There’s a place on the Vineyard where the boundaries are constantly changing and forms of artistic expression take on new meanings and challenges. It’s a bracing environment where the creative process is valued over the end result, where audiences regularly give standing ovations, not because they are easy critics but because they appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into this work.

The place is the Yard in Chilmark, and last weekend marked the end of another summer with the annual Bessie Schönberg Choreographers’ Residency Concert, where new works by Marta Renzi, Yara Travieso, Ximena Garnica and Gregory Dolbashian were shown.

“It’s the pride and joy of the Yard,” artistic director Wendy Taucher said of the highly competitive application process. Ms. Taucher received hundreds of applications from all over the world for the four-week paid residency stint, where choreographers are provided work space, dancers and housing. The dancers are an elite group as well; after 200 dancers auditioned in New York last year, eight were hired.

“I’m interested in variety,” Ms. Taucher said of this year’s group. “I think with these four choreographers there was something about a specificity of each of their work and their ability to tell a story and remain within a kind of palette so they’re not throwing the kitchen sink into the piece. They’re creating a specific world that creates its own sense of integrity and design.”

Each choreographer brought something very different to the stage, but for all it was clear the Vineyard had a great effect on their works. In interviews before opening night, the admiration and respect for each other was evident.

“It’s a great mix. The four of us are not the same voice at all, so there’s something for everyone,” Ms. Renzi said. “It’s not the same dance four times by any means. [The audience’s] focus will shift with each dance.”

And it did. The evening opened with Ms. Renzi’s The Great World Spins, a dreamlike piece with an older woman looking back at her youth. Ms. Renzi used both professional dancers and community dancers from the Vineyard, spanning ages from 13 to 75. The scrim was used to help narrate periods of time; at once playful and contemplative, it felt like a lazy Sunday afternoon when a grandmother shares stories with her granddaughter.

“There are different ways to approach the medium of dance. I think there’s a certain color wheel, and we’re opposites,” fellow choreographer Ms. Travieso said. “It’s really great because maybe if someone isn’t familiar with dance they can get a certain taste of the different colors on that wheel. It’s a really great spectrum.”

Her piece followed in Meta (1-10) or Luci, in which she incorporated video of a dancer at Lucy Vincent Beach. “For me, the work is based on structures and a lot of it comes from architecture and trying to extract a certain line between architecture, systems and chaos and treading that line,” Ms. Travieso said. “It’s almost like a condensed exploration and a game”

The game consisted of balancing time and natural elements; dancers used a rock attached to a rope as a pendulum of time and reality. At times it was a catalyst for movement; when one dancer threw the rock across the stage, another reacted as if he were a rock being tossed in the ocean. The sound of crashing waves played in the background.

“There’s a very specific way of life and lifestyle and being closed on an Island,” Ms. Travieso said. “Because we were isolated here in a little community of process and creativity, what ends up happening is there is a direct influence on our experience here because this is all you’re ingesting.”

Ms. Travieso and Ms. Garnica challenged the audience. In Becoming, Ms. Garnica (originally from Columbia) questioned the body as an object and dance in relationship to the body. Using a video projection as a light source projected onto the dancers’ bodies, the group appeared two dimensional for much of the performance.

“The musicality of the piece is dictated by the light instead of the music itself. The music becomes something else from the piece, the space becomes something else,” Ms. Garnica said. “I’m constantly redefining terminology within the dance field as well. It’s a conversation of the body but also a larger conversation within the field.”

A more literal conversation of relationships unfolded in Mr. Dolbashian’s It’s Happening to Me.

“I’m always trying to provide something that people can relate to, not necessarily a story with a through line, but with situations or scenarios, sensations or textures,” he said. “The best thing that people say to me is, ‘oh this reminded me of this,’ and, ‘I watched this and it made me remember this thing in my life.’ ”

In contrast with Ms. Garnica’s piece, Mr. Dolbashian’s movement was heightened by the music. Dancers moved seamlessly through phrases as they carved out space in the theatre. Mr. Dolbashian incorporated oral text into the piece, ending with the question: “How are you affected by the event . . . what do you leave with?” In the case of Mr. Dolbashian’s quartet, one couple breathes new life and another other collapses.

“It was really interesting to see that no matter the differences in how we facilitate what we’re making there’s still some similarity and consistencies with what we have in terms of what we’re trying to say or how we approach it,” Mr. Dolbashian said. “It’s been so informative and great to share that with everybody.”

Mr. Dolbashian plans to use his time at the Yard as a draft for future projects; Ms. Travieso will premier her piece in Miami in the spring and Ms. Garnica plans to further develop her piece for a dance festival in Bogota in November. Ms. Renzi has no further plans for her piece, which was a community-professional hybrid more specific to this workshop.

All were excited to receive feedback from the Vineyard community about how they should proceed from here.

“I wish everyone understood what a special and secret place this is. It’s a safe haven and unique environment,” Ms. Travieso said. “People should take advantage that it is here; we’re artists in the field doing things right now, all of us are doing things right now . . . [The Yard] is so special. What a wonderful little secret the Island has here. It’s a little golden nugget.”