Past
Grantees

HERE, New York City, is a multi-arts center with three performance spaces, a gallery and a caf. Jerome Foundation funding of $20,000 was authorized for the development of Dead Tech, a new dance theater work inspired by Ibsens 1892 play The Master Builder and theoretical texts including Dead Tech: A Guide to the Archaeology of Tomorrow and Pornography in the Urban World. Dead Tech represents an important turning point in the long-established collaboration between writer/director Kristen Marting and composer Matthew Pierce. The team will create a hybrid theatrical form comprised of Martings dance-theater gestural vocabulary and Pierces classical-based populist sensibility. The work will examine how architecture and technology reflect and define reality.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for choreographers KRISTIN VAN LOON and ARWEN WILDER and their company HIJACK, received $10,396 to develop and produce new work. Hijack is the nine-year choreographic collaboration of Van Loon and Wilder, who create active roles for dancers and audiences with equal emphasis on process and product. Using Mark Tansey's Four Forbidden Senses as image inspiration, the two will create a new duet set in post-contact improvisation. They will also use Jerome funds to create The Chorus, a work for six dancers, informed by movie musicals with big dance numbers, and the choreography of team sports, lunch hour skyway traffic and marathons.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, a public foundation established by the New York Council on the Arts in 1971, works with the arts community throughout the state to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. It acted as fiscal agent for Artistic Director John Jahnkes THE HOTEL SAVANT, which explores the abject conditions of history and fantasy, as well as its more ridiculous aspects, often basing original presentations upon factual artists, entertainers and criminals of another time. Jerome Foundation made a grant of $12,000 to support The Spirit Mercurius, a six-person theater piece with music, dance and video. The play revolves around twin sisters, abandoned by their parents on a nonspecific island, who, through one sisters act of divination, conjure a spirit (the hermaphroditic Mercurius of alchemical legend) to fulfill their fantasies of revenge upon a negligent family.

Freelance photographer WING YOUNG HUIE received a grant to spend up to six months traveling in the United States, to see and photograph America. This is a road trip that will involve making photographs and recording interviews, and approaching the United States as one big neighborhood.

pARTs PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for photographer WING YOUNG HUIE, received $15,000 for The Lake Street Project. The mission of pARTs is to engage, build and nurture an informed community for fine art photography and creative imaging through exhibitions, dialogues, publications and outreach. Wing Young Huie's Lake Street Project is a six mile public art exhibition of 400 photographs, displayed from the Mississippi River to Lake Calhoun in the summer and fall of 2000. Photographs and accompanying text will be shown in store windows, and on bus stops, sides of buses, sides of buildings and billboards. Huie has been photographing and tape recording the residents of the Lake Street Area of Minneapolis since 1996. The 12 urban neighborhoods connected by the street are an incredible array of co-existing socio-economic, ethnic and cultural realities. A web site, a map of photographic locations, comment books and a public auction will increase the impact of the Project.

UNIQUE PROJECTS, New York City, is managed by Pentacle/Danceworks. It served as fiscal agent for IRÉNE HULTMAN DANCE, which applied to the Jerome Foundation for support of its 2001 New York season. A grant of $8,000 was authorized for what Hultman calls the All-star event, featuring six dancers from the ballet and the modern worlds, all performing artists of considerable renown. Hultman envisions choreographing in a more abstract dance mode, working closely with the performers to elicit individual traits and talents, while exploring working dynamics and weaving a cohesive product.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, also served as fiscal agent for DANCE KUMIKOKIMOTO, founded in 1986 by choreographer Koosil-ja Hwang with composer Yuval Gabay. Hwangs work embodies a relentlessly driving, creative energy. She layers visual movement and vocal elements in swirling patterns that may at first seem impenetrable, yet convey a deep and lasting imagery. Her choreography combines elements of live music, composed partly by herself, song, film, video and dance, all creating social sculptures. She develops dramatic character from the inside by investigating her own mythology and history. Funding of $10,000 was authorized for the development of a multimedia piece titled The Argus, featuring choreography and music by Hwang in collaboration with Japanese composer Yoshide Otomo, and video by Caspar Stracke.

ILLUSION THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $50,000 toward the Fresh Ink series, the Artistic Associates program and developmental services for emerging playwrights. Illusion's mission is to create theater that illuminates the human condition by addressing the illusions, myths and realities of our times; and to use the power of theater as a catalyst for personal and social change. Fresh Ink is a series of three to six new works produced annually, many of which are the creations of emerging playwrights, choreographers, composers and performance artists. Fresh Ink is a means to develop new works in front of audiences without exposing those pieces to the pressures of the mainstage spotlight before they are ready. It focuses on works-in-progress, chamber pieces and works that take artists in new directions. The Artistic Associates program brings fresh opinions and expertise to Illusion. Current Artistic Associates are Kim Hines, Kent Stephens, Peter Rothstein and Beth Gilleland. Jerome funding will also be used for readings and developmental work on scripts by emerging playwrights.

Lao choreographer and dancer LADDAVANH CHANTHRAPHONE was awarded a grant to travel for six weeks in Thailand, where she will study the most popular form of Lao/Thai dance. Khon is a dance drama performed while wearing brilliantly crafted masks that has disappeared from Laos. Chanthraphone and her family fled Laos at the height of the Communist invasion, and as a child, she spent several years living in a refugee camp in Thailand.

INTAR, New York City, received $15,000 toward the 2000 NewWorks Lab. INTAR's mission is to identify, develop and present the work of Hispanic American theater artists and to introduce outstanding new works to American audiences. The NewWorks Lab is part of the theater's developmental activities, dedicated to the support of writers, directors, actors and other artists from the Latino/a theater community. The focus of the Lab is on creation rather than production. Playwrights are encouraged to experiment with new forms. Workshop presentations of four Lab works are held each season. Jerome funding was authorized for the participation of emerging artists in the NewWorks Lab.

INTERMEDIA ARTS MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $101,000 to support Art in Space and artists services. Intermedia believes in the power of art to transform lives, communities, values, institutions and society. It is fully committed to supporting artists visions and the creative process. In 1986, Intermedia created an exhibition program that provides commissions to emerging artists who have not had major opportunities to create and display installation works. Projects may incorporate any form of media. Services and adjunct programming support the artists selected for commissions. Intermedia then mounts an exhibition of their work, produces a small catalog and brings in a visiting artist/critic for a public presentation and individual consultations with Art in Space artists. Due to the experimental and multidisciplinary nature of much of its work, Intermedia serves a large number of emerging artists. Resource referral and specialized workshop training provide information and basic tools to artists. It is for these ongoing activities that a small portion of the Jerome Foundations grant was dedicated.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota is a multidisciplinary arts center dedicated to building community through creative self-expression. Artistic works are presented in thematic series, institutional partnerships, juried exhibitions and open entry formats. The organization runs a substantive artist services program that nurtures individual artists. The Jerome Performance Art Commissioning Program is a production and technical assistance initiative aimed at emerging performance artists who deserve and need opportunities to advance their skills. The program is designed to provide individualized assistance to three artists each year. There is an open call and nomination process, which yields proposals reviewed by an independent selection committee. A two-year grant of $70,000 was authorized to support the Performance Art Commissioning Program in 2000 and 2001.

WILLIAM INTRILIGATOR, a conductor, received a grant to spend two weeks in Boston, Massachusetts attending Joseph Giffords Conducting Workshop. Intriligator will also attend the American Symphony Orchestra Leagues National Conference to enhance his abilities as a conductor and to further his career.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $15,000 to the JAMAICA CENTER FOR ARTS AND LEARNING, Jamaica, New York, in support of the participation of emerging artists in its Visual Arts Program. The Center makes the arts accessible to its community and supports the creation of new works by emerging and established artists, especially those who are working from cultural traditions and artistic disciplines under-represented in the larger artistic community. From a residency program for local artists, to workshops, funding seminars and teaching opportunities, the Center provides not only a venue for cutting-edge art but also the resources necessary to help artists nurture their talents and promote their work.

VOLCANO LOVE, New York City, was founded in 1994 by choreographer Sarah East Johnson to develop and perform artistic works that combine dance, theater and circus. The company is a troupe of strong women performing physical feats of power, strength, stamina and daring. The movement vocabulary encompasses dance, wrestling, circus acrobatics, aerials, contact improvisation and more. A two-year grant of $24,000 was approved in support of the development and production of new dance works. One of those is Timberline, choreographed for seven dancers, and inspired by the harsh conditions of high altitude terrain.

The JUNGLE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights. The Jungles mission is to maintain a high standard of artistic excellence, present works that preserve our theatrical heritage as well as contemporary works that build on that heritage, encourage and support established and emerging artists in all areas of theater production, broaden access to the theater through education and outreach activities and contribute to the vitality of its community. The Jungle supports the development of new works by emerging writers in ways particularly appropriate to those playwrights. These include readings, workshop productions, commissions and mentoring. Jerome subsidy was authorized for the development process and toward the production of new works by emerging writers on the mainstage.

JUXTAPOSITION ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a $15,000 grant in support of a series of programs serving emerging Twin Cities and New York City aerosol artists. Juxtaposition Arts was created in 1995 as a visual arts organization offering fine arts programs to youth and public art events to community audiences. Founders Peyton and Roger Cummings brought their training and experience to the work of nurturing creativity and building self-confidence by providing hands-on opportunities for young artists to learn skills and grow as creative individuals. In late July, three New York City-based "writers", well known within the urban art genre, will participate in a Twin Cities live mural painting, an art exhibition with local emerging artists, a public slide show and a discussion of the art form.

A grant was awarded to writer ADITI KAPIL to travel for two months in India in the company of her father, Satie Kumar Kapil, an award-winning Punjabi poet. Kapil will spend a large amount of time tracing her family history in Punjab as well as an extensive number of novelists, poets, and other artists and cultural sociologists.

The NRITYA JYOTI DANCE THEATRE, Crystal, Minnesota, received a grant of $12,000 to support the creation of new works by choreographer and artistic director Rita Mustaphi. The mission of this dance organization is to present, promote and strengthen the understanding and advancement of the art of classical dance of India through creation, preservation and sponsorship of artistic and cultural endeavors. Jerome funding will be directed toward the creation of two works, the first a collaboration between Rita Mustaphi and Flamenco choreographer Susana di Palma. Later in the year, the company will produce an evening-length piece titled The Courtesans of Lucknow, exploring the cultural phenomenon and history of the courtesans and their role at the royal court of India. The production will make use of Indian poetic forms, each of which has a particular language with its own flavor and fragrance.

Fiction writer NANCY KELLY received a grant to travel to Grand Island, Nebraska, to view and document the seasonal migration of the Sand Hill Cranes on the Platte River. Kelly intends to gather information for a short story about a birdwatcher.