A performance at the recently restored The Theatre

"Maybe I owe more to L.A. than people know," said Benjamin Millepied. The choreographer is more well known these days as Mr. Natalie Portman, but he’s also the founder of L.A. Dance Project and on Saturday night, the company staged a performance at the recently restored The Theatre at Ace Hotel.

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As Millepied stood on a stage that was once part of the United Artists movie theater, he described how he got into dancing.

"Eventually I started to dance and because I lived in some small town in France, it wasn’t live performances that I could see, it was movies. It was the movies of Fred Astaire, of Gene Kelly, of Busby Berkeley," he said. "It was those dance films that actually drew me to deciding to become a dancer."

Portman, who met Millepied while filming her Oscar-winning "Black Swan," was in the audience herself. She arrived an hour earlier without fuss or fanfare in a demure look by Dior and snacked on popcorn from the concession stand.

"It’s great to get to be reminded how incredible your husband is," she said. "And the dancers are incredible....I come into rehearsals regularly, but it’s so different seeing it live on stage. I feel very lucky to have this be part of my life."

After intermission, Millepied previewed his latest, a piece set to Philip Glass’ score for the 1985 cult film "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters," and received a standing ovation. Laura Mulleavy, James and Kimberly Van Der Beek, Trina Turk, Barbara Kruger, Catharine Soros, Liane Weintraub and company dancers like Nathan Makolandra and Stephanie Amurao were among those who went to the penthouse of the Cooper Design Space for a post-performance celebratory meal.

Between bites, Van Der Beek and his wife reminisced about their own ties to the dance world. "I danced from five years old to high school," said the Mrs. "And James’ mother owned and ran a gymnastics studio, so James can do the splits actually."

Lily Aldridge was stalking an Upper East Side restaurant on Wednesday night like it was the Playboy Mansion.

A Victoria’s Secret Angel, she’s used to striding confidently everywhere she goes, but there was something else in her step this time. She had swagger. Maybe it was what she was wearing. In her silk burgundy smoking jacket, Aldridge recalled the bearing of a very smooth player, the most famous player of them all.

"It’s very Hugh Hefner-ish," she said knowingly.

Before she ever stomped the runways of Victoria’s Secret, it was Aldridge’s mother, Laura Aldridge, née Lyons, who first posed for a camera. In her prime, she was Miss February 1976 in Playboy. Mom, now 59, was back in the game for a photo portfolio that appeared in New York magazine earlier this week celebrating the trailblazing models who appeared in the then-risqué pages of Playboy from 1954 to 1979, women who in more ways than one paved the way for the likes of Aldridge to strut around in expensive lingerie and sexy angel wings. In her portrait, the older Aldridge looks indomitable, the picture of Mrs. Robinson in a corset and black stockings.

"I’m so proud of it. She’s a beautiful woman," the famous daughter said during a Barneys New York dinner at The East Pole. "I found out [about the centerfold] when I was 12. She had to break the news to me. I thought it was awesome. Those issues from the Seventies are so iconic and elegant." In fact, a lot of those issues are all over their family home still. "I’ve always been a huge fan of the Playboy of that era and I still am. She’s still so proud of it. I’m glad she got recognized," she continued.

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