Past
Grantees

MARY ANNE NOEL and JOB ETHAN CHRISTENSON, dancers and teachers in Crookston, will travel to Hebron, New Hampshire, for eight days to attend Swing Out New Hampshire 2004. The Dance Camp will consist of classes and dancing in Swing, Lindy Hop, Jazz, Blues and Tap.

A two-year grant of $52,000 was authorized for the NORTHERN CLAY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the Jerome Artists Project Grants Program. The Center's mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Programs include classes and workshops for children and adults at all levels of proficiency; exhibitions of work by regional, national, and international artists; studio space and grants for artists; and a sales gallery representing many of the top ceramic artists from the Midwest and elsewhere. The Artists Project Grants Program is restricted to emerging clay artists competitively selected from an open call by an independent panel of three clay experts. The program is structured to facilitate and support individually designed programs of professional development and work creation for three artists each year. The year culminates in a group exhibition in the Center's galleries. The substance of what the artists undertake is personally determined by each artist. The program is frequently used to investigate new techniques, try materials and start new bodies of work.

A grant was awarded to KRISTEN NUTILE for Loss, an experimental documentary that explores faded memories and conventional notions of long-term grief. The film addresses the unspoken pressure in society to "move on" and "let go" after losing someone. The story unravels through a personal narrative, which centers on Nutiles loss of her father to a brain tumor over 15 years ago.

Through the fiscal agent services of INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, independent choreographer MARGO ABDO O'DELL received $8,000 in support of the creation and production of new work. Funding will support a dance, music, and multimedia concert titled Evolutions for which O'Dell will create a new work inspired by dance and music from Persia, Turkey, and Lebanon, demonstrating how cultures influence each other and how cultural arts evolve as a result of globalization. In a second new work, O'Dell will explore media images of danse orientale and contrast images to reality. She will illuminate the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions about Arab women. The concert will be presented at Intermedia Arts, a multidisciplinary art center whose mission is to build understanding among people through art. It offers presentations in visual arts, media arts, performance and interdisciplinary forms.

A grant of $12,000 was awarded to the OPEN EYE FIGURE THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, whose mission is to create original theatrical work in a contemporary voice, drawing from traditional puppetry techniques and classic theatrical forms. Founded by Michael Sommers and Susan Haas, Open Eye will develop and produce two new works with Jerome support: Flatworks and Dancing with the Contagium. Three short pieces developed with collaborating artists will be presented in Flatworks: The Language of Silent Film, A Facsimile of Helpfulness and Valeska Gert. Dancing with the Contagium, by Sommers and Haas, will be produced in March of 2005. The work incorporates puppetry, objects, visual word play and original music. It springs from the obsessed voice of the street preacher and the compulsive vision of the outsider. Desiring to explore the nave, the direct, and the innate, this work will dare to rant without preaching and encourage the desperate to be hopeful.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $24,000 to the ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE'S, New York City, to support three commissions over the next 18 months for its Second Helpings series. The St. Lukes Chamber Ensemble explores a wide range of repertoire through innovative strategies including artistic collaborations, alternative forms of presentation and educational outreach. It has a long and distinguished record of commissioning new works by composers, both emerging and established. Jerome subsidy will allow St. Luke's to commission new works by composers Roshanne Etezady, Gabriela Frank, and Daniel Bernard Roumain. The works will be presented in the Second Helpings series, a showcase of contemporary music with special emphases on subsequent performances of recently written work as well as newly commissioned works by emerging American composers.

Minneapolis puppet theater artists ESTHER OURAY and JULIE KASTIGAR will travel to Noragachi, Mexico, to attend the Tarahumara Festival of Semana Santa, in order to observe the magic of a deeply rooted Spring ritual of death and resurrection. Much of Ouray's and Kastigar's work with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre focuses on magic and ritual, including the May Day Festival. In Mexico, the two will learn more about ritual, which will inform their work for the 2005 Tree of Life ceremony on May Day.

Artists DOUGLAS PADILLA and XAVIER TAVERA, Minneapolis and St. Paul, will spend two weeks in Mexico City and Oaxaca exploring and documenting Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, a religious, sociological and aesthetic event. Padilla and Tavera have a long-standing commitment to the celebration of Dia de los Muertos in the Twin Cities. They need to go to Mexico to dig deeper by experiencing indigenous Day of the Dead celebrations. They want to spend time with traditional families, with their devotions and their ofrendas. They also want to visit art museums and galleries in Mexico City, which celebrate Dia de los Muertos and exhibit contemporary ofrendas built by professional artists, ranging from the traditional to the avant-garde. They will document their experiences on videotape and in photographs. The travel will benefit the artists individually as well as the communities in which they work.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, received a grant of $42,500 in support of commissions to emerging creative artists in its 2004-05 season. P.S. 122 is a multidisciplinary arts center serving the dance and performance community. It supports and presents live events created by artists who are expanding the boundaries of theater, dance, music and performance art through form, context and content. P.S. 122 operates a comprehensive commissioning program that seeks out and nurtures emerging artists, offers them commissions to develop new work, provides rehearsal and workshop space, and subsidizes performance runs of varying lengths. Former Artistic and Executive Director Mark Russell is responsible for the selection of 2004-05 Jerome Foundation-subsidized commissions. These dollars support 15 to 20 artists who are encouraged to develop new work and present it.

PILLSBURY UNITED COMMUNITIES, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on behalf of PILLSBURY HOUSE THEATRE, received two grants totaling $38,500. The Theatre is a professional arts institution committed to the Settlement House tradition of creating art in collaboration with community. Support was authorized for the 2004 Non-English Speaking Spoken Here: The Late Nite Series. This series gives subsidy and support to emerging performance artists to create new work and test it as a work-in-progress before an audience. Late Nite is a transformation of culture, where text, music, spoken word, sound and images weave together a fearless celebration of new voices and new art. The theme for the 2004 series is establishing roots in transient cultures through new music and dance. Artists are primarily drawn from Minnesota and New York City. Each of the three series rosters will feature six to ten artists.

PILLSBURY UNITED COMMUNITIES, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on behalf of PILLSBURY HOUSE THEATRE, received two grants totaling $38,500. The Theatre is a professional arts institution committed to the Settlement House tradition of creating art in collaboration with community. The first grant supports the readings of new plays by emerging playwrights from Minnesota and New York City, and the production of new works by emerging playwrights on the mainstage. In 2004, this includes the Three Mondays reading series and the production of Bel Canto by Daniel Alexander Jones.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $46,000 to PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS, New York City, in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights in its 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. Playwrights Horizons has served as an artistic home to hundreds of playwrights and thousands of theater artists since its founding in 1971. Its purpose is to discover and nurture new voices for the American theater. It conducts up to 20 play readings a season, mounts several developmental workshops, utilizes the expertise and experience of its Literary Department to assist writers, commissions new works, and produces new plays.

The QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART, Queens, New York, received $5,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in exhibitions in the 2004-05 program year. It is the Museum's purpose to provide exhibitions, educational programs and outreach activities of the highest quality, which serve its Queens community and fully reflect its history. Emerging artists will participate in group thematic exhibitions at the Museum, the Wall Work program, and the Ramp and Wedge exhibition series. Exhibitions include the Subway Series currently being presented, the Queens International 2004, work by contemporary artists from the South Asian Diaspora living in New York, and a survey of artists' gardens.

RAGAMALA MUSIC AND DANCE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $8,000 to support the creation and production of a new work by choreographer APARNA RAMASWAMY. Ragamala Music and Dance Theater presents classical and contemporary/collaborative work based in Bharatanatyam, an ancient dance of southern India. Ragamala encourages its company dancers to grow as artists and develop as choreographers. Aparna Ramaswamy is Associate Artistic Director of the company. She received Jerome support to create Naveena for the 2004 Momentum: New Dance Work Series, co-sponsored by the Walker Art Center and the Southern Theater, and will engage Speaking in Tongues, a group of virtuoso musicians representing four diverse cultures. Naveena will be structured as a suite of four pieces. It will juxtapose four ancient musical traditions and one ancient dance tradition to create their contemporary reincarnation.

APARNA RAMASWAMY, Minneapolis, Bharatanatyam choreographer and dancer, will travel to Tamil Nadu, India, to conduct further research for her work in progress, Bhakti (Devotion). The work is an exploration of mystical, musical poetry, which illuminated the soulful poetry of two female saint-poetsAndal of 8th century India and Hildegard von Bingen, of 11th century Germany. The hymns written by Andal are sung by congregations throughout Tamil Nadu during the month of Maargazhi (mid-December through mid-January), the time of Ramaswamys travel. Ramaswamy plans to gain firsthand insight into the phenomenon of Andals music and her lasting influences on contemporary society.

RED EYE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is an artistic laboratory where new performance ideas can be explored, tested and further developed. Jerome Foundation support of $57,000 over two years will be directed to Isolated Acts and Works-in-Progress programs. Isolated Acts is a multidisciplinary festival of new work spurred by a desire to provide a forum for independent artists exploring alternative performance forms and ideas. The Works-in-Progress series supports emerging artists investigating new directions. It emphasizes the developmental process as it ultimately plays out on the stage, encouraging participants to take big risks in their explorations. The series celebrates the excitement of witnessing the individual and collective creative potential of the performances presented. Works-in-Progress series artists are selected by a panel that reviews proposals. Isolated Acts is a curated program, undertaken by the Artistic Director and core artists at Red Eye.

Directors approved a two-year grant of $48,000 to ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM, New York City, in support of services for and presentations of new work by emerging composers of experimental and adventurous music. Roulette's purpose is to increase the awareness and understanding of experiments in music and intermedia by supporting the artists creating work in these forms. Roulette's concert series provides opportunities for composers to test works-in-progress and perform new works for live audiences. Composers, creating work in an eclectic range of styles and genres, are selected by Artistic Director Jim Staley. A large percentage of the concert schedule is devoted to young and emerging composers. A Roulette concert welcomes an emerging composer into a forum where the debate about music has extended over two decades. Roulette provides production assistance, publicity, technical services and documentation.

Dancer DINITA NICOLE, St. Paul, will spend nine months in Salvador, Brazil, learning the songs, dances, daily routines and traditions of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candombl. Nicole will explore the Candombl practice exemplified in both the dance and daily routines of secular society. She will study under Babalorixa Antonio Carlos Encarnacao in a terrerio, a Candombl house. Many of the ceremonies Nicole will experience are rarely seen by the public. She will also study with Ballet Folklorico,a professional company that translates the dances of Orixa to the concert stage.

The Jerome Foundation Directors approved a $5,425 grant to SAINT PAUL ACADEMY AND SUMMIT SCHOOL, St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of a program celebrating the 2005 Jerome Hill Centennial. The School will mount an exhibition of Jerome Hill's photographs, publish a catalog, host a panel discussion, and promote Centennial programming.

CATALINA SANTAMARIA was awarded a grant for Luminescence, a poetically inspired experimental film about light as mirror, as metaphor, and self-reflection, as shadow, as heat, as the ethereal wave particles of optics and physics and ultimately, as pure energy shimmering, glossing and flickering.