Past
Grantees

A grant of $45,000 was awarded to THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the 2011-12 Minnesota Emerging Writers Grant Program. The Lofts mission is to support the artistic development of writers, foster a writing community, and build an audience for literature. It serves more than 600,000 individuals each year with classes and workshops for writers at all levels of development, readings and interdisciplinary events featuring national and local writers, specialized programs for communities historically under-represented or under-recognized in American literature, age-specific programming for teens and children, fellowships, mentorships, and career initiative awards. The Minnesota Emerging Writers Grant Program will provide emerging writers with financial and professional support. An open application process with review and selection by experienced judges will determine the emerging writers who participate. This new program design replaces the former Minnesota Writers Career Initiative Grant Program.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $98,000 in support of the 2011-12 and the 2012-13 Loft Mentor Series. As an independent literary center, The Loft supports the artistic development of writers, fosters a writing community, and builds an audience for literature. The Loft Mentor Series in Poetry & Creative Prose offers 12 emerging Minnesota writers the opportunity to work with six authors of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. This is an opportunity for year-long growth inspired by intensive work with six authors of poetry and prose and the support of a community of writers. Two mentors in each of the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry work in their respective pairs to choose four emerging Minnesota writers in their genre for the year-long mentorship. The Series presents six readings, each featuring one of the six mentors as well as two program mentees. Three of the Mentors spend extended periods of time working with the group in craft seminars, intensive genre-specific workshops, and individual manuscript conferences. The other three come to Minnesota for an intensive weekend of seminars, craft talks, and one-on-one manuscript consultations.

MARIE LOSIER was awarded a grant for The Ballad of Genesis P-Orridge, an experimental film that is a portrait of one of the most controversial, fearless, and renowned experimental artists of our time. A key figure of the underground music scene for over 30 years, a cult artist in the pre-punk and post-punk bands Throbbing Gristle (1975 to 1981) and Psychic TV (1981 to present), Genesis is considered the father of industrial music and a pioneer of acid house and techno. Collaborations of Genesis with such people as W.S. Burroughs, Derek Jarman, Brion Gysin, and Francis Bacon, to name but a few, have proven seminal. Not content with merely breaking new ground in music, Genesis has instigated a daring assault on the fundamentals of biology. Placing transformation at the core of his life, Genesis and his now deceased lover and collaborator, Lady Jaye Breyer, embarked on a project entitled The Pandrogeny, an attempt to deconstruct their individual identities in order to create a third being, The Breyer P-Orridge. To this end, Genesis changed from a He into a She, embodying a unique life of experiment, of which Lady Jaye remains an integral part in memoriam. Genesis has made his body a shape-shifting work of art. This film will be a playful, agile, raw, cut-up and hand-spliced patchwork of iconic images, capturing the constant activity, flow and theatricality of Genesiss world: an entertaining collision of daily life, fiction, history, music, and myth.

The LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP, New York City, received a grant of $17,000 to support the participation of emerging New York City-based artists in the 2010-11 Keyholder and Special Editions residencies. The Printshop supports contemporary artists by enabling them to create new work. It provides artists with open access to studio space, stipends, expertise in printmaking, exposure opportunities, and career services. Its studio facility serves as a lab for artists to develop new work through experimentation with the medium and exploration of new directions. The Keyholder program provides eight emerging artists with free studio access for one year, stipends, and a range of technical assistance and career development opportunities. The Special Editions program provides four emerging artists with studio access, including full publication of a body of work; collaboration with the Master Printer; stipends; inclusion in a catalog; and exhibition opportunities. Participants are selected through a competitive process in response to open calls for proposals.

DARNETHA LINCOLN MBAYE, New York, New York, will travel to Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, to study traditional and contemporary dance. MBaye will have individual workshops with master drummer, Doudou N'Diaye Rose, and members of his celebrated dance and drum ensemble and classes at the studio, L'Ecole du Sable. She also plans to study traditional dance history through interviews with elders, including master drummer Elhadji Vieux Sing Faye and master dancer Adja Fatou N'Doye M'Baye. This study will further MBayes work with her company, Roots in Revolution, which fuses traditional dance vocabulary with modern, jazz, and hip-hop technique.

GAYLA MARTY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Tunisia, North Africa, to conduct research for a book about identity, culture, and community change over 30 years, with a focus on shared meals, immersion in Arabic language, visits to archaeological sites, and interviews. Marty will interview people she met over 30 years ago while a journalism exchange student. She became a creative writer as a result of her stay. Marty believes that her past experience, coupled with a contemporary trip, will add a richness and complexity to her writing, which may take the form of a second full novel, a collection of essays, short stories, or a memoir, a logical sequel to her memoir about the transformation of US agriculture in the 20th century.

MEGAN MAYER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to New York for an intensive workshop with American postmodern choreographer, Douglas Dunn, studying his highly eclectic approach to dance, which uses humor, props, and text. Mayer is interested in the resonance between Dunns work and her own use of nuance and humor. She will also attend performances in the City to provide a context for her own work.

ANDREA MILLER, New York, New York, will travel to Madrid, Spain and Santander, Spain, to conduct research on speech patterning, tonal inflections, and the physical body language of Spanish Jewish communities. She is studying how cultural experience is embedded in verbal and physical language to inform the choreography of her newest project, Lengua (meaning both tongue and language). She grew up in an American Jewish community with a Spanish mother and is researching ways to integrate questions arising from her personal history into her artistic process.

The MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN (MCAD), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $80,000 in support of the 2010-11 Jerome Fellowships Program for emerging artists. The College is an independent, accredited institution that educates individuals to be professional artists and designers, effective leaders, and active citizens. Through this work and other activities, it advances the cultural life of its community. The MCAD/Jerome Foundation Fellowship Program for Emerging Artists provides artists with fellowship funds to explore and produce a focused body of work. It supports five Minnesota visual artists selected by a three-member jury from proposals submitted in response to an open call. Fellowship stipends may be used for, but are not limited to, experimenting with new techniques and materials, working or studying with a mentor, purchasing equipment to facilitate an aesthetic or technical investigation, studio rental, time to work in the studio, supplies, technical support, exhibition or education opportunities, and travel. In addition, the program provides opportunities for the artists to learn and receive significant recognition through conversations with visiting critics, an exhibition, and a catalog publication.

The MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $20,000 for the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program (MAEP), a curatorial department dedicated to exhibiting and supporting artists living and working in Minnesota. The Institute enriches the community by collecting, preserving, and making accessible outstanding works of art from the worlds diverse cultures. This encyclopedic art museums collection reflects 6,000 years of the range and diversity of human civilizations and imaginations. In existence since 1975, MAEP is a creative partnership in which an elected artist panel, representing the Minnesota artist community, selects artists to exhibit work in two large galleries. Annual programming includes exhibitions, artist-led tours, lectures, panel discussions, and web-based activities. The program is open to application from any Minnesota artist.

The MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $40,000 to support the participation of emerging artists in the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program. The Institute enriches the community by collecting, preserving, and making accessible outstanding works of art from the worlds diverse cultures. Its the Upper Midwests premier encyclopedic art museum with more than 80,000 works of art in its permanent collection. It annually welcomes approximately 500,000 visitors and serves a membership base of over 20,000 households. The Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program is a curatorial program of the Institute dedicated to exhibiting and supporting artists living and working in Minnesota. An elected artists panel representing the states artist community selects fellow artists. Annual programming includes gallery exhibitions, artist-led tours, lectures, panel discussions, and web-based interviews.

The MINNESOTA CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $43,000 in support of the Jerome Book Arts Mentorship and Fellowship Programs. Founded in 1983, the Center is dedicated to nurturing artists engaged in creative expression through the book form, celebrating and preserving the traditional arts of bookmaking, and showcasing the book in all its contexts. In the first year of the grant period, support will be offered to talented emerging artists from other media to explore the book form with mentoring assistance from a master book artist. Selected by an independent panel, artists will work for a year with the products of their mentorship exhibited at the Center. Participants will have the opportunity to take classes, interact with their peers, and work with Center staff. In year two, an independent panel will award fellowships to book artists. The fellows will develop their works in a collegial environment, receiving full and unlimited access to the Center's studio. Critique sessions and a culminating exhibition will take place.

The MINNESOTA COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $5,555 as a membership and general support commitment. The Council is an association of family, independent, community, public, and corporate foundations and giving programs. As a community of grantmakers, the Council embraces philanthropy's role in a civil society. It advocates for public policy to sustain robust philanthropy. Its members work strategically through grantmaking and other means to improve the vitality and health of communities.

MIXED BLOOD THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $18,600 to subsidize the creation, development, and production of four works by three emerging playwrights. Mixed Blood is a professional, multi-racial company that promotes cultural pluralism and individual equality through artistic excellence, using theater to address the artificial barriers that keep people from succeeding in American society. The Theatres vision is to be the definitive destination where theater artists and audiences representing the global village can create and share work that spawns a ripple effect of social change and revolutionizes access to theater. Mixed Blood, a founding member of the National New Play Network, is known not only for the commissioning of new works but for the presentation of first, second, and sometimes third productions of original plays.

MOMENTA ART, Brooklyn, New York, received a grant of $7,200 to support four exhibitions of new video installation works by emerging artists. Momenta Art is an artist-run charitable organization that promotes emerging and under-represented artists. It seeks to expand the dialogue of art by showing work that is not well represented in commercial galleries because of its form or content. It promotes artists of all ages, races, and ethnicities. In particular, it promotes work that explores the nature of aesthetic experience balanced with social engagement. Each exhibition will begin with an artists introduction to his or her work, followed by a discussion with the artist and a short program of other artists work chosen by the featured artist. There is an open process for submissions of rsums and work samples, which are reviewed by curatorial staff.

MOVEMENT RESEARCH, New York City, received a grant of $25,000 to support six emerging New York City-based choreographers in the creation and development of new work through the Artist-in-Residence program. Movement Research is a laboratory for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms. It is dedicated to the creation and implementation of free and low-cost programs that nurture and investigate discourse and experimentation. It values the individual artist, the creative process, and the vital role of the artist within society. This is an open application process with a panel review. The program provides commissioning funds, free and subsidized rehearsal space, exchange opportunities, and other formats for investigative discourse. The design of the program goes beyond standard commissioning by providing a supportive and rigorous environment for the creation of new work.

A grant of $22,500 was authorized for MU PERFORMING ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, to support Phase II of the Jerome New Performance Program. Now in its 18th year, Mu Performing Arts is a Pan-Asian performing arts organization whose mission is to produce great performances born of arts, equality, and justice from the heart of the Asian American experience. In keeping with its demonstrated desire to develop new works by emerging Asian American writers and contribute to the Asian American canon, Mu initiated the first Jerome New Performance Program in 2006-07, then identifying seven artists who were commissioned to create new works. Through a series of readings and workshops, Mu eventually produced three of those works. In 2009, Jerome supported Phase I of the second New Performance Program, focusing on four emerging Asian American writers. Phase II of the program supports further development of two of their pieces, through workshops, and finally, the full production of one in the 2010-11 season.

The Jerome Foundation awarded a two-year grant of $80,000 to NEW DRAMATISTS, New York City, in support of the Playwrights Lab and the Composer-Librettist Studio. The mission of New Dramatists is to find gifted playwrights and give them the time, space, and tools to develop their craft in the company of their peers, so that they may fulfill their potential and make lasting contributions to the theater. While in residence at New Dramatists, a member playwright has an artistic home for seven years during which time she or he has complete creative authority over the work developed at New Dramatists; unlimited access to workspaces; and an artistic community of peer playwrights, staff, collaborators, and alumni. The Playwrights Lab offers programs that provide writers with invaluable resources throughout each stage of the play development processfrom idea, to page, to reading, to workshop, and to production. The Composer-Librettist Studio, two weeks in length, is conducted in partnership with Nautilus Music-Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, and focuses on music-theater development and the principles of collaboration. It teams five New Dramatists writers with five composers and five performers to develop new works.

NEW GEORGES, New York City, received a two-year grant of $30,000 in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights based in New York City. This includes the Germ Project, a commissioning and production program for new work by emerging writers. Since its founding in 1992, New Georges has produced innovative, ambitious new plays and served as a productive home for promising and accomplished women theater artists. New Georges sparks relationships and opportunities that push adventurous artists and their works forward into the world. It operates on two tiers: production and play/artist development. Its multi-use work space is home to readings, small-scale workshop presentations, rehearsals, and artist/community gatherings

NEW RADIO AND PERFORMING ARTS, Staten Island, New York, received support of $32,000 over two years to support commissions for emerging artists based in New York City and/or Minnesota to create networked art for Turbulence in 2010 and 2011. This organization fosters the development of new and experimental work for radio, sound, and net arts. The Turbulence website commissions, exhibits, and archives works that explore networked technologies. The commissions enable artists to explore the networked medium using existing technologies and developing new applications to originate innovative work. Since 1996, the organization has commissioned over 176 original networked art projects. Turbulence intends that the commissions reflect the diversity of contemporary networked art.