Denise Roberts Hurlin
Founding Director

Denise Roberts Hurlin’s career has taken her down several diverse paths after graduating in 1984 with a BFA in Dance from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. As a dancer, she was a founding member of Parsons Dance in 1987 and has set David Parson’s work on the Purchase Dance Corps and Netherlands Dans Theater. She performed for six years with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, where she danced the leads in such Taylor classics as Aureole, Big Bertha, Sunset and Company B, and was featured in the PBS/WNET Dance in America special Speaking in Tongues. In 1991, Denise and fellow Paul Taylor dancer Hernando Cortez co-founded Dancers Responding to AIDS as a vehicle to help so many of their friends and fellow dancers who had become ill. Denise remains in her role as founding director, leading the program’s efforts to continue providing a safety net for the dance community. Denise also is an inaugural member of the advisory council for The Dancers’ Resource, a program of The Actors Fund founded by Bebe Neuwirth. She is married to Broadway Cares Production Manager Nathan Hurlin. They are the proud parents of Catherine and Henry Hurlin.
Photo by David Liddell