Amid a summer full of activity, we’d like to pause to acknowledge and welcome several funding organizations into the Dance on the Lawn family. 

Our sponsors focus on supporting arts programs with strong community connections. The Dodge Foundation, a key supporter of the arts in New Jersey for nearly 40 years, has a focus on programs with an inclusive mission and an emphasis on the meaningful role that the arts can have in building community. Partners for Health Foundation aims to invest in programs that improve the quality of life in Essex and Passaic Counties. Similarly, BSTV and Investors Bank support community-minded organizations that contribute to civic life in the NJ communities they serve. And in August, we added Montclair Orthodontics to our esteemed list of supporters.

To cap this season’s campaign, DOTL also is a proud recipient of a Masterwork Foundation Community Grant Award. This New Jersey-based organization has been supporting excellence in the arts, particularly music, for more than fifty years and recently announced an expansion of their mission to include funding in all arts disciplines. To celebrate, the Foundation invited artists, arts lovers, and arts supporters to a “re-envisioning” event at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ in March, where DOTL’s 2019 Emerging Commissioned NJ Choreographer, Oluwadamilare (Dare) Ayorinde, shared a piece of his work-in-progress. Executive Director Todd Whitley again honored DOTL in June: “Recognizing community-based programming that supports excellence in the arts is what the Masterwork Foundation' s Community Grant Awards are all about. We're pleased to offer our top grant award to Dance on the Lawn, whose generosity and conviction to the arts we admire.”

AND...just before our big event on Saturday, September 7th, Dr. Barnes & Carter, Family Eye Care, Marc Berube, L&B Healthy Pet Markets, Jonathan DeCamp - DeCamp Bus Lines, Egan & Sons, Pub & Kitchen and Stuffed Grass-Fed Burgers joined our DOTL family!

Support from these organizations is an acknowledgement of DOTL’s dedication to enriching our shared communities. In each case, the funders recognized DOTL’s strength as a resource in supporting the local dance community and in making dance performance accessible to all. This recognition also shows how much DOTL has grown since the first festival in 2014. The hard work by DOTL’s many local supporters is raising awareness, helping to ensure DOTL’s presence as the place for dance in Montclair. For this, we’re particularly proud and grateful.

Garden Dances were hosted by friends of DOTL in May and June to support DOTL 2019!

In May, Dance on the Lawn welcomed the warmth of spring with Garden Dances, the first in a series of informal outdoor gatherings hosted by community friends of DOTL. ​Our May hosts, Jessica and Quincy Troupe, are longtime supporters of DOTL:

“We are so very honored to help raise needed funds for Dance on the Lawn: My husband and I are passionate about supporting the arts on a local level. Charmaine Warren and Laura Marchese have tirelessly advocated for this annual festival and, as a result, have exposed this community to the wonders of dance. We wholeheartedly support their endeavor!”

Garden Dances in June was hosted by Debbie and Frank Gibbons.  Debbie shared what access to dance means to her:

“Dancing has always been a source of joy, a way to communicate feeling. When I first saw Dance on the Lawn five years ago, I was hooked.  What a gift to experience live dance - right in our own backyard!! In our crazy, busy, technology-driven world, Dance on the Lawn gives us a moment to pause, slow down, and experience the beauty of human movement so that, for just a moment, we can remember we are all connected.”