Past
Grantees

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for the ensemble MAD KING THOMAS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of The Home Project. Springboard is a nonprofit artist service organization whose mission is to cultivate a vibrant arts community by connecting artists with the skills, contacts, information, and services they need to make a living and a life. Mad King Thomas is the choreographic collaboration of Tara King, Theresa Madaus, and Monica Thomas. Known for its sense of humor, delight, and irreverence, Mad King Thomas investigates power, gender, and the possibilities of live performance, opening up discussion, igniting revolution, and subverting the status quo. The Home Project (working title) looks at what it means to make a home, to be far from home, and to make dances in one’s hometown versus in a chosen home or while being far from any home. The trio investigates questions of family, distance, intimacy, belonging, self-determination, accountability, dislocation, longing, the vastness of the United States, and disparities of culture.

SHONA MASARIN, received a grant in support of Ghost line, a 16mm experimental film that invokes the spaces of Vaudeville through a Dada/Surrealist eye. The film plays with abstract patterns, rhythms, and alchemical techniques to conjure a lost world. It begins with a vaudevillian preparing to perform for a nonexistent audience. Viewers find themselves in an old theater, shut down and eroding where vaudeville, a relic of the past, has been long forgotten. Summoning this lost history through a non-sequitur that channels multiple characters and personalities, the viewer imagines “lines" of history on a fragile emulsion.

Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for Kathy McTavish, Duluth, Minnesota, received $9,000 in support of the development and production of a new work, the origin of birds.  Springboard’s mission is to cultivate a vibrant arts community by connecting artists with the skills, contacts, information, and services they need to make a living and a life.  A cellist, composer, and multimedia artist, McTavish blends cello, found sound, electronic effects, and abstract, layered, still-motion film.  the origin of birds includes new compositions and stories presented in a transmedia platform, utilizing the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms using current digital technologies.  The immersive installation of the origin of birds includes multiple projections, live cello performance, and portals into an interactive web environment for viewers with mobile devices.  

CRYSTAL MOSELLE received funding for The Wolfpack, a documentary that tells the unbelievable story of six teenage brothers who come out of exile and into the world in New York through meeting their first friend.  The six black-clad and long-haired Angulo brothers have been nicknamed “The Wolfpack.”  Bonded by the extreme circumstances of their childhood –– never allowed to leave their tiny family apartment, never allowed to cut their hair, never introduced to the Internet, and almost no contact with the outside world –– they became near-mythical characters.  This is the story behind the myth, of an unusual family locked away from society in the middle of a Manhattan housing project. Dressed like Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, the over-caffeinated brothers, ranging in age from 13 to 20, eventually display the psychological repercussions of constant reclusion.  This culminates in one brother’s escape from the family apartment while donning the mask of Halloween’s Michael Myers, which results in his admission to a mental hospital. Throughout the documentary, Makunda, the Wolfpack’s 17-year-old alpha brother, takes us on the brothers’ Kafkaesque journey, starting with their personal stories and archival photos found in their dark cave of a home.  We discover the teachers who have carved out their personalities, a mother who firmly believes in home-schooling, and an alcoholic, Yogi father who enforced the boys’ isolation.  And lastly, their television –– loaded with a library of Scorcese and Tarantino –– through which the Angulo boys have found their biggest moral compass. 

VINCENT PEONE and JOSH RUBEN, received a grant in support of The Sea is Blue, a stop-motion animated short that follows the journey of Dina, a girl who falls off her uncle Wolfy’s fishing boat and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. She finds herself in a murky, green, altogether alien world. Saddened by her inability to swim back up to the surface, she begins to cry. It’s then that a group of deep-sea fish hear her cries and surround her. They’ve never seen anything like the glowing blue substance coming from her eyes – her tears. Scared at first, the creatures calm and comfort her. Dina’s unlikely new friends eventually teach her how to swim. Just when she begins to feel at home with these otherworldly friends, an anchor falls – a beacon for Dina to make her way back to her life and her real family. As she leaves, the fish realize that Dina has taught them something – sadness. As Dina is hoisted up to the skies by the anchor of her Uncle’s boat, the fish begin to cry, forever changing the murky green sea into a beautiful blue. Dina is reunited with her uncle, but not without changing the ocean forever.

BENT-JORGEN PERLMUTT received support for Against the Clock, a documentary about car racing.  As Cuba lifts its 50-year ban on car racing, five of its top drag racers prepare their American classics to compete.  The vast changes sweeping Cuba are evident in these drivers’ struggle to gear up for the first official race since the Revolution. From the race’s announcement, through the challenges they face preparing their cars and the obstacles they encounter from the Government, these racers reveal an intimate portrait of life in Cuba today.  The film’s story is told from the perspective of the racers with no narration and few interviews, ultimately allowing the characters to speak for themselves.  Shot mostly hand-held in an observational style, the film will have an intimate, fly-on-the-wall demeanor providing a unique window into a society that could quite possibly be undergoing change. 

ANN PRIM received $10,000 for Notes from There, the third and final story of The Vellum Trilogy. The trilogy is a collection of three fictional vignettes Prim began writing in 2009. Each story takes a brief but intimate look into the lives of gay women: a writer, a painter and dancers. Additionally the trilogy also examines rejection, grief, and transformation. The Jerome Foundation funded Little Words, the first chapter of The Vellum Trilogy in 2010.  Notes from There is a story told elliptically, that utilizes dance physically and metaphorically to reveal a tender love story of separation and the emotional transformation that is possible through creative expression.  In the late 1950s in a small modern dance studio run by German émigré Josette Holger, are two very promising but different dancers. The dancers Pepca and Martine become collaborators and lovers but are suddenly separated by Martine’s arrest by immigration officials.  Martine’s arrest causes Pepca to doubt the value of dance in her life and she begins to withdraw from the world. Martine’s reaction to her own arrest and the abrupt separation from Pepca cause her to transcend her physical confinement and enter into the world of her imagination. Martine creates a dance, which she sends to Pepca through a series of notes and hand drawn images. This dance reflects Martine’s confinement and passion for Pepca. These dance notes become an anchor of reality for Pepca and the path back to rediscovering her language of dance.

CHRIS TEAGUE, received a grant in support of The Woods Are Burning, a feature narrative about Kelly Macomber, a shy, tomboyish teenager looking for a sense of identity and belonging as she approaches a future beyond high school. Kelly’s father, Hank, is a brash but well-meaning single dad who runs a logging crew. He worries that his once close relationship with his only daughter is getting weaker as she grows older. Kelly falls for Foster, a charismatic and mysterious young man who draws her deep into a world of radical environmental activism in Oregon. When Foster abandons her, she goes back to the protective world of her father. But in one last act of radical activism, she sends her life in an unsure direction.

BRENNAN VANCE received $25,000 for The Missing Sun, a feature-length narrative film about two families forced to put their disparate beliefs to the test and to reckon with their clashing cosmologies in the midst of a potential solar catastrophe. Sun explores the crossroads of faith and doubt, love and loneliness, generational differences and apples fallen not-so-far from the tree. The film intimately follows seven characters in their individual searches to not only understand what is happening in their crumbling external worlds but to decipher their shifting internal worlds as well.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for VANESSA VOSKUIL, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of The Student.  Springboard’s mission is to cultivate a vibrant arts community by connecting artists with the skills, contacts, information, and services they need to make a living and a life.  Voskuil is a director, performer, designer, community organizer, teaching artist, and creator of dances, interdisciplinary performances, and films.  Her work often explores physical, emotional, and psychological space, creating impressionistic textures of human experience that respond to the cultural environment and humanity’s emotional spectrum.  The Student is a large-scale, community-inclusive performance that explores the topic of learning: how one learns, what one learns and internalizes, and how one chooses to act. 

JESSICA WALKER was awarded a grant for 366, an experimental film that explores the significance of aging in communities throughout New York City by documenting one birthday celebration for each calendar day of the year.  While exploring variety among the different types of people born at various times of the year, this repeated inquiry establishes a lens on shared customs and common values across demographics.  A strong emphasis will be placed on visual connections that capture the essence of each birthday celebration.  Video and sound will be choreographed through editing into an abstracted, non-linear narrative viewing experience that is 366 minutes in length.  The final viewing format for the project will be influenced by Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho and Christian Marclay’s The Clock, which allow the audience to enter and leave the viewing experience whenever they wish due to the film’s expanded running time.

DEACON WARNER received $15,000 for the feature-length documentary The Co-op Wars. The Twin Cities has by far the largest number of food cooperatives in the country, including several of the largest, forming the basis for an alternative food economy which helped it gain the distinction of the #1 metro area for local food in the nation. According to the filmmaker, this co-op system has contributed to the high level of health and community cohesion in the Cities and has provided a basis for the economic survival of many sustainable family farms in the region.  Many in the food justice movement in other parts of the country look at the Twin Cities’ strong co-op and local food culture with envy, but its accomplishments did not come without struggle. The Twin Cities were the site of the “Co-op Wars” of the mid-1970s, a struggle over issues of class, race, health, ecology and the nature of social change that descended into threats, violent takeovers, and even a car bombing. These issues remain alive for activists of today as they make efforts to create a food system, and a society, that is just, sustainable, and healthy. Through verite footage, interviews, and animation, this film will link “The Co-op Wars” struggle of the past with issues that continue to be wrestled with in the nationwide contemporary food movement today.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for the Workhaus Collective, received a grant of $15,000 in support of the production of new works by emerging playwrights. The Center champions playwrights and plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative works. The Workhaus Collective is a group of Minneapolis-based playwrights who curate and produce each other’s work as company-in-residence at The Playwrights’ Center. The mission of the Collective is to create a direct and immediate relationship between playwright and audience by fully producing original plays under the artistic leadership of the playwright. The three-play seasons are chosen by mutual consent of the Collective. Each playwright serves as Artistic Director for the duration of his/her play’s production. The remaining playwrights take on other roles necessary for  production. Jerome’s subsidy will support the productions of Christina Ham’s The Hollow and Jeanine Coulumbe’s Homegrown.

JOHN AKRE received support for Demolition Dreaming, a semi-fictional docutoon and meditation on urban renewal and the way Akre feels people have treated their urban history in Minneapolis. It will be an animated film mixed with documentary footage of building demolitions in the city over a ten-year period. The film will focus on a man who saw the buildings of the Minneapolis Gateway district constructed and then demolished. It is about a person who has to cope with a city changing so dramatically around him. It is a story of someone who saw history built and removed and then has to re-create it inside his own head. It is a story about an artist who paints advertising on the sides of buildings, and then, when the buildings are demolished, tries to preserve what is lost by painting the former city on the sides of the remaining buildings, until they too are all smashed down.

KEVIN T. ALLEN received support for Western Ruin, an experimental film that explores tourist performance and historical re-enactment of the American West at two roadside tourist attractions known as 1880 Towns in South Dakota. Interviews will be conducted with the sites founders, historical re-enactors, and tourist performers. These interviews will be combined with footage of historical performance, experimental portraiture of site artifacts and the surrounding Western landscape. The 30-minute film employs methods of archeology and sensory ethnography to excavate traces of the living history of the American West.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer KIMBERLY BARTOSIK, Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the creation and production of the choreographic project You are my heat and glare. This work is a tangle of three duets created as multi-genre cycles using dancers, designers, and voice artists. The specific site of the performance is found in relationship to another persons body, developed without any connection to a specific space or architectural structure for presentation. The urgency of intimate relationships drives the question of how and when we desire to go back to something or someone, and how long we endure one situation before seeking a change. The work will premiere in 2013, and will be seen as durational performances prior to that date.

NICOLE BRENDING was awarded a grant in support of The Dollhouse, a feature-length experimental animated film using puppetry with custom-made dolls to create a psychological portrait of Junie Spoons. Spoons was a child star whose premature rise to international pop fame and her strained relationship with her abusive mother drives her to insanity by the age of 18. Getting her start on a Star-Search-like program at the age of eleven, sweet and cute Junie Spoons dancing and singing prowess gains the attention of a record label producer who signs her as one of the labels girl groups. Pushed by her narcissistic and controlling mother, and primed by the record producer, her first album Spoonful hits the charts and Junie is suddenly skyrocketed into international stardom by the age of 13. But her rise to fame is not paved with gold. When she tries to rebel against the manipulation that has kept her in line with her mothers self-serving agenda, she is met with the backlash of her mothers wrath. Without any where-with-all or sense of self to free herself from her mothers tyranny, Junie becomes a doll in her mothers dollhouse by her eighteenth birthday.

ANDRES CABALLER0 was awarded a grant in support of El Pastor, a sixty-minute documentary that follows the lives of Latin American sheepherders who come to the United States to work in complete isolation in the American West. Every year, hundreds of guest workers are recruited from South America to work as sheepherders in the United States. Once they arrive, they are dropped off in the deserts and mountain ranges of the American West, where they remain for months in complete isolation, living in trailers and tent, with thousands of sheep, a horse and some dogs. Extreme weather conditions, wild animals and solitude make up the dark side of a profession and primitive lifestyle that can also be romanticized by the beauty of the surrounding environment. The film follows a shepherds life in his homeland of the Chilean Patagonia, his arrival in the U.S., and his journey through different seasons in the desert and mountains of northeast Idaho.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer YANIRA CASTRO, Brooklyn, New York, received $9,000 in support of the development and production of a new work, The People to Come. Working through her organization a canary torsi, Castro creates works that reflect a collaborative and multidisciplinary nature, anchored in a live performance and extending into other media and online platforms. The People to Come is a participatory performance installation and dance, radically altered each night by performers using material contributed by the communities surrounding a performance site and the audiences attending the performances. While Castro meticulously creates the scenario, People challenges the directors authorship and asks the questions: What is the divide between spectator and participant? How are these roles inverted/shared? Who is the translator? Who is the narrator?

CHRISTINA CHOE received support for 1984 Redux (working title), a personal documentary about Choes journey exploring the nature of propaganda. The film will incorporate elements of animation, performance art, satire, hoaxes/pranksterism, and interviews through the lens of propaganda. The film aims to push the boundaries of fiction and documentary, where the line between performance and reality, lies and truth, are blurred, providing us a meta narrative of how propaganda functions.