FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
2020 Edition of Fire Island Dance Festival
Canceled Due to Coronavirus Pandemic
The 2020 edition of Fire Island Dance Festival, the charitable event of the Fire Island summer, is canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual weekend of celebrated dance is produced by and benefits Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
“As heartbreaking as this decision is, it has become clear that bringing together dancers and supporters is not something we can safely do,” said Denise Roberts Hurlin, founding director of Dancers Responding to AIDS. “We are endlessly grateful to everyone in the Pines for their support and friendship over these 26 years, and look forward to returning to the shores of the Great South Bay in 2021.”
The event had been set for Friday-Sunday, July 17-19, 2020.
As a show of ongoing support for the Fire Island community, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will be sending a $25,000 grant to the Pines Care Center to help ensure the island is safe and healthy during and after this challenging time.
Although the festival is canceled, donations in support of Fire Island Dance Festival can be made at dradance.org. Every dollar helps provide health and hope to those most in need today, friends and neighbors who are often forgotten, left behind or abandoned by the federal government’s response to the pandemic.
Through their generous support, Fire Island Dance Festival attendees have helped ensure that the most vulnerable among us throughout the New York metro area and in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., receive lifesaving medications, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance. The event has raised more than $6.7 million since it began in 1995.
Past festivals have welcomed acclaimed dance companies including Acosta Danza, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, Caleb Teicher & Company, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, the Chase Brock Experience, MADBOOTS DANCE, Miami City Ballet and MOMIX, and featured choreography by Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Al Blackstone, Gemma Bond, Michelle Dorrance, Marcelo Gomes, James Kinney, Lorin Latarro, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Paul Taylor, James Whiteside, Charlie Williams and Tony Award winners Rob Ashford, Jerry Mitchell and Christopher Wheeldon.
Thank you to Leadership Event Sponsor DIRECTV and all the individual sponsors for their continuing support of Fire Island Dance Festival.
Dancers Responding to AIDS relies on the extraordinary compassion and efforts of the performing arts community to fund a safety net of social services for those in need. As a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, DRA supports the safety net of services at The Actors Fund, including the HIV/AIDS Initiative and The Dancers’ Resource, as well as more than 450 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.
For more information, please visit Dancers Responding to AIDS at dradance.org, at facebook.com/DRAdance, at instagram.com/DRAdance, at twitter.com/DRAdance and at youtube.com/DRAdance.
