Past
Grantees

HARVESTWORKS, New York City, received $17,000 to support the participation of emerging New York City-based artists in the New Works Residency Program. Harvestworks supports the creation and presentation of artworks achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies. Harvestworks provides commissions, residencies, production services, education and information programs, and the presentation and distribution of work. Jerome’s support for the New Works Program subsidizes emerging artists, who receive commissions to make new work in the technology, engineering, art, and music lab. New works may include multiple channel audio and video installations; interactive performance systems; data visualizations of projects involving hardware hacking, circuit bending, or custom-built interface; and projects that use the Web. Residencies include 24-hour access to the studios, collaborative working environment, classes, rehearsal space, and technical systems.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, Brooklyn, New York, as fiscal sponsor for MARIA HASSABI, New York City, received $10,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of the new work Premiere.  The mission of the New York Foundation for the Arts is to empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives.  Hassabi is a director, choreographer, and performer.  Premieres are widely considered special, even more prestigious than later performances, which is a paradox given that they are often imbued with fragility, even awkwardness.  Hassabi is interested in exploring this first encounter.  Essentially, this public moment is what validates the existence of any creation as a work of art.  Premiere is composed of five solos occurring simultaneously.  The material features a precise, sculpturesque approach to movement, creating images that are recognizable to the viewer, and placing them in extended duration.

 In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $18,000 in support of PuppetLab. In the Heart of the Beast brings people together for the common good through the power of puppet and mask performance. It produces an annual season of original plays and touring productions; creates commissioned pageants throughout Minnesota and beyond; and teaches puppetry and pageantry through residencies and workshops to youth, students, teachers, and communities. PuppetLab engages four performance-based emerging artists in an immersive seven-month workshop process to create new puppet and mask works that are then presented to the public. Lab sessions include storyboard creation, character and narrative development, voice and movement, specific building techniques, scene development, and both peer and outside-eye critiques. The program gives artists time and space to test ideas, learn from others, and receive critical feedback.

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT/ABRONS ARTS CENTER, New York City, received $18,000 for a commissioning program to support the creation of new works by three emerging choreographers.  The Abrons Arts Center supports the presentation of innovative, multidisciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their creative development through educational programs and residencies; and serves as an intersection of cultural engagement for local, national, and international audiences and art workers.  Three emerging New York City-based choreographers received commissions, 300 hours of free rehearsal workspace, a work-in-progress showing during development, and full production of the work upon its completion.  This initiative is an extension of the artists’ workspace program, which provides artists with access to free rehearsal space to develop new works.  

HERWIG, PAUL, Minnesota, will travel to Toronto, ON, Portland, OR, and New York, NY to enrich and develop his individual practice as a performing artist by experiencing performances, attending lectures, and participating in workshops at three festivals of contemporary performance: Summerworks Festival, Time Based Arts Festival, and Performa 13. Witnessing many of the best-known artists in the field of performance through these festivals will further Herwig’s work with his performance company Off-Leash Area.  In the past couple of years, he has been moving towards performance that combines visual art and theatre in a way that strives to exist squarely between those two art forms. Broad exposure to others investigating this intersection will help Herwig integrate his interests and experience with visual art and physical performance.

 Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the Emerging Printmakers’ Residencies Program. The Center is dedicated to advancing the art of printmaking. Its goals are to provide educational programs, community access, and collaborative publishing opportunities to engage the public and increase the appreciation and understanding of the printmaking art. The Jerome supported program is open to emerging Minnesota printmakers, who receive nine-month access to the print shop, technical support from a Residency Coordinator, supplies and materials, a discount on classes, group discussions and critiques, professional digital documentation of exhibited artwork, a stipend, and a group exhibition and public reception at the end of the residency. Three emerging printmakers are chosen each year for the program.

Hills-Bonczyk, Summer Joy, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to India and Guatemala to visit sacred ceremonial caves to enrich her art about the phenomenology of empty interior space.  Hills-Bonczyk describes herself as being obsessed with caves and ceremonial art.  She will visit caves of immense volume that have been used for spiritual practice by local mystics for many centuries.  Her clay vessels have increased in size over the years, growing larger and larger.  She’s chosen the caves in Guatemala and India because they are home to spiritual cultures who use the caves for ceremonial purposes.

Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $107,000 in support of grant programs for literary artists.  The mission of Intermedia Arts, a multidisciplinary, multicultural arts organization, is to be a catalyst that builds understanding among people through art.  Jerome funding will support the participation of emerging artists in two programs.  The VERVE Grant Program provides funds for emerging Minnesota spoken word poets who are interested in artistic advancement and leadership in their communities.  The artists receive financial assistance, professional encouragement, and recognition.  The Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers Program awards grants to emerging Minnesota writers for individually designed projects.  Recipients participate in a 12-month fellowship program that provides community, mentorship, guidance, workshops, and resources. An open call for applications and a rigorous review process result in the selection of grant recipients in these two programs.

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, Brooklyn, New York, received $17,500 in support of the participation of emerging New York City-based composers in its Artist-in-Residence Program. ISSUE Project Room is a pioneering performance center, presenting time-based work that expands the boundaries of creative practice and stimulates critical dialogue about art and culture in the broader community. It facilitates the commissioning and production of new works and presents a diverse array of artists working across the disciplines of sound, dance, film, performance, and literature. The Artist-in-Residence Program offers composers, sound artists, and musical ensembles opportunities to develop new works. Artists receive stipends, and have access to facilities, equipment, marketing, and curatorial and technical expertise. The residencies are three months in duration.

IVY BALDWIN DANCE, Brooklyn, New York, received $10,000 in support of the development and premiere of a new work, Oxbow. Formed in 1999, Ivy Baldwin Dance is dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary dance. Baldwin collaborates with dancers, designers, and visual artists on original works, and shares them with the public through live performance. In this new work, Baldwin will explore how time is experienced differently in the spaces that people endow with significance, how time is manipulated, and how subtle actions and motions are magnified, as if seen in a time-lapse nature film. The performers will work with the idea of keening, a vocal lament not only from the voice but also from bones, muscles, organs, and face. Using the physical movements of rocking, kneeling, and clapping as springboards, Baldwin will create a highly stylized movement vocabulary specific to the new work.

Jenkins, Jenny, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Sevilla and Málaga, Spain to research and document graffiti to begin an exploration into the ways both Spanish and English "tags" are used in Spain and by Latino taggers in the Twin Cities.  She plans to photo document what she sees to use as source material for an ongoing series of embroideries and screenprints and to make wall paintings in Minneapolis.  The embroidered graffiti is presented in a way that removes it from its original context, so that if the origin of the image is discovered, it may surprise viewers or change their reactions to the work. The trip is expected to lead her into a rich vein of aesthetic and thematic exploration.

LASKA JIMSEN received $15,000 for the feature-length documentary essay Deer of North America, which explores the contradictory and mythologized relationships between human beings and deer. The film documents spaces where lines between artificial and natural, domesticated and wild, are blurred. People and deer encounter each other in the context of research, conservation, tourism, facilities management, agriculture, and hunting. From Port Townsend, Washington, where some residents plant deer-friendly gardens in front of their Victorian homes to encourage the packs of white tails to confidently stroll the streets and sidewalks every twilight, to Chicago’s O’Hare airport where a wildlife management team keeps errant bucks from sprinting down runways, our national relationship with deer is paradoxical and complex. This film examines the nuances of those complexities.

KADER, JACOB, New York, will travel to Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah to do further research for the development of a new play titled Watermaster, a play about water development in Utah and a man's spiritual journey. Kader was born in Provo, Utah to parents who were both born and raised in Utah. He is curious about the correlation between water and religious faith and belief. Kader’s elders were “Jack-Mormons”, a term for somebody baptized Mormon, but who smoked, drank alcohol and coffee, and didn’t always attend church. He abandoned the Mormon Church after high school, feeling disconnected because of his Arab-American ethnicity/identity, and educational pursuits. Kader will research the history of social and religious issues, and the development of the irrigation and dam system of Ogden, Utah, digging deep into the underpinnings of the society – land and water appropriation, issues of power, family, and belief.

ADAM KELEMAN was awarded a grant for Easy Living, a feature-length narrative.  Pulling up to the side of the road, Sherry, a pale-skinned woman wearing a powder blue suit, steps out of her beat-up yellow Chevy and urinates on the gravel beside her.  She pulls up her white underwear and grabs a cigarette from her purse located on the passenger seat. Leaning against the car, she takes a few puffs from the cigarette, observing the passersby on the road.  Thus begins Easy Living, a portrait of a down-and-out makeup saleswoman trying to get her life back on track.  The film utilizes nonfiction strategies within an intimate, fictionalized story arc to provide a nuanced glimpse into the routine obstacles and emotional turmoil of this troubled character.

 The Kitchen, New York City, received $20,000 in support of commissions for new works by emerging artists. The Kitchen commissions and presents innovative work by emerging and established artists across disciplines. Its programs range from dance, music, performance, and theatre to video, film, art, literary events, lectures, and artists’ talks. Jerome’s support is directed toward the commissioning of new works from emerging artists based in New York City.

The Kitchen, New York City, received a disaster relief grant of $10,000 for losses and damages from Superstorm Sandy.

YUKI KOKUBO was awarded a grant for a documentary entitled Kasamayaki. Set in the rural artists’ community of Kasama, just 90-miles south of the Fukushima nuclear reactors, this is the story of one family’s journey to heal old wounds.  Katsuji and Shigeko, parents of the filmmaker, make their living as potters in Kasama.  They have lived there since the early 1970s, with the exception of several years spent in New York City where they left their daughter Yuki behind at age 16.  Reeling from the disasters, Yuki realizes how far she has drifted from her parents and decides to travel back to Japan to reconnect with her roots and find out why the family fell apart.  Through the camera, Yuki patiently observes her parents in order to better understand them as people and to learn what it means to be Japanese in a time of crisis. 

KW PROJECTS/KATE WEARE COMPANY, Brooklyn, New York, received $8,000 in support of the creation and production of Dark Lark. Kate Weare’s contemporary dance company is known for its startling combination of formal choreographic values and visceral, emotional interpretation. Weare’s dances explore contemporary views of intimacy, both tender and stark, by drawing on basic urges to move and decode movement. Dark Lark explores erotic fantasy as a portal toward identity—the act of constructing self and self-in-relationship. Using distinct imagery around power and fantasy, Dark Lark seeks to honor erotic imagination as a metaphor for creativity, with its potential for darkness and light, and to acknowledge that fantasies, the most interior and vividly brilliant acts of imagination, can unlock vulnerability and feeling.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for AARON LANDSMAN, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the development and production of two works, Perfect City and Running Away from the One with the Knife.  Founded by artists for artists, The Field is dedicated to providing strategic services to performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond.  Landsman makes performances about urban intimacy and absence, civic life, and the structures of government.  Some pieces are staged in places where people perform their lives, like homes, offices, and meeting rooms.  Others use established performance venues.  Running Away from the One with the Knife is a three-character stage work that is a memorial, an exorcism, and an act of faith.  Written in a prismatic structure that moves between past and present through the eyes of three unreliable narrators, the play asks what anyone can do to stall a loved one’s morbid determination.  Perfect City engages communities, researchers, multi-player game designers, and other artists.  It continues Landman’s interest in the way cities function, or don’t, and individual agency in the face of institutions, power structures, and the American myth of reinvention.  Perfect City takes many forms.  

LEE-YANG, MAY, Minnesota, will travel to Los Angeles, California to attend the Cornerstone Theater's Summer Institute to learn their process of community-engaged theater through first-hand experience. Cornerstone produces new plays through the collaboration of people of many ages, cultures and levels of theatrical experience, building bridges between and within diverse communities. Their work is based on the conviction that aesthetic practice is social justice, artistic expression is civic engagement, and that access to a creative form is an essential part of the wellness and health of every individual and community. Lee-Yang sees this as a perfect study opportunity for furthering her work as a writer and performance artist. She sees the engagement work as an important skill because theater is such a relatively new form within the Hmong community.