It’s time for tap to take its seat at the contemporary dance table, and it starts in Chilmark. Artists colony the Yard began its second annual Tap the Yard festival on Thursday night, July 25, bringing together a host of rhythm and percussive-based dancers that go beyond the standard tap steps to include hiphop, Irish step dancing, body percussion and modern dance.

Three downtown divas arrive on the up-Island dance scene this weekend.

New York choreographers Jodi Melnick, Vicky Shick and Jon Kinzel are performing at the Yard in Chilmark today and tomorrow, June 29 and 30, both performances beginning at 8 p.m.

There won’t be a dance technique that’s not included in the RISE Vineyard Performing Arts student upcoming recital, Americana! The students will perform ballet, tap, contemporary, jazz, acrobatics and a little hip-hop and creative dance as they celebrate all things American at the Performing Arts Center in Oak Bluffs on Saturday, June 22, beginning at 6 p.m., and again on Sunday, June 23, beginning at 2 p.m.

Every dance has its own vocabulary or its own “it-ness” as choreographer David Brick refers to it. For the past three weeks at the Yard, Mr. Brick’s job has been to draw out this “it-ness”, harness it and help three up and coming choreographers dig a little deeper into their work.

This past weekend the World Choreography Institute arrived in Edgartown to have a conversation about dance. On the final day of the think tank, dance masters and interested Islanders sat on couches and pillows on the floor in the living room of the Noepe Center for Literary Arts, formerly the Point Way Inn. They were dissecting a recording of George Balanchine’s ballet, Jewels, in particular the second movement of the piece, known as Rubies.

When the Dance Theatre of Harlem was created in 1969, its mission was straightforward: change the world through dance. Now, after an eight-year hiatus, the mission is evolving from its Civil Rights-era roots to embrace what ballet can mean today. And the evolution of this new company is beginning right here on the Vineyard. The three week-old new company has been in residence for the past two weeks at the Vineyard Arts Project and will perform this weekend.