Past
Grantees

A grant was awarded to NATALIA ALMADA for a documentary entitled El General. Dictator, iron-man, nun-burner, father of modern Mexico, Natalia Almada's great-grandfather, Plutarco Elias Calles was the president of Mexico from 1924 to 1928. El General is a feature-length film about the conflicting history Almada inherited as the great-granddaughter of one of Mexico's most controversial figures and the socio-economic injustice that has prevailed from the Revolution of 1910 to the present. El General is a journey into the past of Almada's family and an intimate portrait of Mexico then and now.

ANANYA DANCE THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $12,000 in support of the creation and production of the new work Daak, Call to Action. Ananya Dance Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director Ananya Chatterjea, is a company of women artists of color, diverse in age, race, nationality and sexual orientation, but uniformly committed to artistic excellence and passionate articulation of their dreams, hopes and desires. Choreographer Chatterjea incorporates the sculpturesque forms, strong foot work and emotional articulation of the Odissi classical style, with the purity of line and breath release of yoga, the abstract theatrical potential of Indian ritual practices, and the urgent energy of street theater. Daak responds to the aggressive land rights violations in agricultural communities for the purpose of establishing global industries. The project will share stories of women affected by such violations in Third World communities. The works will articulate the struggle over land rights through the innovative use of space and by imagining different relationships between bodies and land/ground.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer KIMBERLY BARTOSIK, received $8,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of Ecsteriority1&2, a dance in two parts for four performers. In this work, Bartosik explores various kinds of wars, and delves into the deaths and chaos they breed. The work will premiere in the fall of 2008. Bartosik believes in the visceral possibilities of performance and the importance of critical social inquiry. Her choreography is a mixture of movement virtuosity and stripped-down, charged stillness.

ELANA BELL, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Jerusalem, interviewing citizens, documenting observations and developing language skills to inform Holy. Land. Holy. Land., an in-progress collection of poems and poetic fragments in multiple voices exploring questions of identity and displacement as they relate to the land of Israel/former Palestine. Bell is an American granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and sees herself as a narrator/searcher with a fragmented and complex relationship to the land of Israel/Palestine. She will delve into the subject firsthand and participate more fully with communities.

MAGGIE BERGERON, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel to locations in Michigan, Texas, South Dakota, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Missouri, California and New Hampshire to research the experience of prom in multiple geographic locations and socioeconomic conditions. This will inform the creation of Maggie Bergeron & Company's upcoming production of Leaver's Ball. This new work is based on the microcosm of prom night as a right of passage and a means of examining the social order of American culture.

LISA BERMAN, St. Paul, Minnesota, and AMY SACKETT, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will go to Rotterdam, Holland, to work with B-Girl Aruna, explore and compare Hip Hop culture in Europe versus the U.S., and study Aruna's thriving art center, HipHopHuis, as a template for starting a similar organization in the Twin Cities. Berman and Sackett were introduced to Aruna in 2006 through the B-Girl Be summit at Intermedia Arts. Berman and Sackett are both choreographers working with the Twin Cities based hip hop dance companies, Rhythm Queenz and Collective. They are invested in creating positive female role models and breaking the choreographic gender stereotypes within hip-hop culture.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, as fiscal sponsor for THE BODYCARTOGRAPHY PROJECT, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the production and touring of 1/2 Life and the creation of the new work Symptom. Intermedia Arts is a multidisciplinary art center that often acts as a fiscal sponsor for independent artists and ensembles. The BodyCartography Project draws from modern dance, contact improvisation and other contemporary movement theories in the creation of work for theater, site-specific locations and dance films. Half Life investigates issues of intimacy, control, geography and science in the context of nuclear threat from three perspectives, the United States as a super power, Japan as an atomic bomb survivor and New Zealand as a nuclear-free zone. The starting place for research and development of Symptom is the exploration of three systems of approaching and knowing about the anatomy of the body. This work will be developed in collaboration with dancers, biologists, neurologists, physicists and somatic practitioners.

BLACKLOCK NATURE SANCTUARY, Moose Lake, Minnesota, received $21,560 in support of the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. Blacklock is dedicated to preserving undeveloped land and providing artists with uninterrupted time and space to develop new work. It fosters creative growth through direct experience, study and interpretation of nature. Its retreat center includes an all-season house, two studios, hiking trails, space for temporary installations and a photographic darkroom. The Emerging Artist Fellowship Program provides artists working in the performing, visual and literary arts with significant periods of uninterrupted residency time for research and creative exploration in a quiet natural setting. Two and four-week residencies are provided at the Sanctuary in Moose Lake and the Nadine Blacklock House on Lake Superior.

BOOKLYN, Brooklyn, New York, received $8,000 to support publication of three chapbooks of works by emerging New York City writers in the ABC series. Booklyn promotes artist books as an art form and educational resource; provides educational institutions and the public with programming involving contemporary artist books; publishes innovative books uniting the fields of literature and art; and assists artists and writers in publishing, exhibiting and distributing their work. Launched in 2005, the ABC (Another Booklyn Chapbook) series features new writing with fresh book design in an affordable, attractive book format. The series reflects a variety of literary genres including poetry, prose and creative nonfiction.

VIRGILIO BRAVO, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile, to reconnect with former political exiles and victims of political violence. His 2007 film Estilo Hip Hop chronicled Latin American hip hop activism and its impact on class and racial politics. He is extremely eager to reconnect with his native homeland and learn from former political exiles. He will travel under the mentorship of Rosa Ayress, who heads a non-governmental cultural arts institution that works with families of former political exiles. He hopes to learn from oral storytellers, working with families and elders on issues of loss of life and reconciliation. This will inform future film work.

Support was awarded to NICOLE BRENDING for an experimental narrative short titled Grandpa, about a small town stripper who gets a call that her grandfather has died, but she must finish her shift dancing for the old men who patronize the club where she works, before allowing herself to experience the overwhelming grief she feels. The film examines the interior world of the young woman who tries to put on an outward smile while attempting and failing to do her job. The impossibility of existing between the worlds of fantasy and reality, in circumstances that blur the two, are the focus of this story.

MICHAEL BROWN received support for 25 To Life, a documentary about a young man named William Brawner, who as a one-year-old received a blood transfusion that left him HIV Positive. Brawner's family cloaked his illness in secrecy, telling no one except close family members. William himself embraced the secrecy of his HIV status well into his adulthood. He even deluded himself about the seriousness of his situation by adopting a promiscuous lifestyle of unprotected sex with many different women. After years of neglecting his illness, William's world is shattered when his doctor tells him he will die soon if he does not change his lifestyle. He reflects on his promiscuous past and decides to confront the realities of his HIV status. With great courage, he chooses to break his silence, tell his past girlfriends about his situation and announce his HIV status on a popular Philadelphia radio station. This film is about his pursuit of redemption and liberation from his dubious past.

ANN CARTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to the Appalachian Mountains; San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; and throughout the Midwest to study with masters of clogging, percussive dance, and social dance calling to further her work with these community-building dance forms. Carter is a member of the Wild Goose Chase Cloggers (WGCC), whose mission is to spread the joy of Appalachian music and dance. Within these social dance forms, calling is an integral part of the choreography. She wants to study these forms to better integrate this into her work with the WGCC as well as her own intergenerational collaborative dance group, Steppin' Out, which fuses cloggers with African American step teams.

Directors authorized $8,500 for CAVE CANEM, New York City, in support of a workshop for emerging African American poets. Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional development of African American poets. Jerome Foundation provides support for writing workshops based in New York City. The workshops are structured as 11 two-hour sessions that include instruction in craft, and the creation and critique of new poems, followed by public readings with poets presenting work produced while in the workshop. Noted African American poets who have strong teaching abilities lead the workshops. Outcomes are participants' increased self-confidence, a deepened appreciation of diverse aesthetics and a willingness to experiment with new strategies and forms.

CAVE CANEM, New York City, received $17,000 to support two workshops for emerging African American and Asian American poets. Twelve weeks in duration, the two workshops will each engage up to 15 emerging poets. Workshops offer rigorous instruction, careful critique and an introduction to the work of contemporary African American poets. They are led by noted poets who have strong teaching abilities. Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional development of those poets. It has provided supportive programming for eleven years and has significantly influenced the literary landscape in the United States and abroad.

CHERRY LANE THEATRE, New York City, received a grant of $30,000 in continued support of the Mentor Project. The 83-year old Cherry Lane Theatre serves established and emerging playwrights in mainstage productions and developmental activities. Through the Mentor Project, Cherry Lane aims to develop the careers of three nascent playwrights each year, who've been identified through a highly selective process. Mentors, noted American playwrights, guide the emerging playwrights through an intensive six-phase developmental process, culminating in a showcase production. Cherry Lane transfers one play each season from the Mentor Project to the mainstage series for its world premiere.

THE CHILDREN'S THEATRE COMPANY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $7,840 to complete Round III of the Playground program. The Children's Theatre creates extraordinary theatre experiences that educate, challenge and inspire young people. Since 2001, with Jerome Foundation support, The Children's Theatre Company has collaborated with New Dramatists, New York City, on Playground, a program that enables emerging playwrights affiliated with New Dramatists to submit projects for development and possible production. Playwrights selected for the program receive full developmental support including dramaturgical resources and workshops with professional actors. This commitment to Playground will enable The Children's Theatre Company to continue to develop a new play by Liz Duffy Adams.

TZE CHUN, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina to research the history and culture of Argentine Tango through an intensive apprenticeship in tango, exploration of local Milongas, and investigation of tango shows in Buenos Aries. Chun is working choreographically with and against the emotional distance and cultural silence of her native Chinese culture and sees a parallel in Tango between the physically restrictive dresses with released and passionate movement. She is searching for a new movement style that explores themes of intimacy, social resistance, and unspoken personal histories.

THE CIVILIANS, New York City, received $9,800 to support the creation, development, and production of new works in the 2008-09 season. The Civilians is a company that works to strengthen the connections between theater and contemporary society. The central idea is to create investigative, collaborative theater in a sustained relationship with the public at every phase of a project's life. Under the artistic direction of Steve Cosson, The Civilians engages many associate artists who collaborate on the development of new works. Works in development include Brooklyn at Eye Level, The Great Immensity, Mr. Burns and Escaping the Modern World.

CLUBBED THUMB, New York City received $15,000 in support of the production of new works by emerging New York City-based playwrights. Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops and produces funny, strange and provocative new plays by emerging writers. Since 1996, it has presented readings and workshops of over 100 plays and over 60 productions. Its works range in form and content. While it supports all emerging artists, it is particularly committed to providing opportunities for women. Support for emerging playwrights includes commissions, development and full productions.