Acclaimed dance companies and choreographers converged on Fire Island Pines July 14–16 for the 23rd annual Fire Island Dance Festival. The benefit is held each summer on the resort island off the south shore of suburban Long Island, New York.

Check out some of the 2017 highlights (above) filmed on the event’s special stage overlooking Great South Bay. The 23rd edition of the fundraising and cultural event raised a record $585,045 for the charity Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Cady Huffman, a Tony Award winner for her performance in The Producers, served as host.

Among highlights: Broadway choreographer Lorin Latarro (Waitress) premiered For Those Before, in which gay women and men recalled the relationships of their youth. Caleb Teicher & Company shared a sample of Meet Ella, an ode to Ella Fitzgerald. Peridance Contemporary Dance Company presented an excerpt from the company’s Dia-Mono-Logues, inspired by artistic director and choreographer Igal Perry’s experiences emigrating from Israel to New York City in the 1970s.

Other participating dance companies included EVIDENCE, A Dance Company; Makers Dance Company; Miami City Ballet; Pontus Lidberg Dance and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener.

The festival featured choreography from George Balanchine, Al Blackstone, Justin Peck, and Manuel Vignoulle. Dancers who performed in the festival included American Ballet Theatre principal James Whiteside and corps de ballet members Joo Won Ahn, Sung Woo Han, Jonathan Klein, Tyler Maloney, Garegin Pogossian, Kento Sumitani, and Zhiyao Zhang, as well as Miami City Ballet principals Jeanette Delgado, and Kleber Rebello.

Dancers Responding to AIDS helps people across the U.S. pay for lifesaving medications, nutritious meals, counseling, and emergency financial assistance.

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