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Photo Coverage: BC/EFA Dancers Responding to AIDS Benefit

On Monday and Tuesday, January 11 and 12, the worlds of ballet, modern, contemporary, tap, jazz, and Broadway converged on the stage of Cedar Lake for Dance from the Heart | MEN, a four performance / two day festival of dance benefiting Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA) a fundraising program of Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS.

Now in its fifth year, Dance from the Heart | MEN was inspired by DRA's highly successful annual Fire Island Dance Festival which has thrilled audiences for fourteen years with diverse and electrifying programs showcasing the finest established and emerging choreographers and dance companies working in American dance today. Since its inception in 2005, "Dance from the Heart" has thrilled audiences and critics alike and has been featured in The New York Times, Movmnt and Next Magazine and has been listed as an editor's pick in TimeOut NY, The New Yorker, and New York Magazine.

The 2010 edition of Dance from the Heart aptly named MEN showcased the talents of some of the finest male dancers, companies and choreographers working today. Performers included Marcelo Gomes (principal, American Ballet Theatre), Jamar Roberts (principal, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater), Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Parsons Dance, Stephen Petronio Company, Danny Tidwell, Ballet Hispanico, Feliciano Dance Company, The DASH Ensemble, Janis Brenner & Dancers, Adam Barruch, Gregg Russell, and the choreography of Ray Mercer (The Lion King), Luis Salgado (In the Heights), Darrell Grand Moultrie (Billy Elliot) Shea Sullivan and Josh Bergasse (Hairspray) set on men of various Broadway companies.

For more information on Dancers Responding to AIDS, visit their website at www.dradance.org.

Founded by Denise Roberts Hurlin and Hernando Cortez, Dancers Responding to AIDS is a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA), the nation's leading industry-based AIDS funding and grant-making organization. The funds raised are distributed to seven programs of The Actors' Fund of America and as grants to over 400 AIDS and family service organizations across the United States. Since its founding in 1988, BC/EFA has distributed over $150 million for critically needed services for people with AIDS, HIV, or HIV-related illnesses.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi