The Yard - Staff and Board Members

Staff & Board Members

PATRICIA N. NANON, FOUNDER & CHOREOGRAPHER
Patricia N. Nanon founded the Yard in 1973. A Bennington College graduate, she started her professional dance career in the Broadway musical Sing Out Sweet Land and performed in the companies of Hanya Holm and Doris Humphrey. Patricia Nanon choreographed for and co-directed the Choreographers’ Workshops with Trudy Goth, presenting in New York all the leading modern dance creators of the late 1940s and early 1950s. She choreographed a weekly Dumont television series and has presented her work in New York at the Theatre of the Open Eye with the New Repertory Ensemble at Queens College, The Hunter Playhouse, the 92nd Street Y, Marymount Manhattan, and St. Clement’s. Ms Nanon has produced new work annually at The Yard in Chilmark since its inception, and has received recognition for her vision and generosity from many leaders in the world of dance.

Ms Nanon’s own personal artistic journey, extensive and varied, led her to creating a place where many major contemporary choreographers have nurtured their talent. This discriminating vision is present in Ms Nanon’s work as an impresario and in her own work as a choreographer. Making new work each year, Ms Nanon continues to explore her own artistry and to expand service to the field for which The Yard is known. The Yard’s place as a significant member in the international dance and Island communities is treasured and well earned.

WENDY TAUCHER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Wendy Taucher is a director, choreographer, author, and arts educator. She brings a twenty-five year career of producing, directing, choreographing, and writing to her new lead executive role at The Yard.

Ms Taucher’s original dance theater works have been favorably reviewed in publications around the world, including The New York Times, Opera News, Dance Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, La Republica, The Scotsman, and The Times of London. She recently premiered a new one-act chamber dance created in collaboration with Carly Simon and starring Paola Styron. Along with dance and mixed media works, Ms Taucher has directed and choreographed over fifty operas and musicals around the country, including works as diverse as Dido and Aeneas, Le Nozze di Figaro, The Mother of Us All, The Music Man, and Grease. She has received grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the state arts councils of Illinois, New Jersey, and North Carolina, Jacob’s Pillow, and the Harkness Dance Foundation. An active arts educator, Ms Taucher worked for sixteen years as a Teaching Artist for Lincoln Center Institute and recently published her first book, Making Music for Movement and Dance, for Silver Burdett, the most prominent publisher of elementary music textbooks. Ms Taucher has a degree in music from Northwestern University and studied choreography in the professional choreographer's course with the legendary Bessie Schönberg at the Dance Theater Workshop in New York City.

SANDRA STONE, ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Sandra Stone is currently on the dance faculty at the Boston Conservatory. Ms Stone danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company from 1982-1995. During that time, Mr. Taylor created many featured roles for her, including The Party Girl in his Emmy award-winning Speaking in Tongues and the “I Can Dream Can't I?” solo from Company B. Ms. Stone collaborated with Mr. Taylor on his hit Funny Papers. She was a resident choreographer at The Yard in the summer of 1995, and has received the Nora Kaye Award for choreography. In addition to choreographing her own work, Ms. Stone has staged several of Mr. Taylor's works on ballet and dance companies throughout the world. Prior to working with Mr. Taylor, she danced with the Martha Graham Ensemble, Pearl Lang, and the David Parsons Dance Company. She has taught master classes and workshops in Tokyo, Budapest, Athens, and at universities and colleges throughout the United States, and is on the faculty of the Paul Taylor School in New York City. Ms. Stone has a BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts.

LINDA TARNAY, ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Linda Tarnay is currently chair of dance at Tisch School for the Arts at New York University. She has performed with Anna Sokolow, Lotte Goslar, Phyllis Lamhut, James Cunningham, the New York Shakespeare Festival, and American Dance Festival Repertory Company, and is the former artistic director of her own company, Linda Tarnay and Dancers. She has received the Creative Artists Public Service Award (CAPS) and choreography grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. Ms. Tarnay has taught at Bennington College, Connecticut College, and Princeton University. She is a founding member and trustee of Dance Theater Workshop, and has served as an artist-in-residence at the Yard, director of Transitions Dance Company at Laban Centre, London, dance director of the Choreographers and Composers Project at American Dance Festival, director of the American Dance Festival International Choreographers Residency, and as a panelist on the Fulbright Selection Committee. Ms Tarnay earned her BA from Bennington College and her MA from New York University.

LISE BRODY, DIRECTOR OF RESIDENCIES
Lise Brody received her MFA in dance from California Institute of the Arts. She has presented her work in Los Angeles and Boston, most recently with her newly formed company, Screech to a Stop. She is a former member of Back Porch Dance Company and has been an invited participant in two creative institutes with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange She taught high school for eleven years in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and is adjunct faculty in the department of music, theater and dance at Rhode Island College. She brings experience in grant-writing and grassroots environmental activism to her new position at The Yard.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Martha Eddy, David Federowicz, Judy Federowicz, Austin Franklin, Suzanne Goldstein, Richard A. Gross, Charlotte Hall, Scott Holcombe, Sarah Jane Hughes, Carla Hutker, Inez Janger, Lisbeth Jones, Elaine Miller, Patricia N. Nanon, Norton Owen, Linda Tarnay, Wendy Taucher

ADVISORY BOARD

Janis Brenner, Sandy Broyard, Jeanne Burke, Darrah Carr, Lucinda Childs, Connie Chin, Betsy Corsiglia, Brenda Davenport, Carmen deLavallade, Carolyn Dorfman, David Dorfman, Elizabeth Eisenhauer, Noel Fiarotta, Leslie Findlen, Ann Floyd, Anne Gallagher, Scott Killian, Kanta Lipsky, Murray Louis, Dorothy Madden, Edward Miller, Patricia Neal, William C. Newman, Jose Sanabria, Bruce Saylor, Kathy Sollitto, Gus Solomons jr, Katharine Sterling, Paul Taylor, Alice Teirstein, Monina von Opel, Rebecca Ward, Cate Woolner, Judi Worthington