Past
Grantees

Jerome Directors authorized a two-year grant of $20,000 to RHIZOME.ORG, New York City, in support of a commissioning program. rhizome.org is a leading on-line resource for and about new media artists and their work. It connects, educates, and serves the new media art community and the public through e-mail services, a web site and outreach events. It uses the Internet to facilitate a critical dialogue that is accessible, inclusive and ongoing, and to build community across geographic and cultural borders. The commissioning program provides fees to emerging artists working in new media. An annual call for proposals yields applications that are judged by an independent jury. Finished work is placed on-line at http://www.rhizome.org/commissions.

BEN RIESMAN, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant to support FLIGHT, a performance and video installation in which participants take part in a ritual that recalls NASA launches as well as religious practices, drawing linkages between religious and secular ritual experience.

ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in continued support of the Commissioning Program for Emerging Composers. Roulette offers over 50 musical concerts each year, paying fees to artists, commissioning new works, providing publicity, offering production and recording facilities, and initiating recording and distribution programs. In 1998, Roulette mounted a pilot commissioning program for young experimental composers, with Jerome Foundation assistance. This new grant continues support for that program, whose purpose is to undercover new trends within fringe composers who generally have one form or another of electronics as a component of their compositions. The commissioned works are then performed on Roulettes season. The commissions are made through a nominating process involving people chosen for their knowledge of young experimental composers in New York City. The commission gives the artist the liberty and mandate to make a piece with sustained structural intention, which can withstand scrutiny and the focused listening experience that a Roulette concert provides.

RICHARD ROWLEY & JACQUELINE SOOHEN received a grant for The Fourth World War, an experimental film that weaves together intensely intimate footage from six conflictsin Argentina, Chiapis, Palestine, South Africa, Korea and the war on terror as it moves through New York, Afghanistan and Iraq. Its layered, polyphonic editing style reveals points of connection among communities coming to terms with the violent reorganization of every aspect of their lives and worlds.

Lute player PHILIP RUKAVINA will travel for one and a half months in Basel, Switzerland, to study the lute and vihuela da mano with Hopkinson Smith. The six-course vihuela da mano is the Spanish equivalent of the Renaissance six-course lute and an indirect ancestor of the modern guitar. The focus of Rukavinas studies will be on intabulations, or settings of vocal works, on the vihuela da mano by well-known vihuelistas. Smith is a top player and teacher of this style.

S.A.S.E.: THE WRITE PLACE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $99,000 in support of three programs: the S.A.S.E./Jerome Fellowships, Mentor Program, and Verve Fellowship Program. S.A.S.E.: The Write Place, which takes writing out of the studio and into the streets, is a multi-purpose nonprofit literature organization that supports writing in an ever expanding arena of formats and genres. The S.A.S.E./Jerome fellowship program competitively awards stipends to five to seven emerging writers each year. The Verve Fellowship Program, piloted in 2001-02, provides support to spoken word artists. The Writer to Writer Mentor Program allows emerging writers to develop skills and confidence by establishing a connection with a seasoned mentor through group and one-on-one sessions

LYNNE SACHS received support for Visit to a State of Unbelonging, a 70-minute cine-essay that explores the various ways we can know, confront and identify with another human being. Using a pastiche of both authentic and fabricated artifacts, the film reconstructs the lives of three peoplethe father of the director, a distant relative who fled post-World War II Europe for the countryside of Brazil, and an Israeli woman encountered in a newspaper article.

ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY, Collegeville, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $45,500 in support of the St. John's Pottery Emerging Artists Program. Under the direction of master potter Richard Bresnahan, St. John's Pottery educates students and artists in the philosophy and practices of sustainable resource development, involves them in a totally indigenous artistic environment in an academic setting, and assists local communities with the sustainable development of native resources. Each year, St. John's invites emerging artists from Minnesota and New York City to apply for two-month residencies at the Pottery, with unlimited access to raw materials, to produce new work. Artists working in any visual arts discipline are eligible. They receive honoraria, travel stipends, food, lodging, supplies and the experience of making work in a studio environment, with ample opportunity for mentorship and technical support.

RUTH SERGEL received support for Belle, a short narrative fable of old age and beauty, which explores the intersection of age, race and family ties; celebrating the challenges of our imperfect humanity.

JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $11,000 to support its 2004 Ballet Works program. The mission of the company is to create and perform an exceptionally diverse and appealing repertoire in an effort to broaden audience access to dance and to advance the art form. The essential element in achieving that mission is the choreography of Artistic Director James Sewell and its performances by a well-trained ensemble of dancers. The goal for the Ballet Works program is to create, acquire and develop work by emerging choreographers, who are given the support they need and access to the company in order to develop new work. One of the choreographers participating in the current season is Wynn Fricke. She developed a new work for seven dancers, titled A Water Death, last season in this program. She will receive further support to develop the work for performance by the James Sewell Ballet in the late spring of 2004. The second choreographer will be Matthew Keefe, a company member.

KIRK RAY SHANNON-BUTTS received a grant in support of blueprint, a feature-length narrative following college freshmen Ross, 17 and Malick, 19, who meet on the last day of their first year of college. Feeling liberated, Malick is set to roam off into the heat, the sun and fun of summer when he stumbles across the studious Ross, who is gearing up for a semester abroad (starting the very next morning). Before he begins his trip, Ross finds himself swept into Malicks carefree and adventurous world as they spend the day exploring New York City, each other and beyond. blueprint is a film about identity, intellect, attraction and self-discovery.

Funding was awarded to THERESE SHECHTER to support I Was a Teenage Feminist, a first-person journey into a movement that once sparked social revolution, yet now invokes indifference and disdain. In the hopes of reclaiming feminism as a tool for personal and political power, the filmmaker will explore the F-word from a variety of perspectives. The work is a one-hour digital video documentary and personal examination of one of the 20th centurys most important socio-political movements.

Taiko drummer IRIS MISAE SHIRAISHI will spend four weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii in an in-depth study of matsuri-bayashi (festival music) and specifically, the Wakayama-ryu festival music of Edo-bayashi. Shiraishi will work intensively with Taiko teacher Kenny Endo. She will also take classes offered by the Taiko Arts Center. In 2002, Endo received the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts Individual Artist Award for Taiko drumming.

WILLIAM SLICHTER, Minneapolis, MN, was awarded a grant for Flourtown, an animated short that combines live action with animation, telling the story of corporate greed and the redemptive power of art. It focuses on two children of artists, who die in an accident stemming from the negligence of a group of industrialists who own a tornado factory. The story follows the lives of the artist couple as they recover from the tragedy.

NO NAME EXHIBITIONS @ THE SOAP FACTORY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $20,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City and Minnesota artists in the 2003 exhibition program. Half of the grant is restricted to emerging artist stipends. No Name presents four or five large-scale exhibitions and several single artist shows featuring a wide range of media each season, May through October. Its mission is to support and exhibit the work of emerging visual artists; enhance the publics understanding of and appreciation for artistic expression; and foster strength and vitality in the arts, cultural and educational communities of the Twin Cities. The large-scale and raw character of the space enables artists to express themselves in innovative ways.

SOHO REPERTORY THEATRE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the development of new works by emerging playwrights. Incorporated in 1975, Soho Rep produces new and experimental theater productions. It sees itself as a hothouse for exuberant theatrical work and a place to nurture the exotic and extreme. Its play development activities include a staged workshop series and the Writer/Director Lab, a six-month laboratory in which playwrights are supported in creating first drafts of full-length plays. Soho Rep ordinarily produces three mainstage productions a year. Its Literary Department reads and responds to hundreds of scripts. This grant marks the third year of support that the Foundation has offered to Soho Rep.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $25,000 in support of the provision of technical assistance and services to artists. This organization helps artists and arts organizations move to new levels of career and organizational development. Its core services include individual consultations on career, organizational, and financial planning; telephone consultations on a broad array of business and professional issues; an artists loan fund; workshops on topics such as career planning, legal issues, portfolio reviews, and employment; a legal referral service, speaking engagements; and management consulting on topics such as organizational start up and development, Board meeting facilitation, strategic planning and fundraising. Many of Jerome Foundations grantees, both individual artists and arts organizations, are served by Springboard for the Arts.

JORDAN SRAMEK, an early music singer and director of The Rose Ensemble, will travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, to attend a two-week, intensive course on courtly music of the Troubadours in 14th Century France. This course is offered in conjunction with the Vancouver Early Music Festival taking place in July and August 2003. The courses musical focus will the works of Guillaume de Machaut, the great French poet/composer of the 14th Century, and his contemporaries. Sramek will improve his skills as a singer and musicologist and will seek out new repertoire for The Rose Ensemble.

LAURIE STERN & DAN LUKE, St. Paul, MN, received support for Carry it Forward, a documentary about the lives of Paul and Sheila Wellstone. It will explore the origin of Paul Wellstones politics, his controversial road to the Senate, his deep bond with his wife and co-Senator Sheila, and the legacy of a life of progressive populism.

The SOUTHERN THEATER FOUNDATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer ROBIN STIEHM AND HER DANCING PEOPLE COMPANY, received $11,000 in support of the creation and development of new work. Stiehm is making a new abstract quintet set to the music of Brahms, titled Chance Makes Luck. Her second new work will be a trio for women set to the music of New York composer Annie Gosfield. Stiehm is also reworking an older piece titled In a Room, Gambling.