Fire Island Dance Festival to Return This July to Support DRA

Fire Island Dance Festival, the most anticipated cultural event of the season on Fire Island, makes a triumphant return July 17-19, 2015, featuring some of the most exciting and talked-about dance companies in the industry. The festival, produced by and benefiting Dancers Responding to AIDS, is performed outdoors on a picturesque waterfront stage in Fire Island Pines, NY.

Since the summer of 1995, Fire Island Dance Festival (#fidance) has raised more than $3.8 million. Last year's 20th anniversary celebration raised a staggering $530,860. Through their generous support, Fire Island Dance Festival attendees have helped ensure that men, women and children in all 50 states receive lifesaving medications and health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance.

Tickets for Fire Island Dance Festival are on sale now at dradance.org or by phone at 212.840.0770, ext. 268.

This year's performers, choreographers and host will be announced this spring.

Past festivals have welcomed dancers from the country's top modern and ballet companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Keigwin + Company, New York City Ballet and MOMIX, and featured choreography by Paul Taylor, Kyle Abraham, Marcelo Gomes and Tony Award winners Rob Ashford and Jerry Mitchell.

The weekend kicks off with the Friday night Leadership Event, an intimate performance reserved exclusively for Leadership Supporters. The excitement continues throughout the weekend with three Fire Island Dance Festival performances: the opening performance on Saturday, July 18 at 5 pm (cocktails starting at 4 pm); Leadership Sunset Performance on Saturday, July 18 at 7 pm (cocktails following); and closing performance on Sunday, July 19 at 5 pm (cocktails following).

Leadership Supporters enjoy an elevated festival experience including the Leadership Event with cocktails on Friday, highly coveted tickets to the sunset performance on Saturday or priority seating at either 5 pm performance and prominent recognition in the harbor and throughout the Pines. Beginning May 23, tickets also will be available in person on weekends in the Fire Island Pines Harbor. Leadership tickets start at $350. Individual tickets for the 5 pm performances are $125.

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 more than 450 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide as well as the essential programs of The Actors Fund, including the HIV/AIDS Initiative and The Dancers' Resource. For more information, visit Dancers Responding to AIDS at dradance.org, at facebook.com/DRAdance, at twitter.com/DRAdance and at youtube.com/DRAdance.