The Yard Takes a Year for Sustainability Planning

For more than 50 years as an island nonprofit, The Yard has nurtured artists on Martha’s Vineyard, serving as a home for bold performance, creative exchange, and community connection. In keeping with that mission, starting in October 2025 we will be pausing our routine programming and operations for one year in order to re-imagine how we serve artists and our local and national community.

This decision, made by our Board of Directors in consultation with senior leadership, comes in response to current economic realities that invite us to reflect, reset, and restructure—ensuring a vibrant, sustainable future for both our Chilmark property and our mission to grow choreographers, dancers, and live arts audiences. Taking this year will allow us to step back and clarify our vision, reimagine our financial model, and cultivate partnerships that will strengthen our ability to serve artists and the island community for decades to come.

Like all nonprofits, we are witnessing major shifts in the national landscape, including significant cuts to federal, state, and private foundation funding. Yet these shifts also present an opportunity—to reimagine how arts organizations can thrive in new ways, foster innovative partnerships, and champion models of sustainability that meet the moment.

During the next year, The Yard will: 

Conduct a full strategic review of programming, operations, and facilities, building upon our 2024 Strategic Business Plan and longstanding Capital Plan, while remaining attentive to new philanthropic conditions and the shifting economic climate.

- Work hand-in-hand with community members, artists, and partners to envision The Yard’s next chapter.

- Explore fresh opportunities for creative collaboration and co-presentations, expanding our capacity to provide meaningful support to artists and audiences alike.

- Prioritize fiscal responsibility and design a sustainable financial plan that secures long-term stability and growth.

We are deeply grateful for The Yard’s staff whose dedication and passion has long been the beating heart of our organization. And to our artists, audiences, donors, and partners: your faith in The Yard’s mission continues to inspire us. Because of you, we know this next chapter will be one of resilience, creativity, and renewal.

While our stages may be quiet in 2026, our commitment to dance, imagination, and community will remain unwavering. This pause is a vital investment in the future, creating space for bold new possibilities that honor both our mission and our responsibility.

To ensure this year of planning is a success, we need your support—financial investment, community leadership, expertise in organizational change, entrepreneurial vision, and mutual aid. If you’d like to get involved, please contact us at [email protected].

We look forward to sharing updates as our plans take shape, and to welcoming you back when The Yard reemerges—renewed, ready, and inspired to serve as a home for artistic innovation and community gathering for generations to come.

--
Michele Sasso, Board President
On behalf of The Yard’s Board of Directors

Join us for Johnny Loves Johann

Join us in celebrating the finale of our 52nd Season with a new work-in-progress by violinist Johnny Gandelsman and choreographers John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood. The Company will be here September 26th - October 6th, working on this new work. The performance pairs Gandelman’s unique interpretation of Bach’s Cello Suites—performed live on violin—with original choreography, celebrating the humanity and dance at the center of this iconic music.

The work-in-progress showing is Sunday, October 5, 2025 from 5:30-7 pm at Vineyard Arts Project, 215 Main Street, Edgartown, MA.

Tickets are $10 & $20. Visit dancetheyard.org for tickets. Seating is limited and we encourage patrons to buy online. Door sales are cash or check only.

The Yard’s Johnny Loves Johann residency is presented in collaboration with the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and Carolina Performing Arts.

Carolina Performing Arts and the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts serve as lead co-commissioners for this work.  This work also received commissioning support from The Joyce Theater’s Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work (with additional support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund); the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond; Works & Process; and The Yard. Additional funding support provided by Jody and John Arnhold, Alva Greenberg, John Mittelman, Marty Peretz, and Ken and Florence Umezaki.  Fiscal sponsorship provided by Producer Hub.

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