, at the Museum of Arts and Design 2 Columbus Circle New York, NY 10019

6:00pm Cocktails 7:00pm Dinner

To purchase tickets online, please visit our website.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

Host Committee

Benefactor Patron Joseph Azrack & Abigail Congdon Terence Dougherty Claire Danes & Hugh Dancy Muna El Fituri Helen & Peter Haje Eleanor Friedman Stephen & Ruth Hendel Richard Levy & Lorraine Gallard Robert & Suzanne Levine James Hormel & Michael Nguyen Dr. Michael Lomax Jane Bovingdon Semel & Terry Semel Cindy Sherman Judith Zarin Marilyn Sobel

ABOUT THE GALA HONOREES

Ruth Hendel is a theater producer who has been involved in a number of successful Broadway and Off-Broadway productions including American Idiot, Red, A View from the Bridge, In the Heights, Legally Blonde, Caroline or Change, Metamorphoses, FELA!, American Idiot, Driving Miss Daisy, Red, 33 Variations, A Raisin in the Sun, Golda’s Balcony, and The Exonerated. Her latest productions are Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and House of Blue Leaves. Ms. Hendel serves on the boards of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center (vice-chair), LAByrinth Theater Company, The Play Company, Zamir Chorale, and the Yale School of Drama Advisory Board. She is also a devoted member of the Advisory Board of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and a committed participant in JTS Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen’s Arts Roundtable. Ms. Hendel received a V.I.P. (Very Important Parent) Award from the Board of Jewish Education and was also honored with the School of Fine Arts Alumni Award by the University of Connecticut, where she received her undergraduate degree. She also holds an M.A. in Communications from Northwestern University.

Stephen Hendel is a founder and managing partner of Hess Energy Trading Company LLC. Previously, he was a partner at Goldman Sachs & Co., responsible for energy trading activities and segments of the company’s commodity trading division, and a corporate attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. For the last decade, with his wife Ruth Hendel, Mr. Hendel has been involved in On and Off Broadway theater. Mr. Hendel’s co- conceived production of FELA!, produced with Ms. Hendel and choreographed and directed by Bill T. Jones, opened on Broadway in November 2009 and in London in November 2010. Mr. Hendel sits on the boards of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, New York Live Arts, The New Group, Culture Project, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Afropop.org, and the Museum for African Art, and serves on various advisory committees at Yale University.

Previously, the Hendels were honored by Westchester/Fairfield County’s Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and the Westchester Jewish Center of Mamaroneck, New York, and received the Michael Mendelson Award for Commitment to Excellence in Theater from The New Group. They have three children, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren.

James C. Hormel is an alumnus of and the former Dean of Students at the Law School, as well as a former United States Ambassador to Luxembourg (June 1999 to December 2000). Hormel was the first openly LGBT U.S. Ambassador, and the process of his appointment was controversial. For more than 25 years, he has been instrumental in developing resources for organizations serving people affected by HIV and AIDS, substance abuse and breast cancer. In 1995 he received the Silver Spur Award for Civic Leadership from the Planning and Urban Research Association, and in 2001 he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the . Hormel recently published a memoir, Fit to Serve, that examines his public and private struggles around . Hormel has five children, fourteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren and resides in San Francisco with his life partner, Michael P. Nguyen.

ABOUT NEW YORK LIVE ARTS

New York Live Arts strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating. In addition to our deep commitment to individual artists at all stages of their careers, we strive to create rich, meaningful experiences for our audiences by engaging them in ways that are intimate and thought-provoking. With our audience, we seek to become a place for dance that is vital to the fabric of social and cultural life in New York, the United States and beyond.

Formed in February 2011 by a merger of Dance Theater Workshop and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, New York Live Arts is a re-imagining of the legacies of these two extraordinary organizations. New York Live Arts is located at 219 West 19th Street in New York City and is led by Bill T. Jones as Executive Artistic Director, Carla Peterson as Artistic Director and Jean Davidson as Executive Director and CEO.

Funding Support

Major support for New York Live Arts is provided by: Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Con Edison, The Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Japan Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Lambent Foundation, MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, MetLife Foundation, The New York Community Trust, The Shubert Foundation, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Scherman Foundation and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. New York Live Arts is supported by public funds administered by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

PRESS KITS AND DIGITAL IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

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