Virtual Hudson Valley Dance Festival Announces Talent

The Virtual Hudson Valley Dance Festival, this year's streamed edition of the annual event, is adding performances by tap dancer Ayodele Casel, Jamar Roberts, Peter Walker and Adam Weinert to its diverse collection of premieres, made-for-the-moment filmed shorts and highlights from past festivals. The festival streams on Saturday, October 10, 2020, and is produced by and benefits Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Watch the hourlong stream at 7 pm Eastern, at dradance.org. The stream will be available for four days after its premiere.

The now-complete lineup for the online festival will feature:

● Celebrated modern tap dancer Ayodele Casel performing Oscar Joy. This effervescent and virtuosic solo, filmed at Casel's home dance studio, Original Tap House in the Bronx, premiered at this summer's Virtual Fire Island Dance Festival.

● Broadway performer and choreographer Billy Griffin sharing Is That All There Is?, performed by West Side Story's Ricky Ubeda at the 2018 edition of Hudson Valley Dance Festival.

● Stephen Petronio Company artistic director Stephen Petronio presenting Are You Lonesome Tonight. The piece, filmed at his private Petronio Residency Center in Round Top, NY, features Lloyd Knight, guest artist from Martha Graham Dance Company, and Stephen Petronio Company member Nicholas Sciscione. The dance film premiered at this summer's Virtual Fire Island Dance Festival.

● Dancer and choreographer Jamar Roberts presenting Cooped, an artistic response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of a person of color that he describes as "an imaginatively potent fever dream." The piece, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, received acclaim from The New York Times.

● Caleb Teicher, founder of Caleb Teicher & Company, sharing Tee Time, an outdoor solo safely filmed at Kaatsbaan Summer Festival in Tivoli, NY, in September, featuring American Ballet Theatre's Catherine Hurlin.

● New York City Ballet soloist and choreographer Peter Walker presenting his ethereal Words in the Fire, performed at last year's Hudson Valley Dance Festival with New York City Ballet's Daniel Applebaum and Pacific Northwest Ballet's Christopher D'Ariano.

● Acclaimed choreographer Adam Weinert sharing an excerpt from MONUMENT. The dance, filmed in Hudson, New York, seamlessly integrates legendary modern dance movement with original contemporary choreography and reexamines a nostalgia for Americana.

The money raised during the Virtual Hudson Valley Dance Festival will help Broadway Cares provide additional, emergency grants to 13 organizations based in the Hudson Valley that are already part of its National Grants Programs. The organizations are Albany Damien Center and Alliance for Positive Health in Albany, Animalkind, Columbia-Greene Community Foundation and Hudson Valley SPCA in Hudson, Matthew 25 Food Pantry and Community Hospice in Catskill, Hudson Valley Community Services in Hawthorne, Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in Kingston, Rock Steady Farm in Millerton, Roe Jan Food Pantry in Hillsdale, TOUCH (Together Our Unity Can Heal) in Congers and Troy Area United Ministries in Troy.

Each of the 13 organizations will receive a discretionary grant in October, in addition to their annual support. This is a special gift to mark what would have been the in-person version of the Hudson Valley Dance Festival and to help the organizations respond to the overwhelming challenges of this pandemic here in the Hudson Valley.

The annual dance festival, traditionally held at Historic Catskill Point in Catskill, NY, has raised $910,688 for people in need across the country and in the Hudson Valley during the festival's seven editions

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.

For more information, please visit Dancers Responding to AIDS at dradance.org, at facebook.com/DRAdance, at instagram.com/DRAdance, at twitter.com/DRAdance and at youtube.com/DRAdance.