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• Sitelines 2008: Dance Performance Kicks Off On Wall Street
• Preserving Alexandria's Lee-Fendall House

Sitelines 2008: Dance Performance Kicks Off On Wall Street

Dance Finale

On May 29, 2008, Trust staffers Vickie McCormick and Heather Massler, and area manager Dan Reardon were invited to attend a performance of Sitelines, a component of the annual River to River festival held in downtown New York. Sitelines is a site-specific performance series that brings dance to unexpected surroundings. In order to capture the broadest possible audience, the performances are held during lunch hour in publicly-accessible spaces.

This year’s opening performance, Under the Buttonwood Tree, was staged in front of the New York Stock Exchange (1901-03). Choreographed by Jacqulyn Buglisi and performed by the Buglisi Dance Theatre, the dance chronicled moments in the history of the Stock Exchange including the Great Depression, the admission of female traders, and the frenzy of trading during the Roaring Twenties. Wearing black suits paired with pink shirts for the women, and white shirts and fedoras for the men, the dancers evoked the business-like anonymity of the Exchange’s traders. Narrators, dressed as nineteenth-century dandies, were stationed on a balcony of the Stock Exchange and provided context for the dance. Integrity, a woman draped in a gold dress, watched over the action while standing alone on another balcony; the character was inspired by the building’s pedimental sculpture, Integrity Protecting the Works of Man.

The enthusiastic spectators included traders from the Stock Exchange wearing the colorful smocks indicative of their firms, arts connoisseurs, tourists, families, workers from the larger Financial District, and even press from a German magazine. The 25-minute performance literally stopped people in their tracks, and kept them there until the ticker tape rained down during the finale.

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Preserving Alexandria's Lee-Fendall House

Owners of the Lee-Fendall House Museum in Alexandria, Va. had many travails over the last 200-plus years, but at least they could take comfort in the sturdiness of their building. It took two years and the finest materials available at the time to build the house, but even the best construction requires restoration after such a long period of time.

The time for that restoration has come, and the Trust for Architectural Easements is leading the effort with a donation to restore the house’s summer beam and sill, two structural components that partly form the base of the structure’s rear wall. These components bear the weight of the original structure and the additions made to the top of the house over the years. Each addition is a little smaller than the one it sits on, giving visitors the impression of an extended ‘telescope’ effect, an architectural style that is usually found in New England.

Owned and operated by the Virginia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Lee-Fendall House is Alexandria’s only historic house museum and receives 10,000 visitors each year. Its mission will continue “to stimulate the public’s knowledge of and appreciation for the history of Virginia and the nation, and to assure its enjoyment for future generations,” according to the museum’s executive director, Kristin Miller Lang, who is leading fund raising efforts to restore other parts of the museum.

Lee-Fendall House Restoration Article
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