Past
Grantees

THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, received $25,000 in support of a residency and commissioning program for three emerging composers. The Gallery nurtures the youngest generation of professional jazz musicians by giving them an audience for their performances and a stage upon which to assemble their bands. The Residency Commissions offer artists a commissioning and residency fee that allows them to take a hiatus from the road as they create new works. The Gallery provides space in which to develop, rehearse, and workshop the new music before it is made public. The residency periods are four to six weeks and allow each composer the freedom to create a residency that meets his/her individual needs.

THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, received $25,000 in support of the 2014-15 residency and commissioning program for emerging composers. The Jazz Gallery nurtures the youngest generation of professional jazz musicians by giving them an audience for their performances and a stage upon which to assemble their bands. The Jazz Gallery residency commissions offer emerging composers financial support, and a space in which to develop, rehearse, and workshop the new compositions before they are publicly presented. Each residency is tailored to meet the needs of the composer.

MOLLY KATAGIRI, Minneapolis, received support for Waabooz, a narrative short about how a young Native American artist named Rabbit overcomes his fears through Waabooz, a superhero of his own design brought to life with the help of his grandfather. Twelve year-old Rabbit spends most of his days collecting comics, keeping his little sister out of his hair, and avoiding the teasing of his peers for being an outcast. It's not easy being different on a remote Wisconsin reservation. He keeps busy drawing and has perfected Waabooz, a superhero that embodies Rabbit's desired self. Rabbit dreads dancing in an upcoming powwow; he's awkward and shy and would rather be left out of this community event. When his bedridden grandfather learns of his fears, he decides to help Rabbit become his own hero and find strength within himself. Waabooz is a character driven drama about a boy and his common-place adolescent struggles. The film is set on a reservation that is both breathtaking and stark in landscape. The story is conveyed with the grit of realism, and a magical realism born from Rabbit's artistic imagination. Rabbit's character progression is brought to fruition by his Granfather's imparting of tradition and the spiritual strength that comes with it.

KAZA, MADHU, New York City, will travel to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France and its nearby Bossons Glacier, the site of two fatal Air India accidents in 1950 and 1966. While there, she will do research, independent study, and reflection to inform the creation of a new piece of creative nonfiction titled Catalogue of Ships. The work will be a hybrid of memoir, travelogue, fiction, natural history, and nature writing. She will visit institutions with archival information related to the disasters and will also hike the mountain to directly experience the landscape. Her ultimate goal is to write a meditation on cultural memory, the relationship between landscape and disaster, and the unlikely links between people and places.

KELLY, RAJA FEATHER, New York City, will travel to Lyon and Paris, France, to work collaboratively with performer/choreographer Laureling Richard. Using Virginia Woolf's Moments of Being as a creative impetus for conversation, Kelly and Richard will delve into performance as a philosophy, investigating fundamental questions about reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, and language as a foundation for Kelly’s new movement-based work. 

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT AND ITS ABRONS ART CENTER, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for SIBYL KEMPSON, New York City, received $10,000 in support of her new work LET US NOW PRAISE SUSAN SONTAG. The Abrons Arts Center presents innovative, multidisciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their creative development through educational programs, commissions, and residencies; and serves as an intersection of cultural engagement for local, national, and international audiences and arts-workers. Sibyl Kempson’s LET US NOW PRAISE SUSAN SONTAG is a two-act musical created in conjunction with composer Ashley Turba. The work interrogates how journalistic practices, which border on the artistic, are articulated to the wider public and override an ethical response/motive to action.

THE KITCHEN, New York City, received $26,000 to support emerging artists’ commissions for new works presented in the 2015 season. The Kitchen shows innovative work by emerging and established artists across disciplines. Its programs range from dance, music, performance, and theater to video, film, and art, in addition to literary events, artists’ talks, and lecture series. The Kitchen provides commissions to artists to develop new works. With Jerome’s support, commissions ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 will be given to emerging artists presenting new works in 2015. Emerging artists are selected by the curatorial staff and guest curators.

KONG, MANSEE, New York City, will travel to Hong Kong, China (with a day-trip to Guangzhou, China) to develop and conduct primary research for a potential film highlighting local political artists whose work reflects the growing socio-political tensions and conditions between Hong Kong and mainland China under the “one country, two systems” governing policy.  Local independent and political artists have become more visible in recent years. Kong plans to investigate Hong Kong’s delicate relationship with democracy through the eyes of its artists.

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer Joanna Kotze, received $10,000 in support of the creation and production of a new work, Find Yourself Here. New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry offering audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation, and active engagement with the social, political, and cultural currents of our time. Find Yourself Here is an evening-length dance work integrating material from three trios. Each is a collaboration among three dancers and a visual artist, focusing on the interplay between form and chaos, where bodies encounter objects and one another in a kinetic rendering of shared artistic practices. Kotze intends to present a beautiful spectrum of tension and harmony, isolation and togetherness.

LaPOINTE, TIANA, Minnesota, will travel to Pine Ridge Nation to research and network with local community members regarding land seizures and displacements of tribal members from their homes along the Stronghold section of the reservation. LaPointe’s interviews and research will inform a documentary project from the Lakota tribal perspective about the government partnership to cede a broad stretch of the Stronghold land for a national park, which would disrupt many families living on the land and would include sacred burial sites.

LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER, New York City, received a two-year grant of $44,000 in support of the Jerome New York Fellowship and services for emerging playwrights. The Lark provides transformative support for playwrights. Founded in 1994, this laboratory for new voices and new ideas provides playwrights and their collaborators with resources to develop their work in a supportive yet rigorous environment. The Lark encourages playwrights to define their own goals and creative processes in pursuit of their unique visions. The Jerome New York Fellowship provides substantial artistic and financial support to an emerging writer of extraordinary ability, promise, and vision in an intensive two-year residency that provides resources and guidance to generate and develop a significant body of work.

LEE, GRACE, New York City, will travel to the central coast of California and to Denver, Colorado to conduct archival research in historical family archives/documents, interview family members, and visit key sites to help reconstruct detailed scenes for her memoir. This work is about the embodiment of displacement and dislocation resulting from war, exploring interconnections with intergenerational trauma, memory, and the notions of home and belonging. It tells the story of her family who immigrated to the US in the aftermath of the Korean War, which divided the nation into two bodies. 

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $122,000 in support of the Mentor Series. Founded in 1974, The Loft Literary Center advances the artistic development of writers, fosters a thriving literary community, and inspires a passion for literature. It is one of the nation’s leading literary arts centers. The Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose offers twelve emerging Minnesota writers the opportunity to work intensively with six nationally acclaimed writers of prose and poetry. The emerging writers and mentors give public readings at The Loft.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for LONE WOLF TRIBE, Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $18,000 in support of the development and production of the new work Clarion Call. Founded by artists for artists, The Field provides strategic services to thousands of performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond. It fosters creative exploration, stewards innovative management strategies, and helps artists reach their fullest potential. Lone Wolf Tribe is a puppet theatre ensemble blending history, sociology, and psychology into brutally poetic contemporary narratives. Under the direction of Founding Artistic Director Kevin Augustine, the ensemble will develop Clarion Call, a performance cycle of three self-contained works presented in indoor and outdoor settings, and in various environmental conditions over the duration of three days and nights. This work is a response to the cynicism, frustration, and paralysis many people experience in the face of a changing world. The goal is to broaden the model of how ideas of activism are communicated.

MARIE LOSIER received support for Cassandro, The Exotico!, an intimate experimental documentary portrait of one of the most renowned performers in the astonishing world of Mexican “lucha libre” wrestling. Over a 17 year career, Cassandro, an openly gay, cross-dressing “exotico” wrestler, has thrilled lucha audiences with his fearlessness in and out of the ring, battling fierce opponents, homophobia, addiction, and the after-effects of severe childhood trauma. Cassandro is arguably Mexico’s most daring and highly revered exotico. He is the current NWA World Welterweight Champion and a former UWA World Lightweight Champion. He has been openly gay for most of his 35-year career, breaking boundaries within a community that has not always tolerated homosexuality. Filmmaker Marie Losier was immediately taken by Cassandro’s warmth, eccentricity, and incredible athletic ability when she met him. They struck up a friendship and Losier soon learned that his enormous spirit rises out of a life marred by violence, poverty, and addiction. Over the next two years, Losier visited Cassandro seven times in Mexico City and El Paso as well as Paris and London while he was touring. He introduced her to the astonishing, complex and highly secretive inner world of lucha libre. This documentary is about Cassandro’s life within that world and so much more.

THE LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP, New York City, received a two-year grant of $30,000 in support of Keyholder Residencies. This nonprofit printmaking studio supports contemporary artists in the creation of new work. The Keyholder Residency Program offers emerging artists free 24-hour access to printmaking facilities to develop new work and foster artistic careers. The residencies are one year in length, and enable Keyholder artists to work independently, in a productive environment alongside other artists. Applications are evaluated by a rotating committee of artists, critics, curators, and arts professionals. Stipends are offered, as well as a variety of services and educational subsidies.

THE LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL, New York City, received a two-year grant of  $56,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City-based artists in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 Workspace Program. The mission of the Council is to empower artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Lower Manhattan and beyond. Workspace is a nine-month studio residency program that focuses on creative practice development for emerging artists working across all disciplines. The program offers space for experimentation and dialogue with peers and arts professionals, as well as career-advancement opportunities. It serves between 25 and 30 individuals or collaborative groups annually. Artists are chosen via an open call and peer review process. Workspace encourages creative risk-taking, collaboration, learning, and skill sharing at a critical early stage of an artist’s career.

MA-YI THEATER COMPANY, New York City, received a two-year grant of $36,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of new works by emerging playwrights in the Writers Lab. Ma-Yi Theater Company develops and produces new and innovative plays by Asian American writers. It is one of the country’s leading incubators of new work, shaping the national discourse of what it means to be Asian American today. Founded in 2004, the Writers Lab is a resident company of Asian American playwrights, a professional peer-based workshop in permanent residence at Ma-Yi Theater. The Lab is designed to nurture and showcase Asian American playwrights. It is a community resource, brain trust, and place of artistic growth for its members. In many cases, the Lab is the place where writers share first drafts of new plays, and where they continue to refine the work until it is ready for production.

MADAUS, THERESA, KING, TARA, THOMAS, MONICA (MAD KING THOMAS), Minnesota, will attend master improviser Julyen Hamilton's workshop in Brussels, Belgium or Banyoles, Spain. The study with Hamilton will further the collaborative’s process around creating dance in a theatrical context—performance moments cultivated through rigorous intellectual investigations, manifested in an atmosphere of transformation, insight, and understanding without conclusions.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for CHRISTINA MASCIOTTI, Astoria, Queens, received $10,000 in support of the production of SOCIAL SECURITY. Founded by artists for artists, The Field provides strategic services to thousands of performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond. It fosters creative exploration, stewards innovative management strategies, and helps artists reach their fullest potential. Masciotti’s plays feature contemporary American characters who are on the fringes of society as immigrants, working class anti-heroes, or disaffected youth. In different ways, these characters are struggling to be recognized as human beings. She hopes to bring the full spectrum of their lives to the stage and allow their stories to serve as a portal from which the audience can examine their own lives. SOCIAL SECURITY is an experimental theater work that follows a trio of neighbors in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania, who look to each other for support as the familiar and financial security nets they’ve individually set up start to fray. The work reflects an interest in the social effects of class distinctions, and how the manifold dangers of living alone can be mitigated by one’s education level, ethnic background, income, and age.