Past
Grantees

Justin Allen makes performances and writes poems and essays to understand personal and collective relationships to time, social context, and place. He has shared his work at The Poetry Project, Brooklyn Museum, BAAD!, and ISSUE Project Room where he was a 2020 artist-in-residence. He has received support from Franklin Furnace and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Flavio Alves is a Brazilian writer and film director. He was granted political asylum in the United States in 1998. Shortly thereafter, he attended Columbia University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science. After graduating, Alves worked as an assistant to then-New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). In 2007, Flavio returned to school to study film production at NYU, where he received the Technisphere Award for Outstanding Achievement. His debut feature film, The Garden Left Behind (2019), premiered at SXSW, where it won the Audience Award. In 2018, Alves received The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Artist Academy fellowship, and in 2019, he was selected to Ryan Murphy’s HALF Initiative Directing Program, aimed at creating equal opportunities for minorities behind the camera. He is also the recipient of grants from numerous organizations, including the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and PEN America.

Truth Bachman is a composer, vocalist, and writer of socially-focused musicals. Described by the New York Times as ”musically and vocally rich”, they are praised for “golden-voiced”, “soulful vocals” (Vulture). Bachman’s acclaimed Shapeshifters, about LGBTQ heroes, was developed at an ongoing residency at Joe’s Pub, Musical Theatre Factory, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and was the inaugural recipient of the Denovan Grant. Truth Bachman's FARMED: A Live Podcast Album features a vocally percussive score for 25 voices, and was recently published. Select original musicals: Chasing Fear, Pyre Cantata, Coromandel, and Piano Bar, with Liz Swados. Truth is an alum of New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Joe’s Pub Working Group, and NYU Tisch. @truthbachman

Maria Bauman is a Bessie-Award-winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She creates bold artworks for her company MBDance based on physical and emotional power, insistence on equity and intimacy. She is also a sought-after facilitator and speaker on leadership development and on racial equity in the arts. With her colleagues who co-founded ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), Bauman was honored with the 2018 BAX Arts and Artists in Progress Award for the work you do to undo racism in our daily lives. Currently, she's an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellow and a BRIClab resident artist. In January 2021, Bauman and MBDance are premiering her Desire: A Sankofa Dream via co-commission by BAAD! and 651 ARTS. The piece is a live online experience in choice-making in community, with Black Queer survival techniques as foundation.

Victoria Blanco's debut book of nonfiction, Out of the Sierra, will be published by Coffee House Press. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, Catapult, KROnline, and others. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota MFA. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and three children.

Alexandra Bodnarchuk (she/her) is a Carpatho-Rusyn-American dance artist. Her works reframe, identify, and re-contextualize her programmed responses to body shaming and the intimate violence of female perpetuated sexism. She pursues the question ‘what is honesty’ as a choreographic prompt and a commitment to the physicality of weight. She frequently collaborates with sound designer Brandon Anderson Musser, most recently on Heritage Sites (2020), a dance film. Her works have been supported by the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, Threads Dance Project (commission), Performing Institute of Minnesota (commission), Candy Box Dance Festival/Arena Dances, Catalyst Arts, Zenon Dance Zone, Future Interstates, The Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and Mary Lipple Memorial Fund. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University and performs with Black Label Movement.

Archie Bongiovanni is a genderqueer cartoonist and illustrator living in Minneapolis. Their graphic novel, A Quick And Easy Guide To They/Them Pronouns has been praised by School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly and was one of YALSA's Great Graphic Novels For Teens. Their second graphic novel, Grease Bats was released by BOOM! Studios in fall 2019 and their third graphic novel Mimosa is slated for publication with Surely Press in 2022. Bongiovanni's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Autostraddle, Vice, and The Nib.

Yacine Boulares is a Brooklyn based saxophonist, composer and songwriter whose work explores folk traditions of North and West Africa perceived through the prism of chamber music and Jazz. It seeks to reflect on social and political issues from an alternative perspective.

In 2009 Yacine moves to NYC on a Fulbright scholarship. Soon he starts touring with Fela Kuti's ex drummer Jojo Kuo and Haitian Kompa legends Tabou Combo. These influences urge him to explore his own heritage and lead to the composition of two albums with AJOYO, a brew of African tradition, jazz and soul.

In 2014 he is a soloist and arranger on Placido Domingo’s album, meets cellist Vincent Segal and decides to explore the Tunisian Stambeli repertoire with drummer Nasheet Waits. In 2015 Abu Sadiya is granted the FAJE, AFAC and Brooklyn Arts grants.

In 2019 Yacine is part of the Joe’s Pub Working Group and founds Shems Records, the Rise Up Brooklyn festival and the Habibi Festival at Joe’s Pub.

Salty Brine is a New York-based cabaret artist, playwright and actor. He is the creative force behind The Living Record Collection, a series of cabaret performances which weave together iconic, popular albums with cultural touchstones from classic literature to opera and beyond; each album performed with a live band and Salty’s unique brand of memoir-esque storytelling. The Collection contains 20 shows and counting.

Salty received a 2017 Bistro Award in Outstanding Creative Artistry. He is in residence at NYC’s jewel-box supper club, Pangea. And he is a current member of the Joe’s Pub Working Group.

As bookwriter, Salty is in collaboration with composer Alan Menken on a new musical.

Selected performance credits: The Elementary Spacetime Show (Ars Nova, FringeArts); Clown Bar (Pipeline Theater Company, The Box); The Poor of New York (Connelly Theater, dir. Tyne Rafaeli); Straight Talk (Dixon Place); Taylor Mac’s The Lily's Revenge (HERE).

Stephanie Chou is a composer, saxophonist, and singer based in NYC. Her music combines classical and Chinese influences with jazz and pop harmonies and rhythms to create an entirely original, bi-lingual musical world. Chou studied mathematics and music at Columbia University. In 2011, she released Prime Knot, a jazz quintet CD featuring trumpeter Marcus Printup (Jazz at Lincoln Center). Her 2012 work CforG was commissioned/choreographed by former American Ballet Theatre principal ballerina Susan Jaffe.

Steph’s 2017 album Asymptote features fresh takes on Chinese classics including "Kangding Love Song", "The Moon Represents My Heart", and a tongue-twister about "Eating Grapes." Asymptote features erhu mixed with a jazz rhythm section. She's performed in Taipei, Beijing, throughout NYC at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Joe's Pub, Alice Tully Hall, and B.B. King's, and in festivals in Italy, Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

She received the 2016 JFund, a grant from the American Composers Forum, to write Comfort Girl—a musical exploration of the lives of 'comfort women' who were abducted into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during WWII. Comfort Girl premiered at Joe's Pub in 2019.

Shayok Misha Chowdhury is a writer, director, and many-tentacled maker. He is the creator of VICHITRA, an experiment in queer South Asian imagination; recent episodes premiered at The Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova, and HERE Arts Center, where Misha is a Resident Artist. Currently a Project Number One Artist at Soho Rep, Misha is an alumnus of The Public’s Devised Theater Working Group, Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, and residencies at BRIC, The Drama League, and SPACE on Ryder Farm.

Recent: MukhAgni (Under the Radar); How the White Girl Got Her Spots and Other 90s Trivia (Joe’s Pub). Upcoming: a collaboration with Aleshea Harris (New York Theatre Workshop); Rheology (HERE Arts Center); SPEECH with Lightning Rod Special.

A NYFA/NYSCA, Fulbright and Kundiman fellow, Misha has been published in The Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. shayokmishachowdhury.com

Onyedika Chuke is an artist and archivist living and working in New York. His largest body of work titled The Forever Museum Archive (2011-present), is a disquieting collection of sculptures, text and images in which Chuke analyzes social, cultural and political structures. His practice has been supported by venues such as The Drawing Center, SCAD Museum, The Shed, Sculpture Center and The American Academy in Rome.

From January 2018-2019, Chuke served as New York City Public Artist in Residence (P.A.I.R). The position placed him in the offices of Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) and Department of Corrections (DOC) Rikers Island.

His work as a P.A.I.R artist entailed collaboration with individuals on Rikers Island facing extreme challenges, create access to art and open dialogue between New York City policymakers and those in their custody. In addition, he utilized DOC’s archives to research architecture and historical landscape that have shaped New York City's penological system. His ongoing research was covered by various publications including Bomb Magazine.

With a focus on social theory, drawing, painting and photography as well as sculptural mold-making, Chuke is equally invested in the processes of production techniques and research.

He is a graduate of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (2011).

Sadé Clacken Joseph is a Caribbean-American filmmaker, photographer and singer from the Bronx who is dedicated to shining a light on underrepresented groups. She is an awardee of the Ryan Murphy HALF Foundation, Director's Guild of America John Frankenheimer Fellowship and Inaugural 30 Under 30 Caribbean-American Emerging Leader and Change Maker Award for which she was honored at Obama's White House. Her film Knight was the first narrative film produced by Spotify via their Black Girl Magic platform. Her documentary work on Common’s Hope and Redemption Prison Tour has been featured on VICE, Variety, and Rolling Stone. Her latest film Ponyboi premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival where it was named one of the “Five not to be missed short films” by Forbes.

Currently, Sadé is directing Trap Jazz, a feature music documentary starring T.I, Terrace Martin and Quincy Jones, and is in development on her first narrative feature-length film Shteez. She is the CEO and Founder of Out of Many Media LLC, a multi-media production house and artists collective.

Kim Coleman Foote grew up in New Jersey and now calls Brooklyn home. Her fiction, essays, and experimental prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, Black Renaissance Noire, Crab Orchard Review, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of several writing fellowships, including from the NEA, NYFA, Center for Fiction, and Illinois Arts Council. Recent fellowship residencies include MacDowell, the Anderson Center, and Hambidge.

She is currently working on a story collection fictionalizing her family's experience of the Great Migration in the South and New Jersey, and a novel about Ghana and the trans­-Atlantic slave trade. She received an MFA in creative writing from Chicago State University.

Iván Cortázar is a Business Administration graduate from Spain, who has worked for two years as an accountant, after which he decided to dedicate his energy entirely to his passion: telling stories through a visual language. He moved to New York where he obtained his MFA in Photography and Video.

Iván’s body of work has a wide range of mediums and genres.

For his work in Video Art, he received the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship, and a fellowship from the Museum of Contemporary Art ARTIUM (Spain).

He has shown his short films worldwide, including the Sitges, Malaga, Zinebi and Puchon international Film Festivals, and has won 18 awards including Best Comedy at the Torrelavega Film Festival.

He’s the creator of the children’s book App series, “You and The Flying Squid.” which participated in the Arts Business Incubator Program by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Pamela Council is a New York based interdisciplinary artist creating fountains for Black joy. Guided by material, cultural, and metaphysical quests, Council’s practice embodies a darkly humorous and inventive Afro-Americana camp aesthetic, BLAXIDERMY. Through this lens, Council uses sculpture, architecture, writing, and performance to shed light on under-examined and under-valued narratives.

Council has created commissions, exhibitions, performances or presentations for: New Museum for Contemporary Art, United States Library of Congress, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Studio Museum in Harlem, and MoCADA. Council has been Artist-in-Residence at MacDowell, Red Bull Arts, Bemis, Rush Arts, MANA, Signal Culture, Mass MoCA, and Wassaic Project. A recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Grant, Council holds a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Columbia University and is currently artist in residence at ISCP.

Producer, director, writer, editor and educator James Curry has been active in filmmaking for over 25 years. Educated at Full Sail, The American Film Institute and the Vermont College of Fine Arts where he earned his MFA in Film, he has continued to work as a producer, writer, director, editor on numerous projects in Los Angeles and Minneapolis ranging from trailers, commercials, PSA's, epk's and music videos as well as broadcast for NBC, FOX and news for ABC.

Directorial projects for clients included documentary work for Prince's Life O' the Party. His short film Westbound was selected for the 2016 New York Short Film Festival, the Twin Cities Black Film Festival and the Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival. His last documentary masterjam was the focus of a panel convened at the 2019 Denton Black Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the 2018 Twin Cities Black Film Festival.

Kyle Dacuyan writes poems and makes performance. Recent poems appear in The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, Social Text, and elsewhere. He has presented performance work with movement and poetry at Ars Nova, FringeArts, Haus für Poesie, and the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, among other places. He is the Executive Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s in NYC.

Shayna Dunkelman is a musician and percussionist based in Brooklyn, NY. Dunkelman is known for her versatile and unique techniques, and use of electronics to access a sonic pallet not found in acoustic percussion. In addition to solo performances, Dunkelman tours with Balún, Du Yun, Emily Wells, Ali Sethi and Nomon.

Born and raised in Tokyo to an Indonesian mother and an American father. Dunkelman became increasingly active in the alternative music scene as a member of the band Xiu Xiu, touring the world for 6 years. As part of Xiu Xiu, Dunkelman shared stages with Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV), Sun Ra Arkestra, Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) to name a few. Dunkelman has recorded and performed with pioneers of avant-garde experimental musicians such as Yuka C. Honda, John Zorn, Yoko Ono, and Thurston Moore, and performed at Carnegie Hall, Centre Pompidou, Lincoln Center, The MET among others.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Amanda Ekery weaves her experience in underground rock, improvisatory creative music, research, and jazz into her compositions, workshops, and community-based projects. Amanda’s compositions have been featured at the Kennedy Center and the Panama Jazz Festival, and have earned support from Downbeat Magazine, New Music USA and Chamber Music America.

As a researcher, she has been invited to speak at the International Vocal Jazz Conference in Helsinki Finland, International Women in Music Leadership Conference in London, and Jazz Congress at Lincoln Center. Amanda is also a dedicated teaching artist and the founder of El Paso Jazz Girls, a non-profit organization committed to education equity for young female musicians. Learn more at www.amandaekery.com