Past
Grantees

Funding was authorized for Paj Ntaub Voice Editor MAI NENG MOUA, Saint Paul, Minnesota, to enroll in a four-part financial management course and to travel to New York City to study Asian American Writers Workshops programs, staffing structure, and organizational experiences to inform the development of the Hmong American Institute for Literature (HAIL). HAIL will incorporate Paj Ntaub Voice, the development of Hmong writers, oral histories, traditional Hmong oral arts, and educational programs for youth in schools.

Jerome Directors authorized a two-year grant of $24,000 to MOVEMENT RESEARCH, New York City, in support of writers fees and publication costs for Performance Journal. Movement Research explores issues that relate to postmodern dance and performance and the challenges of expanding those categories to affect the cultural, political, and economic diversity of the community. Its dance programs are oriented towards artistic process and community dialogue. As a forum for dialogue about dance, performance, and the creative process, Performance Journal illuminates the context in which artists make work. It is published at least twice each year and includes the written voices of over 45 dance and performance artists and writers.

RENA MUNDO was awarded a grant in support of The Farm: Experimenting With Utopia, a documentary about the rise and fall of the most famous commune in the history of the United States, the people who devoted their lives to it and the entire communitys painful re-entry into mainstream America after it collapsed.

The FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for independent choreographer BEN MUNISTERI, received $12,000 in support of the creation of new work. Jerome funds will be used to create an evening-length piece based on a short section of a previous experimental piece. Munisteri is working with eight dancers and cello solos by four different composers as well as the sounds of underwater sonar and Siamese cats. Munisteri has been described as a choreographer who traverses the polar worlds of club and concert dance.

Funding was awarded to MAYU NAKAMURA for Fever, a bilingual narrative drama about a Japanese teenager who becomes pregnant by a married American man and stands trial for drowning her baby.

A two-year grant of $64,000 was awarded to NAUTILUS MUSIC-THEATER, St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of the participation of emerging composers and librettists in the Composer-Librettist Studio and Rough Cuts. Nautilus supports the creation, development and production of new operas and music-theater works, and the professional development of artists. Rough Cuts is the informal monthly presentation of works-in-progress that provoke dialogues between artists and audiences and enable creative artists to explore the creative process. The Composer-Librettist Studio is a two-week intensive workshop focusing on the process of collaboration between composers and librettists through a series of exploratory assignments that deal with the challenges of writing for the music-theater form. Five writers and five composers participate each year.

Directors authorized a $12,000 concluding grant to the NETA DANCE COMPANY, New York City, in support of the creation and production of new work by choreographer Neta Pulvermacher. This multicultural dance company brings contemporary performance arts to the public, promotes artistic collaboration between artists working in different media, and supports innovation in all media. Jerome funding will support the new, evening-length work Paper Boats, which follows the shifting tides of love and intimacy. Pulvermacher plans to deconstruct the body language of intimacy and bring to light the deepest, most hidden and vulnerable territories of love and intimacy.

NEW DRAMATISTS, New York City, received a two-year grant of $80,000 in support of its annual Composer/Librettist Studio and the new works process. The mission of New Dramatists is to find gifted playwrights and give them the time, space, and tools to develop their craft, so that they may fulfill their potential and make lasting contributions to the theater. The new works process is actually a constellation of programs and services radiating from the core program of playwright-driven readings and workshops. The Composer/Librettist Studio is mounted in partnership with Nautilus Music-Theater. It serves emerging composers and New Dramatist playwrights, who work through a series of exploratory collaborations and assignments to develop their skills in opera and music theater.

A two-year grant of $30,000 was awarded to NEW GEORGES, New York City, in support of the development of new plays in The Room, a workspace used for readings, small-scale workshop presentations, rehearsals and artist/community gatherings. Funds will support the development of Given Fish by Melissa James Gibson; Anna Bella Eema by Lisa DAmour; Belly, three shorts by Alva Rogers; and Beauty and the Wild Boar by Sonya Sobieski.

The NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Media Lounge. The New Museums purpose is to engage diverse audiences with contemporary art. The Media Lounge is a dedicated space for the presentation and interpretation of digital art, experimental video, and other forms of new media. Visitors are given opportunities to encounter and engage with innovative forms of artistic expression using new media. The Lounge was launched in late 2000 to investigate the long-term effects of digital media on contemporary visual culture. Over the next two years, the Museum will present six exhibitions and seven public interpretive programs.

NEW YORK CITY PLAYERS, New York City, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the production of a new work in its 2002 season. New York City Players is dedicated to bringing innovation in theater and performance to the public through productions written and directed by Artistic Director Richard Maxwell. Funding will be used for Maxwells new play, Joe, the story of one man told through six actors, portraying him at different stages of his life. Joe will premiere this fall in New York City.

NEW YORK MILLS ARTS RETREAT AND REGIONAL CULTURAL CENTER, New York Mills, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $32,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Artist in Residence Program. The Center is dedicated to expanding the cultural and creative opportunities of rural Americans. It is a space where artists of all disciplines may concentrate on making work while sharing their creative energies with a rural community. Funding will be used to support two- to four-week residencies for 12 to 14 emerging artists. Resident artists receive stipends, living quarters, and unlimited access to the Centers facilities.

NEW YORK THEATRE WORKSHOP, New York City, was awarded a two-year grant of $35,000 in support of theater artist development programs in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons. Jerome funding will support the Mondays @ 3 play reading series, summer residencies at Vassar and Dartmouth Colleges, fellowships for talented minority theater artists, and the Just Add Water festival of works-in-progress. The organizations mission is to uncover the vital, fresh voice of developing theater artists and to produce challenging and unpredictable new theater.

Visual artist JILA NIKPAY will spend five weeks in Iran to gain firsthand exposure to Iranian contemporary art and gather raw material for a new body of work focusing on how dislocation and identity work on both personal and collective levels. She will create photographs and text, documenting her interaction with Iranian culture. Shell use these as a basis for fictional narratives describing the fragile relationship of the figure to the landscape.

The NORTHERN CLAY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of the Artist Project Grant Program. The Centers mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Ongoing programs include classes and workshops, exhibitions, studio space and grants for artists, a sales gallery and a variety of special initiatives. Since 1990, the Jerome Foundation has provided support to the Center for a program in which emerging ceramic artists receive grants of $6,500 to subsidize various initiatives including experimenting with new techniques and materials, working or studying with a mentor, bringing a respected figure to Minnesota to critique work, purchasing equipment to facilitate an aesthetic or technical investigation, buying time to work in the studio, renting a studio, supplies, technical support, collaborations with other artists, exhibition opportunities and travel. At the end of each year, grant recipients present the outcomes of their projects in a group exhibition at the Center.

Folklorist PHILIP NUSBAUM will spend one week in Kentucky attending seminars at the World of Bluegrass tradeshow. He will investigate the current bluegrass music scene and learn about national syndication possibilities for his Twin Cities radio show, Bluegrass Saturday Morning, on KBEM. Nusbaum has been involved in bluegrass music as a fan, scholar, player, and radio producer for more than 35 years.

JOHN OBRIEN, Lake Elmo, MN, received support for The Rise and Fall of it All, a new media work that uses the complementary aspects of music, sound, narrative and imagery to explore the challenges faced by various people who inhabit the margins of society.

Writer W. SCOTT OLSEN, Moorhead, will spend one day traveling by car from Badwater, California, to Mt. Evans, Colorado. Findings from the road trip will become the lead essay in Olsens new collection, which focuses on the limits and potentials of a single day and what constitutes a days travel across the face of the Earth. Olsen has planned a 900-mile trip from Badwater, which has the lowest elevation roadway in the US, to Mt. Evans, which is home to the countrys highest roadway. This road trip offers many different ways of looking at the land as it moves through deserts and mountains.

Jerome Directors approved a grant of $12,000 for ST. LUKES CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, New York City, in support of the participation of emerging composers in the Second Helpings series. Started in 1993, the series presents repeat performances of recently written works and premieres of new compositions. It addresses the difficulties surrounding the presentation and acceptance of new music, and provides a second hearing to allow audiences, composers, and musicians to become familiar with the language, tone, and temperament of a new musical voice. This years commissioned composers are Alla Borzova, Steven Burke, and Daniel Bernard Roumain.

The ST. LUKES CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $24,000 in support of three commissions to emerging choreographers as part of its Second Helpings Series. Through artistic collaborations, alternative forms of presentation, and educational outreach, St. Lukes is a chamber orchestra that explores a wide range of repertoire. The Second Helping Series is the performance showcase for St. Lukes commissioned works and for its contemporary chamber music presentations. The Series presents repeat performances of recently written works and premiere performances of new works, many commissioned by St. Lukes. The three composers to receive Jerome commissions are Jane Ira Bloom, Pamela Z, and Daniel Bernard Roumain, who is the newly appointed Assistant Composer-in-Residence at St. Lukes.