inaugural gala dinner

May 1st, 2023, The Bowery Hotel, New York City Dinner Chairman Christopher Wheeldon, OBE welcomed guests to an evening allowing a small glance into what is yet to come in 2024 at vildwerk.’s first season. The gala featured a world premiere by choreographer Joshua Beamish entitled The Golden Tortoise, performed by Mara Galeazzi with music by Felipe Perez Santiago in tribute to the Ploughshare Tortoise. One the rarest species of tortoise on the planet and native to Madagascar, it has almost been poached to extinction with fewer than 150 left in the wild, which are sold for up to six figure sums on the black market as so-called “status symbols”. Standing next to a nearly extinct ploughshare tortoise, joining the Gala by video, was Turtle Conservancy Founder, Eric Goode. Conservation legend Re:Wild’s CCO, Professor Russell Mittermeier, and Turtle Conservancy’s Senior Scientist, Professor James Juvik, worked with Beamish during the choreographic creation process of the solo and addressed guests with insights from the field. The evening also featured performances by cellists of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Dorothea and Rafael Figueroa. After a video message from David K. Israel, they performed his Windansea, a classical piece by Jean-Baptiste Barriere, and then Dying Swan by Charles-Camille Saint-Saens, joined on the piano by Amber Salladin. Amber, Co-Artistic Director of Inspire – Chorus for Unity, also conducted Grow Little Tree, sang by 7 young vocal artists, accompanied by 9-year-old Anton Figueroa at the keyboard and Cassandra Longville, dancing a piece choreographed by former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater star, Briana J. Reed.