Past
Grantees

TEMPORARY DISTORTION, Astoria, New York, received $10,000 in support of the creation, development and production of My Voice Has An Echo In It. Temporary Distortion explores the potential tensions and overlaps found between practices in visual art, theater, cinema, and music. The group, formed by interdisciplinary artist Kenneth Collins in 2002, works across disciplines to create performances, installations, films, albums, and works for the stage. My Voice Has An Echo In It is a six-hour, interactive, installation-based performance featuring live music, text, and video. The performance will take place inside a freestanding, soundproof installation 24 feet long and 6 feet wide, an immersive environment with performers and sequences, songs, interactions, and projected film, but no narrative. The audience member makes the choices of duration, attention, volume, and perspective.

HEATHER TENZER received support for the feature-length documentary The Rabbis’ Intifada. Heather Tenzer first met the ultra-Orthodox rabbis of Neturei Karta when she was a 13-year-old yeshiva (religious school) student. The rabbis were protesting the Israel Day Parade in New York City, in which she was marching. She was perplexed. Why would a Jew demonstrate against Israel? Neturei Karta (Aramaic for “Guardians of the City”) is one of the only religious Jewish groups publicly speaking out in support of Palestinian rights. The group, which was founded 75 years ago in Jerusalem, opposes Jewish nationalism in general, and the state of Israel in particular. The reasons are many, but perhaps at its heart, the group opposes the idea of transforming the Jewish religion into a nation state. For them, Israel—with its army and government—is a form of idolatry. Today, they openly call for Israel’s peaceful dismantlement. As a result of their activism, Neturei Karta rabbis are regularly beaten on the streets. Their synagogue was recently destroyed by arson. And in the 1920s, one of their leaders was assassinated in Jerusalem. Neturei Karta is deeply hated by the Zionist Jewish establishment. In fact, a few months ago, one of the most prominent American Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) included Neturei Karta on its list of top ten anti-Israel groups in the US. The Rabbis’ Intifada is a feature-length documentary film, which combines cinéma vérité, first-person narration, home movies, interviews, news reports, and archival films to tell the story of the filmmaker’s journey into the world of Neturei Karta.

The TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $31,800 in support of the Fiber Artist Project Grants Program and services for emerging textile artists. The Textile Center, a national center for fiber art, inspires and supports fiber artists, increases public access to and education about fiber art, fosters and promotes diversity in all areas of fiber art, preserves fiber art skills and traditions, and provides a central networking and resource facility for fiber artists. The Fiber Artist Project Grants Program supports four emerging Minnesota artists as they undertake specific artistic projects. The goal of the program is to advance the development of emerging fiber artists and increase public exposure for their creative work. An annual open call yields submissions that are reviewed by an independent jury. The program provides a project stipend, support services from the Center, and a culminating exhibition. 

The TEXTILE CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,000 in support of the Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grants Program and services to emerging professional textile artists. The Center's mission is to honor textile traditions and promote excellence and innovation in fiber art. The Project Grants Program expands opportunities for emerging fiber artists in Minnesota, supporting them as they undertake specific artistic projects. Four grants are awarded to support a wide range of project activities, from purchasing equipment and devoting time to studio work to travel and to study with established artists. A culminating exhibition caps the program year. There is an annual call for applications, which are reviewed by an independent panel of established artists who select project grant recipients.

ELA THIER received support for Tomorrow Ever After, a feature-length science-fiction comedy. Shaina is a historian who lives in the year 2592. Humans, at this point, have cleaned up the planet. War, poverty, pollution, greed, exploitation, depression, loneliness - these are things that she’s read about in history books. She has studied this dark period of history, in which most human labor was organized in the service of profits rather than human needs. But she has never, in the flesh, seen human beings hurt other human beings...until now. While getting involved with a group of physicists who experiment with time travel, Shaina accidentally ends up stranded in the year 2014. Despite her knowledge of history, old habits are hard to break, and she assumes that everyone around her is honest, generous and caring. When a character named Milton attempts to mug her, Shaina is thrilled to find someone who is willing to talk to her. Thrown by her trust and warm affection, Milton’s life slowly transforms as Shaina insists on a continued relationship of mutual support. Through Milton, Shaina meets a colorful cast of hilarious and tragic characters, as she tries to recruit their help to get back home. Shaina is heartbroken by her new understanding of what humans in this period of time had to live through. Ultimately, however, she fills with awe and gratitude. What kind of resilience and courage did it take, she wonders, for humanity to have hauled itself through this dark and thorny journey, and lead itself out of its state of despair, to build the world in which she was born?  

TOFTE LAKE CENTER, Ely, Minnesota, received $27,000 in support of residencies of emerging artists in the summer of 2014. Tofte Lake Center is a creative retreat center for artists, scholars, and thinkers of all disciplines. The Center offers residencies for individuals, artistic groups, and organizations who seek to create work in residence in a natural setting with arts facilities and confortable cabins. The facilities feature both individual and group workspaces. Jerome funding supports three weeklong residencies for emerging artists working in any discipline, one of those weeks dedicated to a group residency and two weeks dedicated to individuals and small creative teams. Jerome-supported residencies balance group activities, individual work time, facilitated conversations, and the exchange of ideas and work. Residencies are structured to meet an artist's specific needs. Applications in response to an open call are reviewed by an independent selection panel.

TOMAS, REBECCA, New York City, will travel to Madrid, Spain, for a three-week intensive study of Baston (percussive cane) and the masculine style within Flamenco dance to expand her choreographic style and influence works that she will be creating over the next year. Tomas inverts gender roles and integrates modern vocabulary grounded in the Flamenco tradition and will use this study to further her choreographic work. 

JINY UNG received support for Tofu Riot, a 2D animated short film about the stressful life of Tofui, a beancurd. Tofui is a symbol of the city, an aggressive, stressed-out workaholic who wants a promotion. In this animated piece, we follow Tofui as it struggles to survive in a busy city filled with gender ambiguous fruits, vegetables and legumes.

VALENCIA, MARIANA, New York City, will travel to Mexico City D.F., to research Cumbia Sonidera dancers. Cumbia Sonidera is a musical style created by DJs that originated in the marginalized neighborhoods of Mexico City. Valencia plans to work with artist Martin Lanz in Iztapalapa, Mariana Delgado, a member of Proyecto Sonidero, and scholar Nina Hoechtl at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) to expand her understanding of this style for use in future projects.

VANG, MONG, Minnesota, will travel to Khek Noi Village, Thailand, the “Hmong Hollywood” of the world, to study the complex art of Hmong filmmaking, to build relationships for future collaboration, and to investigate the history of Hmong filmmaking and its dependence on the US market. Vang also wants to do research into the business aspects of film as well as the use of visual media as oral history to further develop his skills as a Hmong filmmaker. 

VOCALESSENCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $30,000 in support of the Essentially Choral Program. The mission of VocalEssence is to champion choral music of all genres, celebrating the vocal experience through innovative concerts, commissions, and community engagement programs. Essentially Choral focuses on the creation, development, and presentation of new choral works by emerging composers. The program connects four established Minnesota composers with four emerging Minnesota composers over a six-month period, providing professional development and vocal composition mentoring as the emerging composers write choral works to be premiered by the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers at the American Choral Directors Association-Minnesota State Conference. The program aims to engage emerging composers and songwriters of all genres. 

VSA MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $42,000 in support of the Emerging Artists Grant Program for artists with disabilities. Project grants are awarded annually. The mission of VSA Minnesota is to create a community where people with disabilities can learn through, participate in, and access the arts. With the purpose of encouraging new artistic work by artists with disabilities, the Emerging Artists Grant Program has been in operation for 18 years. An open call followed by a jurying process result in the selection of artists to receive support for self-designed projects. A culminating exhibition presents the work of artists operating in written, visual, and performing arts fields. 

MISSY WHITEMAN, Garrison, received support for The Coyote Way: Going Back Home, a narrative short in which reality and ancient lore merge into a vivid and surreal odyssey for Charlie, a boy who is faced with a choice, which will lead him on a time traveling quest to reclaim his birthright as Coyote the Trickster. Coyote represents the deepest darkness that lives within. He is the spirit that rides on the wilds of our dreams, unfurled by the wind. He is the laughter and the joy of new life. Ancient Native American stories telling of Coyote's escapades have been passed down from generation to generation by elders and story tellers, with each telling giving him a renewed life in the imagination of children. In this story, which is the second installment of a three-part Coyote trilogy, Charlie is confronted with a series of incidents and moral dilemmas in his life that are influenced by Coyote the Trickster, and from which he can emerge a better human being or a person in moral and spiritual decline.

LEWIS WILCOX, JAMES CHRISTENSON, ELIOT POPKO, and JONAH SARGENT, Saint Paul, received support for NODAK, a feature-length documentary about the transformation of North Dakota from a desolate flyover state into one of the world’s largest oilfields. The film also explores the desperation and greed beneath the surface of oil fracking, exposing the human costs and risky business model threatening to spread throughout the country. CBS news anchor Eric Sevareid referred to North Dakota as “A rectangular blank spot on the nation’s consciousness.” National Geographic dubbed it “The Emptied Prairie.” The New York Times declared it “Not Far From Forsaken.” Whatever the headline, the state faced depopulation and desertion throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Faithful community boosters like two of the film’s primary characters, economic developer Tom Rolfstad and newspaper publisher Cecile Krimm, attempted for years to attract new citizens without success. In 2006, the situation changed almost overnight. With advances in the controversial new drilling method known as fracking, oil companies unlocked an exponential expansion of the Bakken Oil Fields, setting in motion one of the largest resource extraction rushes in human history and placing North Dakota at the center of economic and population growth in the United States.  As money pours out of the Bakken – and other states and countries debate whether or not they should import North Dakota-style fracking into their lands – NODAK takes its viewers on an intimate journey alongside newcomers investing their future in the region and civic leaders like Rolfstad and Krimm struggling to manage the frenzy. Their stories unfold and intertwine over the course of two years of filming, revealing pie-eyed ambition, overnight fortunes, shocking corruption, and dreams deferred. Viewers will be challenged to separate myth from reality to question whether the Bakken shale boom is an economic miracle or a dangerous financial and social gamble, and whether North Dakota is America’s new high water mark or its canary in the coalmine.

WILLIAMS, ROSEMARY, Minnesota, will travel to Austin, Texas and Palo Alto, California to do research at the R. Buckminster Fuller Collection at Stanford University and investigate the Athelstan Spillhaus Papers at the University of Texas Austin for a film project titled The Invention of Tomorrow, about the unrealized utopian Minnesota Experimental City Project of the 1970s. Her film explores the tension between the utopian futurism of mid-20th century American intellectuals and the challenges of modern urban American society, which has become numb to the remarkable rise of capitalism, consumerism, and constant invention. This research will help with the development of a science fiction narrative that imagines that this incredible project actually happened. 

THE PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for WORKHAUS PLAYWRIGHTS COLLECTIVE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of the productions of new works by playwrights Joe Waechter and Stanton Woods. The Playwrights’ Center champions playwrights and new plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative work. Workhaus Collective creates a direct and immediate relationship between playwright and audience by fully producing original plays under the artistic leadership of the playwright. Since its founding in 2006, it has produced 17 world premiere productions. Waechter’s work Lake Untersee, to be produced in 2014, addresses the challenges of fractured families and artistic blocks. It is through language that the protagonist and his family learn to break free, connect, and find love. Woods is developing Skin Deep Sea, a fairytale that explores the distinctively American inclination for transformation and reinvention through the medium of fantasy, specifically the Victorian futurism of steampunk.

SUSAN YOUSSEF received support for Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf, a feature-length narrative film. With her father imprisoned on terrorist-related charges, an Arab-American teenager in Arkansas searches for identity in the headscarf and a motorcycle. The rider is Marjoun: seventeen, small in stature, large dark eyes. She is dressed in all black from her shoes to her headscarf. The headscarf is held together with metal safety pins, lining the right side of her head, towards the nape of her neck. The scarf flaps in the wind as she rides into a James Dean inspired quest for her identity. In Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf, she is left cleaning up the mess in the household after her father Aabid’s life as a convenience store owner transforms into the life of a prisoner. As her choices get more limited, and as the world around her identifies her as a Muslim, she comes to explore her relationship with God, and specifically her relationship with Islam through the hijab. In this film, Marjoun is featured as a ‘liberated’ muhajiba who takes her life into her own hands. The filmmaker hopes this unorthodox approach to telling the story of a young Arab-American teenager will help change how non-Muslims perceive the often misunderstood hijab.

ZENON DANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $56,000 in support of the commissioning and performance of new dance works by emerging choreographers based in New York City and/or Minnesota. Zenon's mission is to sustain an artistically excellent, professional dance company by presenting the commissioned works of emerging and locally, nationally, and internationally recognized modern and jazz choreographers to the broadest and most diverse audiences and communities possible. Zenon will commission, rehearse, and perform new works by six emerging choreographers. Zenon chooses to work with emerging choreographers because they bring excitement and risk to the company's repertory.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer LUCIANA ACHUGAR, Brooklyn, New York, received $10,000 in support of the development and production of Otro Teatro.  Founded by artists for artists, The Field is dedicated to providing strategic services to performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond.  It fosters creative exploration, stewards innovative management strategies, and helps artists reach their fullest potential.  achugar’s work exposes the viewer to the unavoidability of the body and consequently arrives at dancing as a necessary and unquestionable act, as catharsis and/or celebration.  Her work pays homage to the classical forms of dance and theater that continue to be relevant, yet questions a civilized standard of beauty and order that puts the body under the tyranny of the intellect.  Otro Teatro examines the role of dance as a form within the context of theater, proposing another kind of theater, a theater of the other, giving voice to the arcane spirit, instincts, and desires of bodies. 

The AMERICAN COMPOSERS FORUM, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $100,000 in support of the Jerome Fund for New Music (JFund) and the Minnesota Emerging Composers Award (MECA) program.  The Forum enriches lives by nurturing the creative spirit of composers and communities.  It provides new opportunities for composers and their music to flourish and engages communities in the creation, performance, and enjoyment of new music.  The Forum supports composers’ artistic and professional growth through a rich variety of programs and services, including commissions, performances, readings, and fellowships.  The JFund supports the creation of new musical works by emerging composers, composer/performers, improvisers, and sound artists from Minnesota and New York City.  It welcomes applications in all musical genres, and provides enhancement funds to help projects reach their maximum potential.  The Minnesota Emerging Composers Award is given to emerging Minnesota composers of jazz/improvisation, electronic, and world music.