Brian Brooks & Wendy Whelan Set for Fire Island Dance Festival

Acclaimed choreographer Brian Brooks and ballet world legend Wendy Whelan will perform a duet at this year's Fire Island Dance Festival(#fidance), one of the most talked about cultural and charitable events of the Fire Island summer. Set for July 15-17 in Fire Island Pines, NY, Fire Island Dance Festival is produced by and benefits Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Brooks and Whelan first met when performing separately at Fire Island Dance Festival in 2011. Their work for this year's festival is "First Fall," part of Whelan's Restless Creature, her first independent project featuring collaborations with four of today's most innovative and sought-after contemporary choreographers, including Brooks.

Brooks and Whelan join a diverse lineup of performers announced earlier, including Ballet Contemporáneo de Camagüey Cuba's first performance outside of Cuba, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Gallim Dance, KEIGWIN + COMPANY, Glenn Allen Sims and Linda Celeste Sims of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Madboots Dance and choreography by festival favorite Al Blackstone. This year's Fire Island Dance Festival will be hosted by the inimitable Tituss Burgess, a Broadway favorite and Emmy Award nominee for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Tickets for Fire Island Dance Festival are available at dradance.org or by phone at 212.840.0770, ext. 229. Tickets also are available in the Fire Island Pines Harbor on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am - 1 pm. Fire Island Dance Festival is generously sponsored by The New York Times, United Airlines, DIRECTV, Movmnt Magazine, Sayville Ferry and Tony's Barge, Inc.

Brooks, a choreographer, performer and educator, has presented his ensemble work nationally and internationally since 2002. He is the Choreographer in Residence at Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance and, among other awards, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, NY City Center Fellowship and Joyce Theater Artist Residency.

Whelan danced for New York City Ballet from 1984-2014. She has performed virtually every major Balanchine role and worked closely with Jerome Robbins. She originated leading roles in works by many of today's leading choreographers. In 2015, Whelan made the shift toward developing new collaborations and projects within the contemporary dance world.

Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times raved about Brooks and Whelan's collaboration. "Brooks is a juicy, vivid performer," Macaulay wrote. "In the opening, they move as equals, playfully; she (Whelan) even partners him at one moment. It's here that we most clearly see the liquidity of her dancing and the restlessness in her program title: separate currents of motion pass intricately through her."

Fire Island Dance Festival is a unique event where audiences and dancers come together to make a difference. Last year's festival raised a record-breaking $544,555. Since its first installment in 1995, it has raised more than $4.3 million, helping ensure that those in need throughout the New York area and in all 50 states receive lifesaving medications and health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance.

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 the essential programs of The Actors Fund, including the HIV/AIDS Initiative and The Dancers' Resource, as well as more than 450 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.

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