Past
Grantees

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer MARIA HASSABI, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of a new evening-length work, SHOW (working title), created by Hassabi. The New York Foundation for the Arts seeks to empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives. It provides fiscal sponsorship to individual artists and emerging organizations. Hassabis works are concerned with the language of images. Her interests lie in the way we see images and how our first conceptions may be shifted as they are suspended in time. SHOW begins the moment the doors of the theater open, and in the course of an hour, examines the basic ingredients existing within live performance in an attempt to revitalize them. Hassabi will create an installation in which the various components necessary for performance exist as individual bodies of activity. At the core of SHOWs exploration is the crucial paradox that exists within live performance: the attempt to be present in the moment within a pre-constructed theatricality.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $18,000 in support of PuppetLab. Drawing inspiration from the worlds traditions of puppet and mask theatre and its lively roots in transformative ritual and street theatre, In the Heart of the Beast creates vital, poetic theatre for all ages and backgrounds. With a dual commitment to originality and education, In the Heart of the Beast devised PuppetLab, a creative process allowing space for trial and error, time for artistic experimentation, and critical peer response to new work in development. PuppetLab will engage four emerging artists who use puppet and/or object theatre to articulate their visions in an intensive seven-month puppet and mask workshop culminating in performances of the artists new works. Lab sessions will focus on such topics as storyboard creation, character and narrative development, voice and movement, specific puppet building techniques, and scene development.

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT/ABRONS ARTS CENTER, New York City, received $15,000 in support of a commissioning program to seed the development of new works by three choreographers. Since its founding in 1893, the arts have been central to Henry Street Settlements mission of opening doors of opportunity to enrich lives of Lower East Side residents and New Yorkers through social services, arts, and health care programs. The Abrons Arts Center, opened in 1975, embraces the breadth of creativity on the experimental performance scene by promoting avant-garde trends in conceptual choreography, performance art, body art, multimedia, nonrepresentational theater, contemporary music, and the visual arts combined with stage/body-based work. In addition to the commission, the Center will provide rehearsal workspace throughout the creative process, technical and administrative assistance, works-in-progress showings if needed, and full productions of the new works.

ODED HIRSCH was awarded a grant for There is Nothing New, a short experimental film that aims to reconstruct the spirit of community of a Kibbutz in rural Israel. The plot is centered on an absurd scene where a group of people try to release and rescue a person whose parachute got caught on electricity lines in a desolate open field. As time goes by, people gather around the parachutist in order to pull him out of the entangled and dangerous situation. In spite of the urgent need for immediate action, they react in very cumbersome and lingering ways that only serve to highlight the absurdity of the situation. According to the filmmaker, this work will function in between the mediums of fragmented video art and narrative fiction. Hirsch feels it will be the most ambitious project of his career as an emerging experimental filmmaker.

RICHARD HITCHLER, Artistic Director, SteppingStone Theatre for Youth Development, Saint Paul, Minnesota, will travel to Action Transport Theatre (Ellesmere Port, England) and TADA! Youth Theater (New YorkCity), to bring the playwriting process into more of a direct dialogue with other aspects of theatre for young audiences and explore a theatre exchange model that will foster long-distance co-creation opportunities for professional artists working in youth theatre, as well as for youth casts.

Support was awarded to ROBIN HONAN in support of "The DSD Project" (temporary title), a feature-length documentary offering a fresh perspective on Differences of Sex Development or DSDs, a variety of medical conditions in which reproductive development is atypical. It is estimated that 1 in 750 individuals are born with a DSD; with unique access and sensitivity, Ms. Honan hopes to shed much needed light on this misunderstood intersection of sex, gender and sexuality and asks difficult questions families of children with DSDs face today. "The DSD Project" will follow individuals, both females and males who are affected by DSD, as they and their families make decisions about treatment and management of their medical conditions. 

DEVIN HORAN received a grant in support of LATE AND DEEP, the second film in an experimental tetralogy comprised of three short works and a feature. They explore the implications of a phrase by Persian writer Sadeq Hedayat: In life it is possible to become angelic, human, or animal. I have become none of these things. Through imagery and sound, the films envision beings in states of ontological indeterminacy. A purely visual film, LATE AND DEEP is set in an isolated house in a remote winter forest at night. In a closed room of this house, two human beings, a male and a female, undergo an experience of convulsion. Their behavior is not psychologically motivated. Rather, they are depicted as bodies, as flesh, alien and sensual, and subject to an overpowering rupture whose source remains obscure (separation, schizophrenia, withdrawal, release, ecstasy). Through both the actions of the characters and the setting, the film will evoke an experience of an existential periphery, a borderline reality, far away from god and men.

J. ANDREW HUNT received $10,000 for Noah, a feature-length psychological thriller/sci-fi tale wrapped inside a dramatic mockumentary about a filmmaker named Jonathan Cole, who receives a mysterious hard drive in the mail labeled Help Me from a long lost childhood friend named William Barret. Cole discovers hundreds of audio and video recordings on the hard drive that document a bizarre experiment involving a five-year-old boy named Noah. Upon further inspection, he is horrified when he also uncovers evidence of his friends attempted suicide. This ignites an investigation into the whereabouts of William Barret, as well as the startling truth behind the boy named Noah.

JANELLE IGLESIAS, sculptor and installation artist, Hollis, New York, will travel to Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, to participate in a birding expedition to the Arfak Mountains in search of the most complex and largest structures known in the avian world: the roofed maypole bowers of the Vogelkop bowerbird. Iglesias expects the experience to inspire her, deepen her practice, and push her subsequent work into new territory.

LADDAVANH INSIXIENGMAY, textile artist, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, will travel to the Country of Laos to research, document, and study the art of traditional Lao natural dyes using sources such as seeds, roots, leaves, fruits, flowers, and insects. Insixiengmay will learn the ancient art of dyeing, from a master artist through traditional one-on-one training. This will inform her creation of fashionable and comfortable works that are sustainable and eco-conscious.

A grant was awarded to previous recipient MAI ISKANDER for an as yet untitled feature-length documentary. As the call for social justice in Cairo, Egypt snowballs into an all out demand for regime change, 22-year-old Heba, a greenhorn journalist and democratic activist, is at the heart of the events shaping the countrys future. However, her idealism is put to the test as Egypt faces the challenges of putting democracy into practice. What does a true democracy actually look like? Is it possible in countries where the people have been repressed for so long, and where the wealth and the power are concentrated in the hands of a few? There are, of course, no clear models in the Arab Middle East, so what might an Egyptian democracy look like? These are the questions Heba is determined to explore. Charming, fashionable, and full of energy, she approaches her work with much passion all the more so in light of recent events in her country.

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, Brooklyn, New York, received $13,800 in support of the participation of four New York City-based emerging composers in the 2012 Artist in Residence program. The mission of this performance center and cultural incubator is to present artistic projects that challenge and expand conventional practices in art, fostering a network of innovation that sparks dialogue about art and culture in the broader community. The Artist in Residence program focuses on emerging artists who seek to expand the limits of their creative practices. During year-long residencies, ISSUE Project Room provides each artist with a stipend, rehearsal space, technical and production support, curatorial advisement, marketing resources, and the opportunity to create and present new works.

The Jerome Foundation authorized a grant of $25,000 to THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, in support of a residency and commissioning program. The Jazz Gallery nurtures the youngest generation of professional jazz musicians by giving them an audience for their performances and a stage upon which to assemble their bands. It also encourages established musicians to present new projects and collaborate with emerging artists. The Gallery produces more than 180 events per year. Jerome support is directed to The Jazz Gallery Residency Commissions: Leading From the Bass. Three emerging jazz composer/musicians will be selected for residencies at the Gallery in order to further develop their compositional voices. They will be given commissions for new pieces, performance funds, and use of the Gallery for one month to create and perform their works.

YVA JUNG, visual artist, New York, New York, will travel to the International Territory of Svalbard, High Arctic, to participate in The Arctic Circle expeditionary residency. She will explore variable forms of social and cultural exchanges with other program participants and engage in an active exploration of art, science, and nature. This opportunity will allow Jung to push the boundaries of her current artistic practice and achieve a unique perspective for innovative creativity.

ADITI BRENNAN KAPIL, playwright, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom to research the Reichstag Trial and simultaneous counter-trials through interviews, location visits, and local newspaper from that time. She wants to gather ideas and inspiration for a new play addressing the vagaries of history, how heroes are created, and how stories are spun.

ADAM KELEMAN received support for Long Days, an experimental narrative short. In a small Northeastern Pennsylvania town, Carol, a 30-something, blonde-haired woman wearing a beige sweater and light brown pants, steadily walks down a quiet street carrying a bag of groceries. Its dusk. She opens her car door, sets the grocery bag down on the back seat, and grabs a newspaper out of the bag. After circling a couple of ads in the classified section, she throws the newspaper in the back seat and turns on the car. Driving along the suburban streets towards her motel, country music plays as the sun sets in the distance. Thus begins Long Days, a slice-of-life film about an average-seeming woman, a drifter, who attempts to establish normalcy in a post-industrial American town. But Carol is not your average person. She isnt even human, really. Yet in the quest to establish normalcy, Long Days suggests she is a gentle soul trapped inside a horrific circumstance and attempts to humanize the monster were all capable of becoming.

MARK KENDALL received $15,000 for the documentary LA CAMIONETA Life and Death on the Road. For the greater part of the twentieth century, entrepreneurial businessmen from Guatemala have bought old school buses from the United States, driven them back to their country and used them to compensate for the lack of adequate public transportation provided by the state. They refer to these converted school buses as camionetas. What began as a modest industry confined to urban areas took over even the most remote areas of the countryside and became a national phenomenon. Camionetas are the most accessible and common form of transportation for Guatemalans. As these buses are individually owned and not financed or supported by the state, competition between camionetas for passengers became quite high. Over the past few years, the camionetas and the men who drive them have become primary targets of an escalating wave of violence, gang extortion and a spree of assassinations that have plagued the countrys transportation system. Because the drivers carry cash, gangs extort daily protection money and often kill those who cannot or outright refuse to pay. The annual number of assassinated bus drivers has steadily risen with each passing year. This film looks into the plight of the drivers of camionetas.

REBECCA KINGSLEY received $10,000 for The Last Colony, a documentary about Americas ambivalence toward its capital city of Washington, D.C., where the fight for democracy hits home and the battle over political self-determination intersects with historic issues of race, power, and the constitutional balancing act between federal and local government. With the current issue of the repeal of D.C.s gun laws framing this debate, the film explores the historical struggle for District self-government as told by its foot soldiers: leaders of the African American community who brought the issue of home rule into the folds of the civil rights movement, and thus the national arena; activists who galvanized their community to participate in local issues; government officials who were on the frontlines to pass legislation, giving Washington representative government; and journalists who have studied the complexities of the Districts local history as it relates to its status as a federal city.

THE KITCHEN, New York City, received $16,000 in support of emerging artists commissions. The Kitchen is dedicated to supporting new work by innovative artists working within, and across, the fields of music, dance, theater, video and film, digital art, and literature. The Kitchen is known for its commitment to experimental new work and for providing instrumental early support for artists whove gone on to worldwide prominence. Its mission is to provide emerging and under-recognized performing and visual artists with the space, financial support, and technical resources to develop and present new work. Jerome support is directed to commissioning fees for 13 projects by emerging, New York City-based performing and visual artists. The commissions are paid up to six months in advance of the artists presentations. The artists commissioned are engaged in challenging, experimental practices and work in a broad spectrum of media and disciplines, ranging from music, dance, and theater to video, sound, and mixed media installation.

THE KITCHEN, New York City, received $17,000 to support commissions for emerging artists to develop new works for exhibition and presentation. Founded in 1971, The Kitchen is dedicated to supporting new work by innovative artists working within, and across, the fields of music, dance, theater, video and film, digital art, and literature. The organization is known for its commitment to experimental new work and for providing instrumental early support for artists whove progressed to later prominence. Jerome dollars are directed to commissioning fees paid to the artists to subsidize the creative process.