Each fall, the Hudson Valley Dance Festival transforms the Historic Catskill Point warehouse on the banks of the Hudson River into a theater, where dancers perform in support of those living with HIV and AIDS. This year’s festival takes place Saturday, October 11, at 2 pm and 5 pm, continuing a tradition of bringing exceptional performances to the region while raising funds for Dancers Responding to AIDS (DRA), the dance community’s first ongoing effort to provide critical resources and care.
More than 30 years ago, dancers Denise Roberts Hurlin and Hernando Cortez, both members of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, watched their friends and colleagues die of AIDS. Among them was fellow company member Christopher Gillis, a gifted performer and choreographer whose illness struck during the height of the epidemic. Out of that urgency, Hurlin and Cortez founded Dancers Responding to AIDS in 1991, initially focusing on survival. By 1996, as treatments improved, the mission shifted toward helping people live - and live well.
Hurlin emphasizes the importance of access to proper nutrition and medication in maintaining health for individuals living with HIV/AIDS. “If you don’t have good nutrition, if you aren’t able to take your medicine, you will not be undetectable. Undetectable - meaning there is so little virus in the body that it cannot be transmitted -equals untransmittable,” she says, underscoring how vital comprehensive care is to keeping people healthy. Over the years, the mission has grown to address broader needs, including food insecurity in the Hudson Valley, thus connecting care for people living with HIV to supporting those in the region facing hunger.
Today, Dancers Responding to AIDS supports more than 450 service organizations nationwide, including 18 in the Hudson Valley, from the Albany Damien Center to the Columbia County Recovery Kitchen, the Roe Jan Food Pantry in Hillsdale, and the LGBTQ Center in Kingston.
This year’s festival features a mix of established companies and emerging voices. A revival of the legendary duet Who’s Got the Pain from Damn Yankees is a flirtatious and athletic mambo originally performed by Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. American Ballet Theatre Studio Company presents Yannick Lebrun’s Human, danced by rising star Kayla Mak. Leggy Bones Physical Theater performs its acrobatic duet Nocturne, by founders Casey Howes and Jake Warren.
Other highlights include Broadway dancer and choreographer Reed Luplau presenting his reflective work A Single Man; dancer and choreographer Dario Natarelli of Broadway’s Illinoise debuting a tap solo set to Sammy Davis Jr.’s Feeling Good; New Chamber Ballet performing Mandragore, an entwined duet on pointe by founder Miro Magloire; and two premieres from Parsons Dance, including a joyful work to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and ballroom artist Courtney Balenciaga Washington’s choreographic debut.
The festival (established in 1995 on Fire Island and 2013 in Catskill) brings together not only the dancers and choreographers, but also a network of talented technicians, dedicated volunteers, and longtime supporters, including Hudson Valley Dance Festival founders Works & Process Executive Director Duke Dang and Charles E. Rosen, who help make the event possible.
The natural environment shapes the experience of the festival as well. One dance, Sweet Gwen Suite from the Verdon Fosse legacy, looked entirely different when performed in the Hudson Valley versus Fire Island. The same piece, Hurlin notes, was transformed by the warehouse space, where the dancing creates an unexpected sense of intimacy, and by the luminous expanse of the Bay, where the dancing feels expansive and free, a reminder of how place can profoundly influence the presentation of dance.
Audiences, Hurlin says, have embraced the Hudson Valley Dance Festival with enthusiasm. Residents, weekenders, and visitors alike come seeking live performance and community, creating a festival atmosphere that is vibrant, engaged, and strongly connected.
Asked to describe what defines these festivals after all these years, Hurlin doesn’t hesitate. “Community,” she says. “You see it onstage, backstage, and in the audience. Everyone returns; everyone gives - it’s a full-circle moment for so many people.”
Catherine Tharin is a choreographer, writer, curator, and educator. Her writing on dance has appeared in The Dance Enthusiast, Interlocutor, Side of Culture, and the Boston Globe. Tharin currently curates The Dance Series at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, NY, and dance film at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY. Throughout her career, she has championed both innovative and legacy choreography, supported the work of artists across the field, and brought critical attention to the art form. Her latest dance, In the Wake of Yes, was noted as "powerfully animated, positively fizzy, full of droll wit" (Fjord), “The piece blended dance, art, and language into a layered meditation on love and emotional vulnerability." (Eye on Dance).
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