Past
Grantees

George Souladze, Minneapolis, MN, $7,000 (Production). Ground Rules. An 18-minute narrative film, which will incorporate documentary footage of big-city life, about a day in the life of two small-time crooks who rob a rock stars apartment and sell the stolen art to a pawn shop dealer who has a special client/collector.

The Jerome Foundation authorized a substantial two-year grant of $60,000 for the Southern Theater Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Southern Theater presents alternative performances by artists working at the grassroots of the Twin Cities varied cultural, political and economic communities. The Southern is interested in all performance media. In the past four seasons, it has supported new work by over 350 creative artists, presenting over 125 separate performance events. It looks for work that is highly experimental, and for new ways to articulate aesthetic ideas. The Southern will use these funds to subsidize emerging artists productions and to develop criticism in its publication.

SpaceSpace, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $7,500 to support the Co-Project. This series enables SpaceSpace to co-produce three local dance creators, selected by choreographers Georgia Stephens and Shawn McConneloug. Production costs as well as choreographers' fees were supported.

On a very limited basis, the Jerome Foundation provides support to established, mid-career artists who are facing critical junctures in their work. Two grants of this type were authorized at the June Board meeting. The first , in the amount of $20,000 over two years, was designated for Spiderwoman Theater, New York City. The three women founders weave interlocking stories, where fantasy and power are brought together. At this particular point in its development, Spiderwoman Theater is facing artistic and administrative challenges and opportunities which convinced the Jerome Foundation Board to authorize support.

Resources and Counseling for the Arts, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $17,000 in support of individual artists' services. Programming at Resources and Counseling includes workshops, counseling, consulting, legal referral, arts administration job listings and job services, speaking engagements, telephone information and referral, informational booklets, a quarterly newsletter and resource library. It publishes A Handbook for Minnesota Artists, A Basic Guide to Grants for Minnesota Artists and a Gallery Guide.

Intermedia Arts Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acted as fiscal agent for performance artists Nicky Tamrong and Pam Wynn. They are developing a new work, tentatively titled Six Heads, for performance in late 1995 or early 1996. This was the second grant the Foundation authorized for the multidisciplinary work of Tamrong and collaborators. Using six unusual characters in an interactive performance, the event will encourage audience members to take closer looks at their own interiors.

Jocelyn Taylor received funding for Bodily Functions, a video about body image and sexual expression as they intersect with family and society. The video will investigate how upbringing, social setting, and racial identity set the stage for the development of a woman's sexuality. Bodily Functions revolves around the true stories of black lesbians, mapping out the varying experiences of women who uniquely work out the specific burdens of blackness, womaness, and lesbianism in a black-fearing, homophobic, image hostile environment.

Dancer KELLI TENNYSON will attend a three-week workshop with Nancy Stark Smith in Northampton, Massachusetts, to broaden her experience as an improviser and to continue advancing her skills as a dancer.

A grant of $9,000 was authorized for the Textile Center of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of programming and artists services within the 1995-96 program year. The organization will inspire and support fiber artists, provide information, promote education, preserve skills and traditions, educate the public about the fiber arts and provide a central networking facility.

A grant of $10,000 designated for emerging artists productions in the 1995-96 program year was authorized for Theater for the New City, New York City. This Theater nurtures and develops emerging playwrights by giving them space to produce their work. It presents 30 to 40 new American plays by both emerging and established writers each year. Ten of those are grouped into an Emerging Playwrights Program, the focus of Jerome Foundation subsidy. Plays are selected for their depth, vision and relevance to social and political life.

Theater Communications Group, New York City, received $32,000 to continue the Affiliated Writers Program. In 1989, TCG, the national organization for the nonprofit professional theater, launched the pilot for a National Theater Criticism/Affiliated Writers program. This innovative writer/critic development program enables American Theatre magazine to encourage and support regionally-based writers developing careers in arts criticism. Jerome subsidy is dedicated toward New York City and Minnesota-based writers. The Foundation has supported this program since inception.

ERIN THOMPSON, a dancer, choreographer and teacher, will spend seven days in San Francisco, California, studying compositional ideas and processes using vocal work, text and images with Joe Goode in the Joe Goode Performance Group Workshop.

Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $20,000 to support research and development grants for emerging creative American artists within the ALIVE TV program. This pioneering PBS arts series produces groundbreaking work that brings together performers, visual artists and film and video makers. In order to test new ideas, ALIVE TV uses a research and development fund to award grants to independent artists early in the creative process. Having a developed idea is a great help to ALIVE TV in the process of deciding whether to move forward with a project. These grants should allow for real growth and an opportunity to produce work that artists might not otherwise be able to do.

Urban Bush Women, New York City, received $13,000 toward the creation of Bones & Ash, A Gilda Story, based on the novel by Jewelle Gomez. The dominant themes of the story/production are the empowerment of women through history, and the basic human need for belonging to a family or other primary group. This large-scale and multi-year production very much needed the financing necessary to complete the work.

UrbanGlass, New York City, received a grant of $12,000 to support fellowship and artist residency programs. The organizations mission is to promote the use of glass as a medium for creative work in art, craft and design; to foster excellence by providing a critical context for the developing glass art movement; to offer professional opportunities, high quality facilities and expertise to artists; and to engender public appreciation of art glass. There are two ongoing programs which are structured to serve emerging and under-recognized artists: the artist residency program and UrbanGlass fellowships, the latter designed to serve artists of color from disadvantaged backgrounds, for whom the challenges of working in glass are multiplied.

Composer JANIKA VANDERVELDE received support to spend three weeks in New York, in two separate trips, collaborating with pianist/performer Anthony de Mare on a music-theater piece she is writing for a fall production sponsored by Corn Palace. This will be the first time that Vandervelde has fully conceptualized, written and directed a piece of music-theater.

Very Special Arts Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $12,000 to provide small grants to emerging artists with disabilities and to underwrite adult artists services. An assessment and planning grant of $7,000 was awarded in 1994, which led to a proposal to provide an interlocking set of services for artists with disabilities.

The Minnesota Dance Alliance, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on behalf of choreographer Diane Waller received $7,000 to support the development and production of Liquid Pictures, Waller's new performance work to be presented at the Southern Theater in June of 1995.

A supplementary award of $2,000 was made to The Dale Warland Singers, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in order to cover unexpected copying costs for a composers commission previously authorized.

Marshall Weber, Madison, WI, $6,000 (Production). Beautiful Losers. A 60-minute experimental video documentary about punk-rock street kids in Madison, WI, which will provide a metaphorical construct on the issue of excess.