The Fire Island Dance Festival, Dancers Responding to AIDS' (DRA) signature event, celebrated its sweet sixteenth year in Fire Island Pines with an undisputed artistic and financial success. This year's festival, hosted by two-time Emmy Award winner Bruce Vilanch, presented eleven dances by world renowned, established and emerging dance companies and choreographers. The event, twice hailed by the New York Times as “the charity event of the season,” was held on the weekend of July 17 to 18, outdoors at the Fire Island Pines home of Jon Biondo, Tim Horman and Ryan Coutou, against a backdrop of the sun setting over the Great South Bay. The three sold out performances drew record breaking crowds and raised $260,000 for Dancers Responding to AIDS, a fundraising program of Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS.

Fire Island Dance Festival Sixteen (FIDF16) featured the innovative work of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; American Ballet Theatre principal Marcelo Gomes; Joffrey Ballet Chicago principals Fabrice Calmels and Erica Lynette Edwards; Mark Stuart Dance Theatre; and San Francisco Ballet principals Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith, performing choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. FIDF 16 also showcased a pièce d’occasion by Shea Sullivan and featured a “Legacy Tour” performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Continuing the tradition started in 2006, DRA offered choreographic sponsorships to foster the creation of new dance works, an effort that yielded four new dances, which had their premieres at this year’s Festival by Stephen Petronio Company, Travis Wall, Camille A. Brown and Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance. MOMIX presented a special performance as part of an exclusive festival kick-off party on Friday, July 16.