Past
Grantees

The BROOKLYN ARTS EXCHANGE (BAX), Brooklyn, New York, received $10,000 in support of its Artists in Residence program.  BAX’s mission is to encourage artistic risk-taking and stimulate dialogue among diverse constituencies by providing a nurturing, year-round performance, rehearsal, and educational venue.  From residencies leading to award-winning work, to low-cost space rental, to classes for the very youngest aspiring artists, BAX has purposefully constructed programs that support the full trajectory of artistic development.  The Artist-in-Residence program is an urban residency extending over two years.  It is tailored to meet each artist’s needs, process, and artistic practice.  Each artist receives 250 hours of rehearsal space per year and an annual stipend.  The residency includes consultations with the artistic director, group meetings with the six resident artists, and opportunities to present works at BAX.

"REBECCA DOSCH BROWN, writer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Oakland, California; Belle Mead, New Jersey; New York City; Washington D.C.; and Baltimore, Maryland, to investigate through a poet’s eye the social construct of Normality (and its counterpart Abnormality) across time and space, focusing on sites critical to disability history and on meeting artists and children with disabilities who contest that fabrication. Brown’s travel will be inspiration for poems that unearth and unhinge the myth of Normal.  "

ANDRES CABALLER0 was awarded a grant in support of El Pastor, a sixty-minute documentary that follows the lives of Latin American sheepherders who come to the United States to work in complete isolation in the American West. Every year, hundreds of guest workers are recruited from South America to work as sheepherders in the United States. Once they arrive, they are dropped off in the deserts and mountain ranges of the American West, where they remain for months in complete isolation, living in trailers and tent, with thousands of sheep, a horse and some dogs. Extreme weather conditions, wild animals and solitude make up the dark side of a profession and primitive lifestyle that can also be romanticized by the beauty of the surrounding environment. The film follows a shepherds life in his homeland of the Chilean Patagonia, his arrival in the U.S., and his journey through different seasons in the desert and mountains of northeast Idaho.

THE CAMERA CLUB OF NEW YORK, New York City, received $14,000 in support of solo exhibitions in the Darkroom Residency Program. The Camera Club is a home for photographers to develop their craft, providing both a hands-on, working facility and a collegial environment for discussion and the exchange of ideas. Its mission is to promote the art and science of photography through exhibitions, lectures, classes, residencies, a blog, newsletter, and special events. It provides low-cost workspace to members. The Darkroom Residency Program provides full-year access to darkroom facilities, a shooting studio, and two digital scanning stations. The Program supports the work of outstanding emerging photographers based in New York City by offering them free workspace with stipends and a culminating solo exhibition in a nurturing, photo-friendly environment.

"NONA KENNEDY CARLSON, writer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Dickinson, Williston, and Watford City, North Dakota, to study the epicenter of the Bakken Oil Boom. Research of the social, socioeconomic, and geographical landscape of this area and the impact on citizens, farmers, ranchers, landowners, oil company representatives, “Man Camp” managers, and those working in the oil field, will inform the characters, setting, and tone of her novel, Boom. Carlson’s immersion in local culture and the landscape will authentically inform her writing about family, greed, loss, class warfare, the repercussions of war, and complicated environmental issues."

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer YANIRA CASTRO, Brooklyn, New York, received $9,000 in support of the development and production of a new work, The People to Come. Working through her organization a canary torsi, Castro creates works that reflect a collaborative and multidisciplinary nature, anchored in a live performance and extending into other media and online platforms. The People to Come is a participatory performance installation and dance, radically altered each night by performers using material contributed by the communities surrounding a performance site and the audiences attending the performances. While Castro meticulously creates the scenario, People challenges the directors authorship and asks the questions: What is the divide between spectator and participant? How are these roles inverted/shared? Who is the translator? Who is the narrator?

 Cave Canem, Brooklyn, New York, received $18,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City-based writers in two writing workshops.  Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.  The organization was founded on the premise that African American poets deserve and benefit from having a place of their own in the literary landscape.  Jerome funds will support a fall 2012 workshop titled Worth Repeating, which will consider the uses of repetition from a variety of angles in eight sessions.  In the spring of 2013, Cave Canem will offer an eight-session workshop titled Writing across Cultures, open to emerging poets of color and Arab American poets.  Participants will be encouraged to push beyond their comfort zones; experiment with new forms, grammars, and vocabularies; and consider cultural inflections on poetics.

THE CENTER FOR FICTION, New York City, received $32,000 in support of the 2012-13 New York City Emerging Writers Fellowship Program. With its exceptional book collection, beautiful reading room, expanding website, and ever-growing array of creative programs, the Center seeks to serve the reading public, to build a larger audience for fiction, and to create a place where readers and writers can share their passion for literature. The Center launched a fellowship program for New York City-based emerging writers with Jeromes support in 2010-11. Writers receive a stipend, space in the Writers Studio, access to the Writers Library, free admission to all Center events including the Craftwork Series, discounted tuition to workshops, mentorships with freelance editors, two public readings, and an opportunity to publish in its online magazine Literarian. Emerging writers work, exchange ideas, interact with one another and readers, and find community in this program.

CHRISTINA CHOE received support for 1984 Redux (working title), a personal documentary about Choes journey exploring the nature of propaganda. The film will incorporate elements of animation, performance art, satire, hoaxes/pranksterism, and interviews through the lens of propaganda. The film aims to push the boundaries of fiction and documentary, where the line between performance and reality, lies and truth, are blurred, providing us a meta narrative of how propaganda functions.

MU PERFORMING ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for actor and playwright Sun Mee Chomet, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $9,000 to support the development and production of How to Be a Korean Woman.  Mu produces great performances born of arts, equality, and justice from the heart of the Asian American experience.  It advances Asian American culture and perspectives through theater and Taiko.  One of its artistic values is to provide professional development opportunities for emerging Asian American artists.  Actor and playwright Sun Mee Chomet is expanding her play How to Be a Korean Woman into a full-evening solo work.  This one-woman show shares the story of her reunion with her Korean birth family and the expectations that were both met and left unmet.  Funding allows her to add the voices of her adoptive family into the body of the play, work with a choreographer to further develop the dance/movement sections, provide for the composition of original music to accompany the performance work, and produce the play outside of Minnesota.  

CATHERING CHUNG, writer, New York City, will travel to Leipzig, Göttingen, and Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France, to conduct research for her next novel about students of a famous female mathematician (based on historical figures from Germany and France) during the first half of the 1900s, when women could not attend university. Chung’s research will center on the challenges her characters might have faced as revealed through personal papers, university policies, news articles, and photographic archives. Having firsthand experience with the geographic settings in her novel—streets, places, graveyards, churches—will help her piece together her characters’ daily lives.

MAYA CIARROCCHI received support for Overburden, an experimental short video. Every year, 43 million tons of coal are taken from West Virginia through mountaintop removal mining. Most people outside of West Virginia probably imagine this is done by miners working deep underground at tasks they have done for generations. However, since the 1980s, the coal companies have used far fewer miners and far more explosives to blast through the tops of mountains to their coal seams within. In this world, the immediately recognizable rolling tips of the Appalachian range are called overburden. Ciarrocchi decided to create the film Overburden after witnessing mountain top removal firsthand during a research trip to West Virginia last summer. Her work will be a full and split-screen, single channel experimental video comprised of footage of active and abandoned mines from the ground and from the air, juxtaposed with video portraits of activists, local residents, miners, and coal company officials. The video images will reflect the conflicting realities of life in West Virginia: the lushness of the landscape and the desolation of the mines. This work will be documentary in style, but will contain no commentary or interviews. The goal is to create a durational work of open narrative that presents no single agenda other than exposing the complex issues surrounding energy production in the United States.

"NICHOLAS J. CLAUSEN, documentary filmmaker, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel to Rockport, Maine, to attend the Maine Media Workshops and take a seven-day class entitled Documentary Camera, which examines the technical and creative roles that the video camera plays in documentary filmmaking.  The course will involve the study of composition, shot design, blocking, and camera moves as well as film theory, history and criticism with an emphasis on the camera."

ROY R. CLOVIS, JR., filmmaker, New York City, will travel to Panama City and Bocas del Toro, Panama, to study the experiences of current day Afro-Caribbean Panamanians, many of whom are descendants of Panama Canal builders who immigrated from the Islands of the West Indies.  Clovis has a strong personal connection to this pursuit as his family history is deeply rooted in Rio Abajo, a well established enclave in Panama City.  He will spend most of his time in Rio Abajo, Colon and Bocas del Toro conducting interviews designed to capture the voices, personal stories, mannerisms and energy of the people.  Clovis plans to integrate this research into a screenplay he wishes to write and direct.

"JOHN COLBURN, writer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Ghent, Belgium, to attend the Fairy Tale Vanguard Conference for research into his current writing projects.  Colburn’s fiction and hybrid poetic forms borrow from the tropes, worldview, and images of folk and fairy tales. Attendance at the conference will provide intimate access to some of the top writers in the field of contemporary tales."

"KENNA-CAMARA COTTMAN, choreographer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Pikine, Senegal, West Africa, to investigate Sabar dance culture and the Griot tradition that maintains the artistic culture and creativity of West Africa.  Through cultural immersion with the Niange Family of Griots, Cottman will learn the dance and drum rhythms of the Wolof people in Senegal. West African dance forms are at the heart of Cottman’s choreographic work.  This research trip will expand her movement vocabulary and provide deeper historical context and connection to inform her future work."

SCOTT CUMMINGS was awarded a grant for BUFFALO JUGGALOS, a half-hour experimental video portrait of the Juggalo community of Buffalo, New York. Juggalos are a subculture of fans of the band Insane Clown Posse, a clown-themed hardcore hip-hop duo from Detroit known for their controversial lyrics and hardcore following. Juggalos have gained media attention due to several violent episodes that have lead law enforcement in many states to classify them as a street gang. This reputation is augmented by the Juggalos exaggerated style they paint their faces in evil clown make-up for community events and concerts. Behind the make-up, the stereotypical image of the Juggalo stands as white, poor, overweight, unattractive, strung out on drugs, and prone to violence in other words, White Trash. This experimental video portrait will explore that characterization as both true and untrue.

DANSPACE PROJECT, New York City, received a two-year grant of $65,000 in support of commissions to emerging New York City and/or Minnesota-based choreographers for the presentation of new works in the Danspace Project season.  Danspace Project presents a vital community of contemporary dance artists in the historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery.  Danspace supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences.  Its commissioning initiative is the foundation of its mission. 

THE DEBATE SOCIETY, Brooklyn, New York, received $10,000 in support of the development and production of the theatrical work Blood Play.  The Debate Society creates new plays through the collaboration of Hannah Boss, Paul Thureen, and Oliver Butler.  It is obsessed with nostalgia,crumbling Americana, aging, and loss.  Many of its plays explore the American experience through the lenses of hope and failure.  The Debate Society’s seventh full-length production, Blood Play is inspired by anti-Semitic medieval accusations of blood-libel wherein Jewish men were said to menstruate and seek out and eat Christian babies to replenish the blood they lost during menses.  The Debate Society took the stories of these horrific charges and translated them into a dark thriller of sorts, focusing on fear mongering, rumor in communities, and how terrifying our capacity to believe can be.

ARISLEYDA DILONE, filmmaker, New York City, will travel to Santo Domingo and Barahona, Dominican Republic to continue research and development for a personal documentary on gender and assimilation.  Born with XXY chromosomes, this is a very personal journey for intersexed filmmaker Dilone, who wishes to juxtapose the experience of intersexed females in the Dominican Republic to her own as a Dominican who grew up in a primarily Caucasian suburb.  Dilone will visit with anthropologists and sociologists in Santo Domingo and travel to the province of Barahona to meet a professor who has conducted researh on intersexuality and has agreed to introduce Dilone to many of his subjects.  This research will culminate in a documentary film on intersexuality called La Hora de Volver/Time To Return.