Past
Grantees

Choreographer LADDAVANH LADDA CHANTHRAPHONE received funding to spend six weeks in Laos. In order to retain the nuances of dances of her culture, Chanthraphone will study and explore the traditional exposition of Lao repertoire and the expression of various folk dances.

The Jerome Foundation authorized a grant of $10,000 to INTAR GALLERY, New York City, in support of the participation of emerging artists in the 1997-98 exhibition season. The current season began with a two person show featuring new pieces by Philippe Avila and Juan Carlos Garcia Lavin. The work was conceptually driven by a mystical investigation of the vulnerability of the body. Currently showing is an exhibition of works by Fernando Aris, who forces the viewer to confront the boundaries of public space, and also explores the concept of art as a commodity. There will then be an exhibition of three emerging Latina artists, followed by a site specific installation. Jerome subsidy will underwrite the participation of emerging artists in the exhibition season.

A grant of $30,000 was made to INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a pilot Performance Art Commissioning and Production Program. Intermedia operates a multidisciplinary program recognized for its variety and responsiveness to artists and their endeavors. This pilot will provide creation funding, technical assistance, directorial assistance, facility access, critical response and other services which enable artists to develop their ideas and advance their skills and careers while creating and presenting new work. The program will be directed toward multidisciplinary performance artists, each of whom will receive a $3,000 commission toward the development of a new work.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, has received support for an installation art commissioning program since 1986. A two-year grant of $78,000 will continue to subsidize that activity through the year 2000. Titled Art in Space, the program awards competitively selected commissions to emerging artists to create and display major installation pieces at Intermedia. Enhancements of the program over the next two seasons are planned. Also, in support of programmatic and technical assistance programs offered to emerging artists by Intermedia Arts, the Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $12,000 to cover those expenses.

THE QUINTET OF THE AMERICAS, New York City, acted as fiscal agent for composer KEVIN JAMES, who sought funding to create a large scale work, Portraits, for tape and a variety for soloists and chamber ensembles. James is a New York City based composer, trombonist and founder of the Quadragon Trombone Collective. In Portraits, James will paint the faces of homelessness in New York City. Interviews with over 700 homeless people will be used as part of the sound score for the work. The piece will consist of eight distinct sections, each drawing on specific themes arising from the interviewing process. The music will be varied stylistically. James will then have the work performed by a variety of ensembles, including Kronos Quartet, Glen Velez and Handance, Quintet of the Americas, The Meridian Arts Ensemble and The Sirius String Quartet. Funding of $10,000 was authorized for the development of this work leading toward a workshop performance of the piece at the Kitchen in late 1998.

AMY JENKINS received a grant for Sheltering for Daydreaming, From the Same Water and Whirligig, a video installation, composed of three segments, that will investigate the home as a locus for memory, expectation and metamorphosis.

Kirsten Johnson/Julia Pimsleur - Innocent Until Proven Guilty, a one-hour video documentary about one African-American's struggle with the criminalization of black men in America. The son of prominent civil rights activists, James Foreman, Jr. was raised with the acute awareness of social responsibility. When he completed a law degree at Yale University, Forman was awarded a prestigious Supreme Court clerkship. From that post, he could have gone to any number of highly paid law positions; instead he chose to become a public defender in Washington, DC, where the crime rate is one of the highest in the country. At only 29, he juggles up to a dozen clients at a time, including some of the Public Defender Service's most challenging juvenile cases. This film takes us inside the criminal justice system, tracking Forman's relationship with three of his young clients-one imprisoned one acquitted, and one awaiting trail. Through Forman's experiences and insights as a public defender, the film explores the criminalization of a community and how James Forman lives with its legacy while trying to transform its future.

Choreographer and dancer MORRIS JOHNSON received support for the creation of new work through the fiscal sponsorship services of the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Johnsons choreography is a fusion of cultures, which brings together the beliefs of diverse peoples and communities to celebrate the common bonds of creative expression. The Jerome Foundation made a commitment of $7,500 toward the development of Naga, a piece revolving around the themes of tradition and change, realized through a young womans quest for independence. Naga explores the nuances of the father/daughter relationship and the power of the spiritual world to guide peoples choices.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for independent artist SARAH EAST JOHNSON, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the development of a new concert-length work titled Volcano Love, her fifth evening length production of multi-media acrobatic work. Johnsons work comes from a background in dance, but also integrates her experiences as a circus performer, athlete and student of geology and environmental science. Her movements are cultivated from sources that include contact improvisation, acrobatics, trapeze, collegiate and professional style wrestling, human pyramids and much more. Her new work is a continuation of her exploration into the volcanic activity of the earth, the rhythm of flows and explosions, and plate tectonic theory that describes how volcanic activity occurs.

The Directors authorized a grant of $18,000 to the JUNGLE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of its 1998 Play Reading Series and Festival. The Jungle aims to produce works that challenge people to end ignorance, embrace honesty and straightforwardness and seek a more inclusive and generous society. It defines an emerging creator as one whose work is as yet unrecognized by mainstream theaters and audiences and one whose work has not yet received the recognition and transforming experience which can come with professional direction and the refining fire of public performance. In the Play Reading Series, six plays are selected from a competitive field for a festival of readings, with one of those plays given a fully mounted staged reading, under the artistic direction of Bain Boehlke. Diverse nominators refer playwrights to the Jungle Theater for review. In light of the significant work which was accomplished in 1997 in the first year of this program design, the Jerome Foundation Directors authorized continued support.

THE JUNGLE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two part grant in support of the Storytelling series and the commissioning of artists' works for the new Jungle Theater facility. The Jungle is intent upon producing plays, storytelling and performance art which challenge audiences to end ignorance, to embrace honesty and straightforwardness and to seek a more inclusive and generous society. Continued support of $10,000 for the Storytelling series, under the curatorial direction of Loren Niemi, enables the participation of emerging tellers in an ongoing program which features the rich art of storytelling. In 1998, The Jungle expects to organize the Storytelling series in a festival format, incorporating a mentoring program serving emerging tellers in the region. An additional commitment of $34,000 was made to subsidize artists' projects for the new facility of The Jungle Theater on Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis. The Jungle has identified certain parts of its new facility which may be independently designed by artists, selected through a competitive and open application process. These installed works include murals, the facade for the central concession/box office area, and the design and creation of exterior neon/incandescent signage. Painters, woodcrafters, sculptors, neon artists, graphic artists, scenic painters and scenic designers will be eligible to compete for these commissions.

The NRITYA JYOTI DANCE THEATRE, Crystal, Minnesota, received a grant of $10,000 toward the creation of new work for the 1998-99 season. Founded in 1987, Nritya Jyoti Dance Theatres mission is to present, promote and strengthen the understanding and advancement of the classical dance of India through creation, preservation and sponsorship of artistic and cultural endeavors. Artistic Director Rita Mustaphi bases her work on the Kathak dance of India, a classical form with a 2000-year history. With the intermingling of original choreographic dance pieces by Mustaphi and scripted dialogue, Nritya Jyoti blends dance and theater in concerts that reflect multicultural experiences.

BARRY KIMM, a filmmaker and videographer, will spend three weeks in Sacramento, California, examining how that city is implementing innovative arts programs to revitalize crime-ridden neighborhoods. Kimm plans to translate that inquiry into a documentary film.

Funding was awarded to SUSAN KORDA in support of Either/Or, a 60-minute experimental documentary that looks at how the personalities and destinies of a Holocaust survivor's two children were molded by the experiences of their parents.

SUE KOSMALSKI is an installation artist and arts administrator. Kosmalski received a grant to travel to New York City, Washington DC and Los Angeles for a total of four weeks over the next eight months. She will research video, film, newsreel and record libraries on the East and West Coasts to inform the creation of two new works.

A commitment of $14,000 was made to THE KITCHEN, New York City, as fiscal agent for choreographer Jennifer Monson. Monson received support to develop three dances to be premiered in the upcoming season. She will investigate energetic approaches to choreography and movement, and the relationship between music and dance. A small portion of the grant will be used to mount a previously completed work, Sender, at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1999. She will incorporate two Minneapolis-based dancers in the cast and will undertake a variety of community outreach efforts in the area

ERNEST LARSEN was awarded support for Yellow Cab, a point of view Hi-8 video documentary revolving around his re-emergence as a New York City cabdriver. What he's after is the archetypal American story as it is lived today, when you're only another bottom dog (in Edward Dahlberg's memorable phrase) in a tough city, and you know you have to make your way up. He is also after a portrayal of a culture that everybody in the city thinks they see everyday, but don't scarcely get more than the merest glance at; they never see it from the inside. This video will examine work as necessity and obsession, with relentless detailing of the life of the cabbie, the never-ending need to get the next fare, to get rid of that fare as soon as possible so as to find the next one, the brutal competition for fares, the calculations involved in where and when to go, and the nightmare of routine.

ALMAE LARSON, an artist and education coordinator who lives in Dodge Center, will spend nine days at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Janesville, Minnesota. Her purpose is to investigate body as nature, body in nature and self identity while creating photographs about nature, culture and identity.

T.J. LARSON, Minneapolis, MN, $15,000. Larson received support for Stories from the Bottle, a 90-minute, 16mm narrative about the value of simple human companionship, as reflected through the relationships among various misfits and outcasts at Mickey's Diner.

KATHLEEN LAUGHLIN, Minneapolis, MN, $10,000. Laughlin received support for Reinventing Power: Origins of the Battered Women's Movement, a 58-minute video documentary on the genesis of the women's shelter movement as reflected through the actions of organizations such as Women's Advocates. Interestingly, this enormously empowering phenomenon, which spread throughout the world, began in St. Paul, Minnesota.