Past
Grantees

The SONORA HOUSE, New York City, a presenter, producer and multicultural education programmer, provides sponsorship services to independent artists and organizations that do not yet have nonprofit status. Composer and pianist JUDITH SAINTE CROIX, under the auspices of Sonora House, received a grant of $10,000 to support the production, performance, distribution and marketing of a concert version of a new opera. This is the second grant Jerome Foundation has committed to this entrepreneurial composer/performer. She wishes to guide the performance, production, distribution and marketing of her work, with the goal being the implementation of a comprehensive marketing plan to result in increased bookings of Sainte Croix as a composer and performer. The immediate objectives are to create a total marketing package for Sainte Croixs music consisting of press regarding professional performances in New York City, production of the music on CD and marketing through touring and radio play.

JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ received support for Venus in Furs, a feature-length narrative film about the masochistic relationship between a young poet and dilettante named Severin, and Wanda, the free-spirited widow with whom he falls in love.

A grant was awarded to MICHAEL SCHLEMPER of Beltrami to travel to Bemidji, Minnesota; Mandan and Dickenson, North Dakota; Miles City, Livingston and Bozeman, Montana; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Schlemper will attend a Writers at Work conference and will keep a journal on the trip, using the changing physical landscape of the American West as a metaphor for social and cultural differences.

The JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of the Ballet Works Project. The mission of the company is to create and perform an engaging repertoire based in the ballet idiom in an effort to broaden audience access to dance and to advance the art form. Funding will support a four-week period in which company dancers work with four choreographers in the creation of new works. Three of those choreographers are members of the company: Penelope Freeh, Jesse Hammel and Benjamin Johnson. A fourth will be selected by the company members from the Twin Cities or New York City choreographic communities.

A grant was awarded to photographer PAUL SHAMBROOM to travel New York; Silicon Valley, California; and various Upper Midwest states to visit small towns and economic centers to make photographs for his project Imagine and Influence: A Photographic Study of Meetings and Power.

ANGEL VELASCO SHAW received a grant for Excuse meAre You Pilipino?, a feature-length documentary, set in New York, San Francisco and Hawaii that examines the unique ways some Filipino Americans create culture and community.

RICK SHIOMI, Theater Mu Artistic Director and Taiko drummer, received a grant to reconnect with the Taiko group community in North America and to study with Grand Master Serichi Thnaha in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

SMACK MELLON STUDIOS, New York City, was conceived in 1995 as a multidisciplinary exchange among visual artists and musicians. It has evolved into an organization with the mission of nurturing and supporting emerging and mid-career artists by providing access to technology, studio space and exhibition space necessary for the realization of ambitious multidisciplinary projects. Some artists participate in a residency program, through which they have access to the facilities for longer periods of time to experiment with ideas and collaborations. Jerome Foundation funding of $12,000 will be directed toward the participation of emerging artists in two exhibitions, Red Square and Natural History.

TARA SPARTZ, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant of $10,000 for I Hate Baby-sitting, a 45-minute narrative that tells the story of the big plan of two teenage girls to escape the frustrations of babysitting for one night, before beginning new lives in senior high school.

THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for ROSEANNE SPRADLIN DANCE, received a two-year grant of $15,000 in support of the development of new work. Empathy will be premiered within the next few months, accompanied by three short solos for company members. It explores themes of intimacy, gender identification and body boundaries. In 2000, Spradlin will begin work on an evening-length mixed media piece, created in collaboration with composer James Lo, entitled !Oklahoma Part Two!. Spradlin and Lo will juxtapose sections of movement and sound with images from the Oklahoma tornadoes and terrorist bombing. Finally, in the 2000-2001 season, Spradlin will create Fetish, exploring themes of chaos and control.

RESOURCES AND COUNSELING FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the Artists Services Program and general operations. RCA offers a variety of services to individual artists including workshops and support groups, individual consultations, a loan fund, a legal referral service, arts administration job listings and services, speaking engagements, telephone information and referral, informational booklets, a quarterly newsletter and a resource library. RCA serves the primary constituency of the Jerome Foundationindividual emerging artists

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent sponsor for ROBIN STIEHM and the Dancing People Company, received a grant of $12,000 in support of the development and production of new work in 1999. Stiehm is a well recognized dancer in the Twin Cities area, who received Jerome funding in 1994 to support an evening of her own choreography with the Dancing People Company. She has used fellowship and other grant support since then to develop her choreographic voice. Jerome funding in 1999 will support the creation of a duet for two dancers with whom shes worked since 1994. Shell also create a quartet, both described as concise pieces. Stiehm intends to push toward getting her work seen outside of the Twin Cities area in the upcoming season

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, submitted a proposal on behalf of choreographer ROBIN STIEHM and her DANCING PEOPLE COMPANY. Subsidy of $12,000 was authorized to support the development and presentation of new work in 2000. This was the third grant made to Stiehm's Dancing People Company. It focuses on a new evening-length work titled City, scheduled for production this coming February at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. The work is based on a section of Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities; and is about decaying infrastructure, and the decaying of society.

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM, New York, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the Artist in Residence Program. Opened in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem boasts a permanent collection of approximately 1,600 objects in three broad categories: 19th and 20th Century African-American Art, 20th Century Caribbean and African Art and traditional African Art and Artifacts. In 1968, the Studio Museum initiated an artist in residence program that annually provides cash fellowships, materials and studio spaces to three emerging artists of African descent. They are selected from a competitive field of applicants in a rigorous process. The artists exhibit selected pieces in a show at the conclusion of their 12-month residencies. The artists are required to work in their studio spaces for a minimum of 20 hours per week. The Museum also requires a modest amount of service in educational programs and outreach to community groups.

VERNAL BOGREN SWIFT, a studio artist based in Bovey, received a grant to travel and work for three months in the isolated region of the Pilbara, in Western Australia. This region is rich in iron ore and Aboriginal petroglyphs which are referenced in Swifts work.

SYMPHONY SPACE, New York City, received a grant of $15,000 in support of a Selected Shorts program in Minnesota. Symphony Space presents free or low-cost artistic programs representative of New York's many cultures. Its programming is varied and energetic. The mission of Selected Shorts is to foster the appreciation of short fiction and the spoken word through a variety of media. Jerome Foundation has been supporting the participation of emerging writers in that program for three years. In 1993, Symphony Space was invited by The Loft to select three Minnesota writers and to produce a program of readings in St. Paul in cooperation with Minnesota Public Radio. The Jerome Foundation Directors were interested in repeating that program offering. The event is scheduled for November of this year. It will be presented in the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, and promoted as part of the 20th Anniversary of The Loft's Mentor Series.

SYMPHONY SPACE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of Selected Shorts, the purpose of which is to foster the appreciation of short fiction and the spoken word. Noted actors read short stories to live audiences, with program content selected by Isaiah Sheffer and Katherine Minton. Selected Shorts is broadcast by more than 120 National Public Radio member stations throughout the country, with an estimated audience of 250,000 listeners each week. Jerome subsidy is directed toward emerging New York City and Minnesota authors.

Jerome Foundation made a two-year grant commitment of $30,000 to the TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of programs and services for emerging textile artists in fiscal years 2000 and 2001. The Textile Center of Minnesota is a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to promoting excellence in the fiber arts and preserving textile traditions. The Center was created by fiber artists and patrons as a vehicle for shared information, education and economic opportunities for fiber artists in the upper Midwest. It began operations in 1992, and now has a membership of over 300 individuals and 19 organizations with over 5,000 collective members. The Center offers a wide variety of services to fiber artists, including exhibitions, educational seminars, lectures, workshops, a wearable art fashion show, a newsletter and calendar, a slide registry of artists' works and the eventual development of a shared space for textile artists and arts organizations. The Center is reaching out in effective ways to diversify its constituency. Jerome funding of $15,000 per year over two years will support the participation of emerging artists in Center programming.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY, New York City, received $17,500 toward emerging playwrights' commissions and production subsidies in the 1999-2000 season. Theater for the New City was founded in 1970 as a center for new and innovative theater arts, accessible to its community. Its purpose is to discover new plays, nurture and develop playwrights and act as a bridge between playwrights and audiences.

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, New York City, received a two-part grant of $52,000, over two years, in support of the Affiliated Writers program and an Emerging Playwrights Publication Program. Theatre Communications Group is the national service organization for the nonprofit professional theater in the United States. It provides a central forum and communications network for a field that is artistically, culturally, geographically and professionally diverse. Since 1988, Jerome Foundation has provided funding to the Affiliated Writers Program of American Theatre, a monthly general circulation magazine featuring national coverage of the theater. The program seeks to encourage and support a new, responsive generation of cultural reporters and critics, by establishing ongoing relationships with regionally-based artists. Jerome funding is restricted to writers living and working in New York City and the State of Minnesota. Since its launch, 31 critics from those two areas have participated in the program, contributing more than 90 articles. Jerome subsidy was also offered to the book Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latino/a Performance in Theater, a volume that will feature 11 plays by Latino/a playwrights, four of whom are New York City-based, and one of whom is a former Jerome Playwright Fellow at The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. Funding was also authorized for a single author book by either an emerging solo performance artist or an emerging playwright, yet to be selected.