Who are we? BarnArts History and Programming

BarnArts was founded in 2012 to create more opportunities for our rural community to engage in the arts.

With a population of under 1,000 year-round residents, Barnard can be found at the intersection of three roads in central Vermont, 40 minutes from a stoplight. The town center includes a general store, church, town hall, state park and a 32-acre lake, all of which bring visitors to our town and make it a great place to live.

BarnArts enriches the entire region by providing opportunities to engage with the arts as both a viewer and active participant. Our audience and our performers are willing to travel to be part of what we do! Luckily for all, Barnard is a beautiful place to find yourself listening to music, watching a play, or singing! Our cast and crew in recent theater productions came from Barnard, Woodstock, Rutland, Sharon, Mount Holly, and Strafford as well as Grantham, Lebanon and Hanover, New Hampshire!

We are putting Barnard on the map as an arts destination by continuing to present world-class artists in the league of larger arts organizations, while continuing to serve our rural community through community-based participatory arts programming.

BarnArts does not operate out of one venue, but instead uses existing community venues or outdoor spaces, mostly in Barnard such as our town hall, a community church, and a local organic farm. We also periodically use stages in neighboring towns, and we work extensively with schools across the region – mostly in Vermont and occasionally in New Hampshire. In 2020 we took an outdoor staged reading performance on tour to 8 different Vermont sites (including the steps of the Statehouse in Montpelier!) We stay open to creative ways to reach an ever-expanding audience.

Our slogan, “Building Community through Art,” reflects the essence of our goals and our success. BarnArts believes that human society innately hungers for meaningful and communal engagement and offers an outlet for thoughtfulness, expression and reflection for community members of all ages. Interacting with live music, theater, and art creates a special and rare form of community participation and an outlet for civic dialogue.

Our annual programs include:

• Four Community Theater productions, including our popular 3-week BarnArts Summer Youth Theater camp for youth ages 8-18.
• Arts-in-Schools programming with visiting musicians, including our twice-yearly Global Music Residency which embeds international artists in our community for 6-10 days of school workshops and public events.
• Masquerade Jazz & Funk Winter Music Carnival, with local and regional professional artists performing with budding high school musicians.
• Feast and Field Music Series, an 18-week curated outdoor music series set on a working farm May-September with a world-class lineup that balances genre, gender, and race, and features international bands alongside our home-grown local talent.
• Barnard Street Dance, a free community event highlighting local talent and presented in partnership with town organizations.
• Holiday Cabaret, an intimate seasonal celebration of food and dancing with BarnArts singers and a swing band.
• Race Around the Lake, 5k and 10k races raising money for youth programming, including Summer Youth Theater and the expansion of Arts-In-Schools programs.

Mission

To engage and inspire the local community through a year-round program of community theater, musical performances, youth theater, school workshops, and community events supporting both the existing and developing talents of local adults and children as well as nationally and internationally recognized artists.

Vision

A community that views art as essential to social well-being, values the pursuit of creativity and shared learning and where a thriving arts culture and rural economy are mutually supportive.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

BarnArts stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and all people standing up against the systemic racism and white supremacy embedded in our country since its founding. We believe in the power of art to confront wrongs and speak truth and are dedicated to that higher purpose in the art we create and present. Art can provoke and it can heal, but it can not stay silent, and we at BarnArts are committed to walking the talk, and actively supporting healing through truth and justice.  We will continue to educate ourselves, educate others and take responsibility. We acknowledge that we are living and working on land taken from the Abenaki and commit to righting wrongs within ourselves, within our community and within our country.