Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA) division’s 25th anniversary Fire Island Dance Festival took place from July 19 to 21, at the Pines Club and Whyte Hall, and raised a record-breaking $657,842 to fight AIDS. I attended the final performance, on July 21, of the program consisting of 10 dances, including six premieres, mostly to recorded music, on the waterfront stage on the Great South Bay, and the host was Broadway’s Joel Grey. On this sweltering summer afternoon, the staff kept us well hydrated, with bottles of water, cool wet wash cloths, and popsicles. There was even a brief sun shower to cool us off.
The Paul Taylor Dance Company’s “Sunset,” choreographed by Taylor, with costumes by Alex Katz, depicted a graceful flirtation between women in white and guards in uniform, to Sir Edward Elgar’s seductive “Serenade for Strings,” followed by a pair of contemplative duets for two pairs of guards, one pair joined by one of the women for a pas de trois, before the full company’s gentle finale, to Elgar’s “Elegy for Strings.” Robert Kleinendorst, Michelle Fleet, Sean Mahoney, Eran Bugge, Michael Apuzzo, Madelyn Ho, Kristin Drauker, Lee Duveneck, Ales Clayton, and Devon Louis were the dancers.
Then our Master of Ceremonies welcomed us by singing “Wilkommen,” his song from Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret,” adapted to end with lines “for DRA/I’m Joel Grey.”
Jordan Lang’s “Motion,” choreographed by Martha Nichols, to “Burnt,” by Kiasmos, proved a solo of non-stop movement and beauty.”
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s “Sinner Man,” from “Revelations,” choreographed by Ailey, with costumes by Ves Harper, was a virtuoso trio, inspired by the looming threat of Judgment Day, danced by Jeroboam Bozeman, Solomon Dumas, and Chalvar Monteiro, to Diva Gray and Billy Porter’s rendition of the spiritual “Sinner Man,” as adapted and arranged by Howard A. Roberts.
James Whitesides’ new “Adagio 1986,” to music of Andre Laplante, was an affectionate duet for dancers Aran Bell and Catherine Hurlin, costumed by Eric Winterling in bright blue, with gold highlights. The performance was given one of several given in memory of Tom Morgan. Following it, DRA Founders Tom Viola, Denise Roberts Hurlin, and Hernando Cortez called for a moment of silence, in memory of those we’ve all lost.
MOMIX’s “Pole Dance,” choreographed by Moses Pendleton, to the intense “The Hunt,” by Adam Plack and Johnny “White Ant” Soames, found athletic dancers Gregory De Armond, Steven Ezra, and Jason Williams armed with—playing with?—long poles. Costumes were by Phoebe Katzin, Pendleton, and Cynthia Quinn.
Calvin Royal III and Tamisha Guy, of A.I.M. (Abraham in Motion) gave us a preview of an excerpt from Kyle Abraham and A.I.M.’s “An Untitled Love,” a work-in-progress, which will have its world premiere in Houston on June 4 and 5, 2020. The dance was accompanied by voices and impassioned Spanish guitars, performing D’Angelo and The Vanguard’s “Really Love.” Costumes were by Karen Young. “An Untitled Love” was performed “in loving memory” of Tom Morgan.
“Sand,” a world premiere, was choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and danced by Garen Scribner, colleagues in Broadway’s “American in Paris,” to a Johann Sebastian Bach partita, and suggested playing and emoting at and reveling in the beach. Legacy Sponsors Ward Auerbach and Andy Baker made the performance possible.
“Destination Moon” was an outer space-bound tap dance and song duet, with ukulele, for choreographer Michelle Dorrance and Broadway and New York City Ballet dancer Robbie Fairchild, with back-up quintet of tap dancers, Christopher Broughton, Warren Craft, Leonardo Sandoval, Byron Tittle, and Simeon Weedall, improvising and echoing. It ended with Fairchild’s surprising dive toward the bay.
Garrett Smith’s new “Continuum,” was a sensual duet for Christopher D’Ariano and Lucien Postewaite, to the neo-Baroque strains of “Gregson: 1.1 Prelude,” by Ben Chappell, Reinoud Ford, Peter Gregson, Richard Harwood, Katherine Jenkinson, and Tim Lowe, and “Gregson” 2.1 Prelude,” by Gregson, with costumes by Winterling, during which the sun shower broke out.
After a short pause, to sweep the wet stage, Grey welcomed us back by leading us in singing the introduction to “Singing in the Rain.”
The world premiere of Al Blackstone’s look back at “Weekend 76,” “celebrating the beauty and love of the Pines,” according to Gray, was the joyous finale. To strains of Labi Siffre’s “There’s Nothing in the World Like Love,” Billy Paul’s “Let ’Em In,” Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” The Temptations’ “Law of the Land,” and Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Get the Love,” dancers portraying lusty Pines visitors—and a dour cop—during the Disco era, some armed with fans, later with shopping baskets, one sporting a wispy pink-and-white cape—and a tambourine—and one of the men in a pink tutu, Soon some of the dancers were in glitzy pink, per costumer Winterling, and even the cop, in a pink brief bathing suit, got seduced into the revelry. The dancers were Edward Cuellar, Colin Cunliffe, Chloe Davis, Niani Feelings, Billy Griffin, Chris Jarosz, Adrian Lee, Alessandra Marconi (who choreographed “The Hustle”), Joana Matos, Chalvar Monteiro, Brayden Newby, Adam Perry, and Jason Williams.
To learn more about Dancers Responding to AIDS, visit www.dradance.org.