The Downtown Dinner 2022
May 18, 2022
Cipriani
25 Broadway
New York, NY 10004
Honoring
Liberty Award for Artistic Leadership
Pam Tanowitz
LMCC Alumni Awards
2022 Sam Miller Award for Performing Arts
Harlem Chamber Players
2022 Michael Richards Award for Visual Arts
Ezra Wube
2022 Sarah Verdone Writing Award
Chia-Lun Chang
Special Guest Performance
Bill Frisell
Special Guest Emcee
Morgan Bassichis
Since 2002, The Downtown Dinner has played an essential role in raising funds to support our mission, and has become a highlight of the spring season in Lower Manhattan. Every year, The Downtown Dinner gathers over 500 of the City’s most important business, civic and cultural leaders to celebrate the role that artists play in building a vibrant and resilient Downtown.
Please contact our Benefit Manager, Kerri Gawryn at kerri@lmcc.net or Development Assistant, Ian Wright at iwright@lmcc.net with any questions.
Our Honorees
Pam Tanowitz, the New York-based choreographer and collaborator has steadily delineated her own dance language through decades of research and creation. Her combination of intentional unpredictability, whimsical complexity and natural drama evoke master dance makers from Cunningham to Balanchine through the clever weaving of movement, music and space. In 2000, she founded Pam Tanowitz Dance to explore dance-making with a consistent community of dancers. She has since been commissioned by leading arts institutions, and has received numerous honors and fellowships. ”Her dances have been called a “rare achievement” (New York Times) and her 2018 work, Four Quartets, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s literary masterpiece, was called “the greatest creation of dance theater so far this century” (New York Times). Tanowitz is a visiting guest artist at Rutgers University and is the first-ever choreographer in residence at the Fisher Center at Bard.
Ezra Wube (b. Ethiopia) is a mixed media artist based in Brooklyn, NY. His work references the notion of past and present, the constant changing of place, and the dialogical tensions between "here" and "there". His exhibitions include the 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Brazil; The 2nd edition of the Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans, France; “Gwangju Biennale”, Gwangju, South Korea; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, Art in General, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; “Dak’Art Biennale”, Dakar, Senegal and Time Square Arts Midnight Moment, NY. His residencies, commissions, and awards include Smack Mellon Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; WorkSpace, LMCC Residency Program, New York, NY; Open Sessions Program, The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Little Sun, Berlin, Germany; The Africa Center, NY; The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NY; Museum of the Moving Images, Queens, NY; The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach, Fl; the Triangle Arts Association Residency, Brooklyn, NY and The Substation Artist Residency Program, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; and Rema Hort Mann Foundation.
Chia-Lun Chang is the author of Prescribee (forthcoming, 2022), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and a chapbook, One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear, 2016). She has been awarded fellowships from Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Vermont Studio Center, Tofte Lake Center, Poets House, among others. Her writing has appeared in Poetry Society of America, PEN America, Literary Hub, Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Poets, Apogee Journal, and widely elsewhere. She has performed at MoMA PS1, Poetry Foundation, Queens Museum, and more. Chia-Lun teaches contemporary Taiwanese poetry and fiction at the Brooklyn Public Library and works as a content strategist. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, she lives in New York City. To learn more about her, please visit Nightboat Books and her website.
Image credit: Haoyan of America
The Harlem Chamber Players is an ethnically diverse collective of professional musicians dedicated to bringing high caliber, affordable, accessible live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond. Founded in 2008, The Harlem Chamber Players annually presents a rich season of formal live concerts, indoors, outdoors, and online. They also promote arts inclusion and equal access to the arts, bringing live music to underserved communities and promoting shared community arts and cultural engagement. The group was first inspired by the late Janet Wolfe, a long-time patron of minority musicians and founder of the NYC Housing Authority Symphony Orchestra. The Harlem Chamber Players have presented culturally relevant programs at numerous venues throughout the city and collaborated with many other arts organizations. The Harlem Chamber Players are also artists-in-residence at the Harlem School for the Arts.
They have been featured on national radio at WQXR/WNYC at The Greene Space. The Harlem Chamber Players have also been mentioned in articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Musical America, and on NPR, NBC, and Here and Now on ABC.
To learn more about Harlem Chamber Players, please visit their website.
Special Guest Performance
Bill Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as “the best recorded output of the decade”. Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012. He is also a recipient of grants from United States Artists, Meet the Composer among others. In 2016, he was a beneficiary of the first FreshGrass Composition commission to preserve and support innovative grassroots music. Upon San Francisco Jazz opening their doors in 2013, he served as one of their Resident Artistic Directors. Bill is also the subject of a documentary film by director Emma Franz, entitled Bill Frisell: A Portrait, which examines his creative process in depth. He has received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music.
Special Guest Emcee
Morgan Bassichis is a comedic performer who has been called “fiercely hilarious” by The New Yorker and “a tall child or, well, a big bird” by The Nation. Morgan was an LMCC process space resident in 2015. Their recent shows include Questions to Ask Beforehand (Bridget Donahue, 2022) and Don't Rain On My Bat Mitzvah (Creative Time, 2021), co-created with Ira Khonen Temple. Morgan's performances have been presented by Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, the Kitchen, and the Whitney Museum. Their book of to-do lists, The Odd Years, was published by Wendy's Subway in 2020. Morgan has released two albums: March is for Marches with Ethan Philbrick (Triple Canopy, 2019) and More Protest Songs! Live From St. Mark’s Church (2018).
Image credit: Jared Buckhiester
Our Supporters
As of May 3, 2022
Titanium Committee
Anonymous
BNY Mellon
CBRE
Cisco
Citi
HLW International Architects
The Howard Hughes Corporation
WB Wood/Mines Family
World Wide Technology, Inc.
Platinum Committee
AAI Architects, P.C.
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Brookfield Properties
Bruce Ehrmann and Sandi Slone
Buro Happold
Dell Technologies
Elizabeth and Michael Ashworth
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
HPE / AMD
Ken & Kim Blacklow
KPF
Lendlease
Linda Genereux and Timur Galen
Newmark
Savanna
Time Equities, Inc.
Trinity Church Wall Street
Silver Supporter
Charles Maikish, Chairman Emeritus, LMCC and retired Director, WTC
Cole Shotz P.C.
The Durst Organization
L&L Holding Company, LLC
May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc
Meredith Kane
Richard and Ronay Menschel
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Bronze Supporter
Richard Berney, Cozen O’ Connor
Marcia and Noel Caban
SL Green Realty
Scott B. Salmirs, President & CEO, ABM
Copper Supporter
AKRF, Inc.
Cherrie Nanninga
DeSimone Consulting Engineers
Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association
Kramer Levins Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Flushing Bank
Jay and Jordana Berman
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Michele de Milly, Geto & de Milly, Inc.
Mimi Raygorodetsky and Paul McMahon
Paula Cooper Gallery
Thornton Tomasetti
WSP - Building Systems
Past Downtown Dinner Honorees
Jessica Lappin, President, Downtown Alliance
Maggie Boepple
Amina Henry
Eiko Otake
Paul Pfeiffer
The Howard Hughes Corporation
Julie Taymor
Kaneza Schaal
Kamau Ware
Liana Finck
Tim & Stephanie Ingrassia
Julie Mehretu
Matt Jensen
Will Rawls
Melissa Febos
2017
Anita Durst, Helena Durst, Durst Family
The Keith Haring Foundation & The Estate of Tseng Kwong Chi
William Cordova
Faye Driscoll
Lisa Ko
2016
Frank Sciame
Laurie Anderson
Laura Nova
Okwui Okpokwasili
Julia Jarcho
2015
Peter Poulakakos
Xu Bing
Mary Mattingly (accepted by Caroline Wall, Director, Robert Mann Gallery)
Aya Ogawa
Sarah Dohrmann
2014
The Trust for Governors Island
Trisha Brown Dance Company
Dread Scott
Naomi Goldberg Haas
Pia Wilson
Control Group
2013
Cherrie Nanninga, outgoing Board Chair
Richard Serra
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Pavel Zustiak
Amy Whitaker
2012
Kevin Burke & Con Edison
Robert R. Douglass & the Alliance for Downtown New York
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum architecture and engineering team
- Michael Arad / Handel Architects
- Davis Brody Bond
- Snøhetta
- Peter Walker / PWP Landscape Architecture
Simone Leigh
Maria Hassabi
Alicia Jo Rabins
2011
Kenneth I. Chenault & American Express
The Joyce Theater (award accepted by Linda E. Shelton)
Yoko Inoue
Koosil-ja
Emily Rubin
2010
Steve Buscemi
Brookfield (award accepted by Melissa Coley, Anita Contini, and Debra Simon)
Kate Gilmore
The National Theatre of the United States of America
About LMCC
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council is a partnership-driven nonprofit organization that has been working at the intersection of arts, business, and community in Lower Manhattan for almost five decades. In September 2019, we opened The Arts Center at Governors Island—a 40,000 square foot creative space that serves as the gateway to Governors Island’s Arts & Culture District.
The Downtown Dinner supports our efforts to serve, connect, and make space for artists and community in Manhattan and beyond.
Past Events:
The Downtown Dinner Reimagined 2021
A Toast to Downtown 2020
The Downtown Dinner 2019
The Downtown Dinner 2018