Past
Grantees

The Textile Center of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,000 in support of the Jerome Fiber Artists Project Grant Program and General Services for Emerging Artists.

Threads Dance Project, Golden Valley, Minnesota, received $10,000 to support the creation and production of Uncertain Reality (working title) in 2017.

Reilly Tillman, Minnesota, received $4,476 to travel to Los Angeles, California to attend Film Independent’s annual independent filmmaker conference (FIND Forum); spend time with FIND staff to debrief the Forum and learn more about their cutting-edge education programs; reconnect with Los Angeles-based film producers who’ve participated in IFP MN’s Filmmaker Conference; and form new alliances with other champions of independent film.

Tofte Lake Center, Ely, Minnesota, received $53,800 over two years in support of the participation of New York City and Minnesota artists in the Emerging Artist Residency Program in 2017 and 2018.

Michael Torres, Minnesota, received $4,860 to travel to Jalisco, Mexico to explore his fathers's homeland with the hope of growing as an artist with a better sense of his heritage.

Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang, New York City, received $5,000 to travel to Bucharest, Romania to conduct research for a feature-length essay film about pop culture under totalitarian rule; gather newsreel, television, and movie footage from the National Film Archives; and interview people involved in the original productions.

Imani Uzuri, New York City, received $20,000 to do research and compose a multi-voice piece with instrumentation focused on the iconography of black womanhood, traveling to Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean to research the various altars and cathedrals dedicated to the Black Madonna; further develop and compose a children's musical; and study piano, guitar and Sibelius software to deepen her compositional practice.

Penumbra Theatre Company, as fiscal sponsor for Imani Uzuri and Zakiyyah Alexander, received $20,000 to support the creation and production of GIRL Shakes Loose Her Skin.

VocalEssence received $60,000 ($30,000 per year for two years) to support VocalEssence ReMix.

VSA Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $42,000 over two years in support of the 2017 and 2018 Minnesota Emerging Artist Grant program.

Xuan Wang, New York City, received $5,000 to travel to China to conduct ethnographic research for a novel in progress.

Joshua Z. Weinstein, New York City, received $30,000 to support the production of the feature-length narrative Menashe, shooting all in Yiddish with Jewish actors on location in Hasidic Brooklyn.Deep in the heart of New York’s ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community, Menashe, a kind, hapless grocery store clerk, struggles to make ends meet and responsibly parent his young son, Rieven, following his wife Leah’s death. Tradition prohibits Menashe from raising his son alone, so Rieven’s strict uncle adopts him, leaving Menashe heartbroken. Meanwhile, though Menashe seems to bungle every challenge in his path, his rabbi grants him one special week with Rieven before Leah’s memorial. It’s his chance to prove himself a suitable man of faith and fatherhood, and restore respect among his doubters.

Tony Whitfield, New York City, received $5,000 to travel to Paris to establish relationships and conduct research with members of that city's LGBTQ community and find collaborators for a new multi-year, multi-platform transmedia project exploring a century of queer life in public.

Brooklyn Arts Exchange, as fiscal sponsor for Ni'Ja Whitson, received $12,000 to support the development and production of A Mediation on Tongues.

Taja Will, Minnesota, received $5,000 to participate in a custom-made residency with Bay Area artist Sara Shelton Mann in San Francisco.

Rosemary Williams, Minnesota, received $13,000 to support MXC: The Invention of Tomorrow, a 10-episode web series that will tell a narrative story based on the failed 1970s utopian project, Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). This fictional narrative series imagines that the utopian city was built.

Sen-I Yu, New York City, received $5,000 to travel to Taipei, Taiwan to conduct research and gather visual references for a new narrative feature project My Beauty Queen Mom, a comedy-drama that explores mental health issues, family relationships, and the beauty pageant culture in Taiwan.

Zenon Dance Company and School received $56,000 ($28,000 per year for two years) to support the commissioning and performance of new dance works by six emerging choreographers from Minnesota and/or New York.

Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Brooklyn, New York, as fiscal sponsor for 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Brooklyn, New York, received $10,000 in support of the development and production of a new work, The Fever. BAX provides a nurturing and year-round performance, rehearsal, and educational venue that encourages artistic risk-taking and stimulates dialogue among diverse constituencies. Formed in 2009, 600 HIGHWAYMEN operates under the direction of Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone. They create expansive performances that illuminate the inherent poignancy and theatricality of people together. The Fever, scheduled to premiere in January 2016, sets up communities that meet as strangers, and grow into and out of each other as the work unfolds. The work is about how an audience and performers come together and fall apart, and how meaning is defined in relation to each of these groups. The piece will be built with three multi-generational performing teams.

luciana achugar, (achugar, inc.), Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $32,000 in support of the production of a new dance piece, An Epilogue for OTRO TEATRO: True Love, and the development of a new untitled work. An Epilogue for OTRO TEATRO: True Love is a deepening of achugar’s investigation of the possibility for another kind of theater, a theater that gives voice to our bodies’ arcane spirit, instinct, and desire. The environment for this piece will take place in a theater in ruins, as if there has been a war or some kind of disaster. The performance is a means to metaphorically re-build the theater and community. In addition to the premiere of An Epilogue, achugar is developing a new work to be performed in public, non-theatrical spaces. The mission of luciana achugar is to create a visceral understanding of dance in which experience, connection, and compassion are given value as true sources of meaning.