David White, longtime artistic director at the Yard, is retiring Sept. 30 after a 50-year career in dance performance and presentation.
During his tenure, the Yard overcame an existential crisis and reached new audiences with hip-hop, tap dancing and sold-out performances at the Martha’s Vineyard Ice Arena by the innovative Montreal skating troupe Le Patin Libre.
Mr. White joined the Yard in early 2011, a time when the Chilmark-based dance residency was suffering from a potentially fatal financial burden.
“The Yard was encumbered by all sorts of debts, all over the Island,” said Mr. White, who sought donor support to help close the $230,000 deficit.
“There was a legacy there that was endangered,” he said of the Yard, which was founded by Patricia Nanon in 1973 and remains among the relatively rare dance residencies on the American cultural scene. “I thought this is an important thing to save and also to re-purpose to the future, so that was my basic premise.”
It took about two years to pay off the debts, he said. Meanwhile, under Mr. White’s direction the Yard quickly began expanding its offerings beyond the occasional Chilmark recital by dancers in residency to performances aimed at the wider Island audience.
“When I arrived, I made a statement I have repeated since then: Our legitimacy would come from being owned by the year-round population.”
To reach these new audiences, Mr. White brought shows to the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center in Oak Bluffs, beginning his first year with choreographer Doug Elkins’s Fraulein Maria.
Based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein blockbuster The Sound of Music, Mr. Elkins’s work took Island audiences by surprise—and delight.
“People still talk about it,” Mr. White said. “Almost 10 years later, people are still saying ‘When is he coming back?’”
Mr. White cultivated diversity in Yard programming, beginning his first season with H.T. Chen and Dancers and working year after year with rising stars such as the African-American choreographer Camille A. Brown, Malpaso Dance Company from Cuba and Brazilian percussive dancer Leonardo Sandoval.
The annual Tap the Yard tap series and a string of performances by leading hip-hop dancers also helped widen the Yard’s appeal among Islanders and dance supporters.
“We had to be out front in terms of inclusive work,” he said.
“One of the benefits to artists was that the Yard began to redevelop (and) expand its notoriety on a regional and national level, that we had an important program of supporting artists,” Mr. White continued. “We were lucky in that we received a major anonymous underwriting for several years that enabled us to put artists first in the process.”
In 2013, Mr. White and Jesse Keller Jason, the Yard’s director of Island programs and education, established the Making It program bringing dance classes to local schools and senior centers, and in 2016 the Winter Yard was launched with off-season concerts at the Performing Arts Center and Chilmark Community Center.
Musical groups Mr. White brought to the Winter Yard included Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq, female mariachi ensemble Flor de Toloache and, in a dance party at the Chilmark Community Center, the Brooklyn bhangra group Red Baraat.
Last year, the Winter Yard collaborated with the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse to present Pang!, a theatre piece about food insecurity by the multi-disciplinary performer and director Dan Froot.
As he prepares to leave the Vineyard, Mr. White said he is particularly proud of the Yard’s connection with the Wampanoag community, where Caribbean native choreographer Marcia Parrilla has been collaborating with tribal members for more than two years, most recently on Zoom.
“Our work with the elders at the Aquinnah Cultural Center has been a real bright spot for us,” he said. “We embedded with the center to develop work in conjunction with the community.”
Mr. White’s work and reputation as a turnaround artist for dance companies began in New York city, where he led the Dance Theater Workshop for 28 years beginning in 1975.
“It was an organization that was challenged,” he recalled of the lower Manhattan institution, where he would encourage the work of ground-breaking choreographers such as Bill T. Jones, Reggie Wilson, Yanira Castro and many others.
Yard board chair Michelle Sasso was a Yard employee when Mr. White came on board in 2011.
“There was this new legend coming to the Island and we had no idea what to expect,” she recalled. “It’s pretty incredible to see the change and the difference, from things that were just talk over tuna sandwiches in the back yard in 2011 to seeing it and attending it and seeing how audiences engage.”
The Yard is not seeking a replacement for Mr. White at this time, Ms. Sasso said. Instead, a team of three Yard managers will collaborate on artistic direction: Ms. Keller, executive director Chloe Jones and director of artist services and associate producer Holly Jones (no relation).
“David has worked really hard to prepare our team for this moment, so I truly believe that as much as he leaves big shoes to fill, we’re ready,” Chloe Jones told the Gazette Monday morning.
“In his entire tenure at the Yard, he has empowered various staff members to take on leadership positions,” she continued. “He has viewed himself as a mentor for our staff, and fulfilled that role.”
Mr. White’s time at the Yard has left an enduring impression on the nonprofit and its staff, Ms. Jones said.
“He has really embodied the sense of being in service,” she said. “He is wholeheartedly dedicated (and) always has the bigger picture in mind.
“I really would describe him as a visionary,” Ms. Jones continued. “Working with him keeps you connected to the larger role and larger vision of what role the arts play in society.”
As a student at Wesleyan University, Mr. White’s early work in film and theatre led him to contemporary dance. While he did some performing himself, the bulk of his career has been spent in supporting and extending the work of choreographers, often by creating new resources such as touring networks, performance series and an annual awards program for dance in New York.
He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Wesleyan University, a Knight (Chevalier) in France’s Order of Arts and Letters, a recipient of the Dance/USA Honors, the Capezio Award and the Dance Magazine Award as well as both the Governor’s and Mayor’s Award of New York State and New York City, among other citations.
“He has a deep contextual understanding of how we got here,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s amazing to work with someone who has this encyclopedic knowledge of the dance field.”
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