Spotlight Asia – Grand Opening of Asia Society Texas Center Festivities Continue

Festivities for the grand opening of Asia Society Texas Center were taken to another level when the young power couple Divya and Chris Brown chaired a special night themed ‘Spotlight Asia‘ on Friday April 13, 2012.

This event enticed young professionals in Houston with an elaborate buffet by City Kitchen and Bollywood music in full swing. High fashion was on sight as Divya was spotted looking stunning in a Manish Melhotra sari inspired outfit and Shipra Mehrotra in a red sari. The main highlight of the evening was the stunning building that has a serene feeling. The 1,000 guests enjoyed the wide spread array of sushi and curry, mixed and mingled over cocktails and later danced to the tunes of Bollywood numbers.

The wide range of guests included socialites, party goers, philanthropists, musicians, dancers, opera singers, and many others experiencing the 40,000 square-foot space that also exhibited Treasures of Asian Art: A Rockefeller Legacy, the opening exhibition in the Center’s Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery, that drew long lines. Downstairs the Fayez Sarofim Grand Hall housed the second inaugural exhibition, Contemporary Asian Art: Texas Connections.

Hats off to the organizers for arranging such a fabulous evening and efficiently managing the crowd that managed to raise $50,000 for Asia Society programs. Spotted at the cocktail reception NetIP Houston President Pranav Kothari, Odissi dancer Shipra Mehrotra, Pradeep Anand, Corbett Parker, Reyne Hirsch, Sunil Thakkar, Lynn Ghose Cabrera, Viswa Subbaraman, Tanya and Rick Pal, Stuart Rosenberg, Sarah Tucker, and the list goes on.

In addition a two-day festival and open house was held on April 14 and 15 as Asia Society Texas Center offered a first-hand taste of offerings in art, culture, education and fun to come. The weekend event marked the Texas Center’s official opening, free to the public, held on Saturday on the lawn in front of the Center featuring remarks by Houston Mayor Annise Parker, Ronnie C. Chan and Henrietta H. Fore.

The festival drew some 5,300 Houstonians offering activity booths, kite-making, Islamic tile painting, Japanese Ikebana, delightful non-stop entertainment that included classical Indian dance, Appalachian and Nepali folk music, Lao folk dancing, music of the Pakistani Sufi tradition, Australian aboriginal music and much more.

By Ruchi Mukherjee