Past
Grantees

LYNNEE DENISE BONNER, composer and sound designer, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, to gain a political and cultural understanding of the social landscape that generated the music and dance genre, Kwaito. Kwaito, house music combined with African sounds and shouted or chanted lyrics, emerged in South Africa during the late 1990s. Bonners interest in researching this form is part of her ongoing composition work around the African Diaspora.

BOWERY ARTS + SCIENCE, New York City, received $20,000 in support of a new program titled Stakeholders Choice. The mission of Bowery Arts + Science is to support and sustain the vital spirit of the spoken word in all its forms, beginning with poetry and including performance, theater, and intersections with music, dance and the visual arts; to support and sustain these arts globally, in all languages, with committed attention to Endangered Languages; to provide a safe haven throug the use of its space, the Bowery Poetry Club; to promote the publishing of books of poetry and poetry in all media; and to encourage community and fruitful interaction among artists. Stakeholders Choice will deepen the organizations commitment to emerging artists. It will utilize an artist/curator Stakeholder panel to discover, vet, and present emerging talent. Eight emerging artists will enjoy opportunities to hone their craft, advance their careers, and perform at the Bowery Poetry Club. Performances will be webcast. At the end of the season, one of the eight artists will receive individual, professional mentoring to develop a feature-length, one-person show, which will be performed at the Bowery Poetry Club and elsewhere.

THE BRONX MUSEUM OF THE ARTS, Bronx, New York, received $18,000 in support of the Artist in the Marketplace Program (AIM) and an accompanying Biennial exhibition and catalog. The Museum presents new ideas and voices in a larger, global context and makes contemporary art both a relevant and indespensible experience for culturally diverse Bronx K-12 students, families, community residents, artists, art patrons, and museum visitors. It presents exhibitions that feature works by diverse and under-represented artists on themes that explore the intersections between popular culture and contemporary art. AIM provides opportunities for emerging artists who have yet to establish strong career roots. Now entering its 31st year, AIM has helped 1,080 artists engage with leading art professionals through seminar sessions and studio visits. AIM artists are selected via an open call and expert panel review. The artists are diverse in age, experience, education, and nationality. AIM invests in the careers of 36 artists each year, and maintains ties with alumni as they move forward in their professions. Each group of 18 artists attends 12 weekly seminars. A culminating Biennial exhibition features works by AIM artists

The BRONX MUSEUM OF THE ARTS, Bronx, New York, received a grant of $18,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City-based artists in the 2011-12 Artist in the Marketplace Program. Founded in 1971, the Bronx Museums exhibitions explore the intersection between popular culture and contemporary art, support the work of culturally diverse artists, and promote cross-cultural dialogue. Now entering its 32nd year, the Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program has aided the careers of 1,116 emerging artists. Competitively selected artists participate in a seminar series that secures leading professionals to provide professional development training. The artists learn important and practical artistic skills from invited guest speakers and each other. The program is divided into two groups of 18 artists each who take part in winter and spring seminars. In 2013, the Museum will mount the AIM Biennial exhibition.

ERNEST ARTHUR BRYANT III, visual artist, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Beijing, China, and surrounding areas to learn more about the foundations of aesthetic criteria from which artists in China work, and in what ways artists culture is represented music in performance there. He is interested in deepening the intimacy of his drawings, and expanding his critical aesthetic.

CAVE CANEM FOUNDATION, Brooklyn, New York, received a grant of $17,000 in support of 2011-12 fall and spring writing workshops for emerging poets. 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. Cave Canems community has grown from an initial gathering of 26 poets to become an influential movement with a renowned faculty and a high-achieving national fellowship of 319. Cave Canem offers writing workshops that provide opportunities for emerging poets to build writing skills, increase knowledge of poetic traditions, and participate in a community of writers. The 2011 workshop Breaking Line, Building Lyric will approach the line as a basic and propulsive element of the lyric poem. In early 2012, Writing across Cultures will encourage participants to push beyond comfort zones; experiment with new forms, grammars, and vocabularies; and consider cultural inflections on poetics. Each workshop consists of eight sessions and culminates in a reading

THE CEDAR CULTURAL CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $21,200 in support of a commissioning program for emerging Minnesota composers. The Cedars mission is to promote inter-cultural appreciation and understanding through the presentation of global music and dance. The 416 Club series features Minnesota performers. With Jerome support, the Cedar will commission new pieces from composers competitively selected to perform in the 416 Club program.

SABRINA CHAPADJIEU, composer and songwriter, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to London, Paris, and Berlin, to study neo-burlesque to inspire her composition and performance style in this form. She is interested in exploring the different geographic influences, such as the of Londons theartical politics, Berlins Weimar era cabarets, and Paris new wave of feminist burlesque, to create a new series of songs.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $8,000 to CHEZ BUSHWICK in support of the creation, development, and production of ECLIPSE, a new work by Jonah Bokaer. Chez Bushwick, founded in 2002, supports an artist-run exhibition space, rehearsal studio, and performance venue in Brooklyn, New York. ECLIPSE, premiering in New York in September 2012, gives visual and physical expression to the themes of cyclical change, geometrical revolving/revolution, and the role of space in determining the bodys range and potential. Bokaers choreography will feature signature projections of clear and white light as a visual design component. ECLIPSE will unfold in four episodes in which sequences of duets and trios will abstract and explore interpersonal tensions and loyalties.

CHILDREN'S THEATRE COMPANY (CTC), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $22,500 in support of the Playground program. The mission of CTC is to create extraordinary theater experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire young people. CTC develops fresh material through commissioning and developmental processes to build a canon of work that raises the standard for the field. Playground is an intensive developmental studio designed to support the creation of new works by emerging playwrights who are members of New Dramatists, New York City.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $10,000 to CLUBBED THUMB, New York Citiy, in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights based in New York City and/or Minnesota. Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops, and produces funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers. Its primary development programs are Summerworks and New Play Boot Camps. Summerworks supports playwrights in the creation of new works. It produces a four-week season consisting of three productions. New Play Boot Camps are script revision workshops in which a playwright produces three drafts in four sessions, concluding with a public reading of the work-in-progress. Throughout the year, Clubbed Thumb cultivates plays through both in-house and public readings.

COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $20,000 in support of the publication of three books by emerging authors. Founded in 1984, the mission of Coffee House Press is to publish exciting, vital, and enduring authors of this time; to delight and inspire readers; to contribute to the cultural life of its community; and to enrich literary heritage. By building on the best traditions of publishing in the book arts, it produces books that celebrate innovation in the craft of writing, the infinite possibilities of the imagination, and the many authentic voices of the American experience. Jerome dollars support emerging writers based in New York City and Minnesota

The COUNCIL OF LITERARY MAGAZINES AND PRESSES (CLMP), New York City, received a two-year grant of $92,000 in support of FACE OUT: Maximizing the Visibility of Emerging Artists. CLMP supports and promotes non-commercial literary publishing to ensure that readers and writers are well served by a strong and vibrant literary culture. As the service and advocacy organization for independent literary publishers, CLMP services and resources are designed to develop each members publishing capacity to increase marketing and organizational skills, while promoting communication and shared learning across the field. FACE OUT is a re-grant and technical assistance program for New York City small presses and the emerging writers they publish. Publishers based in the five boroughs of New York City apply with New York City-based emerging writers for books scheduled to be published and marketed over a two-year period. Funds are used to build emerging author/publisher relationships, including author tours and author-focused marketing initiatives. Workshops/roundtables and evaluation sessions provide technical assistance and peer learning through networking. CLMP gathers information learned in FACE OUT and produces case studies that benefit other independent publishers and emerging writers.

A commitment of $8,780 was made to the Council on Foundations, a national membership organization that serves community foundations, corporate grantmakers, family foundations, global philanthropy, and independent foundations. It has approximately 2,000 members and strives to increase the effectiveness, stewardship, and accountability of the sector while providing members with the services and support they need for success.

ALICE COX received $8,000 for Poisonberry, a short fiction film about Minnie, an Asian-American child whose estranged father kidnaps her from her loving, yet reckless young mother. Separated since Minnie was an infant, her father faces deportation proceedings, while her mother barely makes ends meet haplessly pursuing an acting career. In the film, Minnie finds she has to make do on her own as best she can with her fathers ultimate abandonment and her mothers ongoing cycle of codependent relationships. Poisonberry is about a child who turns a corner after tasting first-hand the plight of struggling adults. The films title is inspired by a quote from Salman Rushdies Midnights Children, because children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison...

ENRICO CULLEN received a grant for SALT IN THE AIR, a feature-length documentary that tells the stories of salt miners, mine engineers, doctors, patients and residents of Solotvyno, a small Ukrainian village located deep in the Carpathian Mountains on the border with Romania. A huge salt mine with purportedly the purest salt on Earth exists beneath the town, but also looms large in the towns future. The salt is so pure that inhaling it can virtually cure asthma in children. Its also a highly valuable resource for this poor community. Today, the salt mine is collapsing, the miners have held protests, and the mine director was recently fired. Members of the Ukrainian presidential cabinet have held high level talks about what to do with the mine. In short, the coming months and years will spell out Solotvynos future. Does the phrase, No salt mine was ever abandoned by Ferdinand Braudel (Civilization and Capital, 1979) carry within it the struggles of the past and a prediction for the future; namely, that the Solotvyno Salt Mine will be sustained? In a sense, Solotvyno serves as a metaphor for the broader relationship of human beings to Earth. Can we transform the way we live so that our darker, exploitative impulses serve a higher purpose? This film will examine that question and more.

The Jerome Foundation made a three-year commitment totaling $25,000 to the PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in support of the operation of the Cultural Data Project in New York State, and a pledge, with conditions to be met, of a three-year grant of $35,000 to the Pew Charitable Trusts to launch the Cultural Data Project in Minnesota, providing sufficient funds are raised from other grantmakers. The Cultural Data project is an online management tool designed to strengthen arts and cultural organizations. It gathers reliable, longitudinal data on the sector. This emerging national standard enables participating organizations to track trends and benchmark their progress through sophisticated reporting tools, empowers researchers and advocates with information to make the case for arts and culture, and equips funders with data to plan and evaluate grantmaking activities more effectively. The CDP was launched in Pennsylvania in 2004 and has grown to include Maryland, California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. It is currently being considered by other states.

JENNIFER DANOS, sculptor and installation artist, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Rome, Florence, Pistoia, Biella, Bologna, Milan, Prato, Rimini, and Turin, Italy, conducting research on how the most central elements of her own artistic inquiry function in Italy as compared to Minnesota; understand how the long, rich, and overwhelming history of art affects contemporary artists working there; and find residencies in Italy where she can further develop those ideas and her practice.

CARRIE DASHOW, interdisciplinary artist, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Auroville, India, to examine the basis of its judicial system, which empowers the individual. Dashow wants to learn about the laws of this international spiritual community and bring back new possibilities for her art work. This immersion experience contributes to and expands a continuum of performance and research, Municipal Works, in which each piece poses inquiry to authority, and desire for community and involvement in public space.

Previous recipient JASON DaSILVA was awarded support for When I Walk, a feature-length documentary that chronicles DaSilvas rapid loss of mobility over a five-year period, his emotional journey along the way, and his pursuit of a new identity. Five years ago, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), DaSilva discovered there were few stories or personal accounts documenting the physical and emotional experience of dealing with the disease. While there is an array of resources written from a medical perspective, there are no documentary narratives exploring the unusual and surreal experience of watching your body rapidly deteriorate. Given that MS is the most common neurological disease, DaSilva found this surprising. He wanted to understand the journey of those who had gone before him, yet there were few accounts. His doctors were telling him that in five years he would be in a wheelchair, possibly without eyesight, and perhaps also losing the ability to use his hands. At the time, he did not believe the doctors. Yet at the same time, being a filmmaker, he decided to turn the camera on himself and begin recording. Now after five years, some of what was foretold has come true. He is now in a wheelchair and has lost all mobility in his legs. Fortunately, however, he has captured the experience through this documentary film, which he wishes to share with others.