Alan Cumming Hosts Fire Island Dance Festival Starting July 14

Tony and Olivier winner Alan Cumming (Cabaret) hosts and performs at the Fire Island Dance Festival, which returns to Fire Island Pines, New York, July 14-16 at Whyte Hall.

Produced by and benefiting Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares, the performances feature established and emerging choreographers and companies on an outdoor stage on the shores of the Great South Bay.

The celebration, which includes cocktails, is scheduled to launch with a performance by Masterz at Work Dance Family, presented in association with Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum. The company, rooted in street and social dance and led by Courtney Washington Balenciaga, offers a fusion of jazz, hip-hop, house, voguing, and contemporary dance styles.

The lineup also includes dancer and humanitarian Ahmad Joudeh; Broadway Bares associate director and choreographer Jonathan Lee, making his Festival debut with a number celebrating the history of hip-hop; choreographer Paul McGill, debuting a new number set to Claude Debussy’s “Sunken Cathedral” and featuring Martha Graham Dance Company soloist Lorenzo Pagano, former San Francisco Ballet principal Benjamin Freemantle, and Broadway’s Gabrielle Hamiton and Jakob Karr; choreographer Ray Mercer (The Lion King) with a celebratory contemporary ensemble number; Philadelphia Ballet's Juliano Nunes, presenting pas de deux “Dying Swan” with Boston Ballet principal Derek Dunn and Bavarian State Ballet first soloist Shale Wagman; the return of Parsons Dance with a piece from choreographer David Parsons featuring the music of Allen Toussaint; and choreographer Skyla Schreter, sharing a new duet featuring New York City Ballet soloist Ashley Hod and former Philadelphia Ballet member Craig Wasserman.

Musician serpentwithfeet will also perform an excerpt from Heart of Brick, an ensemble number created in collaboration with The Joyce Theater that captures the multi-generational spirit of the Black queer community and features dance from A Strange Loop choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. New York City Ballet principal Taylor Stanley will perform an original work by New York City Ballet dancer Alec Knight, set to an electronic composition by Porter Robinson.

Host Cumming will also offer two musical numbers accompanied by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater alumni Michael Francis McBride and Samuel Lee Roberts, with live music by pianist Henry Koperski.

Since its debut in 1995, Fire Island Dance Festival has raised more than $7.7 million to help provide medication, nutritious meals, counseling, and emergency financial assistance to those in need in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.

For more information, visit Dancers Responding to AIDS at DRADance.org.