Past
Grantees

ADAM LEVY, Minneapolis, MN, was awarded funding for 10,000 Years, a feature-length music-driven animated allegory about youth violence and international conflict.

NORA LIGORANO & MARSHALL REESE (previous recipients), received funding for Fiber Optic Video Tapestry, an experimental installation project comprised of a hand woven wall tapestry made from electronic image and data transmission materialsfiber optics, wires, and various sized LCD screens.

KRISTIN LUCAS was awarded a grant in support of The Electric Donut, an experimental single channel video and DVD installation based on visions of the future. Using family photographs, Super-8 films, and home videos, Lucas will construct personal futuristic visions.

MARTI LUFKIN, St. Paul, MN, received a grant to support He Aint Heavy, a personal documentary about her severely brain damaged brother and his impact on their family.

Jerome Directors authorized a two-year grant of $24,000 to PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer JENNIFER MONSON, in support of two new segments of Bird Brain: the Osprey Tour and the Ducks and Geese Tour. Bird Brain is a multiyear navigational dance project that investigates migratory patterns and habits of birds and animals. By literally following the migratory routes of the animals, this dance project weaves together a community across continents and cultures. The dance company, traveling by car and plane, will do their own migration, with performances, panel discussions, and events along the way.

RENA MUNDO was awarded a grant in support of The Farm: Experimenting With Utopia, a documentary about the rise and fall of the most famous commune in the history of the United States, the people who devoted their lives to it and the entire communitys painful re-entry into mainstream America after it collapsed.

The FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for independent choreographer BEN MUNISTERI, received $12,000 in support of the creation of new work. Jerome funds will be used to create an evening-length piece based on a short section of a previous experimental piece. Munisteri is working with eight dancers and cello solos by four different composers as well as the sounds of underwater sonar and Siamese cats. Munisteri has been described as a choreographer who traverses the polar worlds of club and concert dance.

Funding was awarded to MAYU NAKAMURA for Fever, a bilingual narrative drama about a Japanese teenager who becomes pregnant by a married American man and stands trial for drowning her baby.

Directors authorized a $12,000 concluding grant to the NETA DANCE COMPANY, New York City, in support of the creation and production of new work by choreographer Neta Pulvermacher. This multicultural dance company brings contemporary performance arts to the public, promotes artistic collaboration between artists working in different media, and supports innovation in all media. Jerome funding will support the new, evening-length work Paper Boats, which follows the shifting tides of love and intimacy. Pulvermacher plans to deconstruct the body language of intimacy and bring to light the deepest, most hidden and vulnerable territories of love and intimacy.

JOHN OBRIEN, Lake Elmo, MN, received support for The Rise and Fall of it All, a new media work that uses the complementary aspects of music, sound, narrative and imagery to explore the challenges faced by various people who inhabit the margins of society.

Funding was awarded to STEFAN ROLOFF in support of The Red Orchestra, an impressionistic documentary about the experiences of one of the largest Nazi resistance groups, embedded in a visual language where survivor and eyewitness accounts give close-up views.

KIT-YIN SNYDER received funding for Double Exposure, a video project of poetically inspired first-person reflections and observations examining the filmmakers passage from young Chinese girl to middle-aged Chinese-American woman.

Eye of the Storm Theatre Artistic Director CASEY STANGL and Managing Director MICHELLE PETT, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received funding to learn from a consultant/coach how to build a stronger board and transition from a founder-driven organization to shared board governance, with the managing director assuming more board contact responsibilities. This new structure will allow the artistic director more time to focus on fulfilling the organizations mission and help it achieve its goals of growth, visibility, and the establishment of a permanent home. The coaching will cover board governance practices, defining board roles and responsibilities, and effective board functioning.

MATTHEW STENERSON, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant to support How to Read a Letter at the End of a Movie, a film that presents ten movie endings in a series to examine how movie endings have lives of their own.

Choreographer ROBIN STIEHM, using the SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent, received a $12,000 grant in support of the creation of new work in 2002. Dances for an April 2002 performance will include the womens quartet Speak Slow, Abandon Caution; In the In Crowd; the local premiere of a 2001 piece recently presented in Belarus; the premiere of a duet for Stiehm and Toni Pierce; and a new quartet. The focus of the show in April will be the new quartet, an exploration into ritual and its meaning for the participants in it.

AMANDA TAYLOR, St. Paul, MN, was awarded a grant for Freak of Nature, a documentary combining gender theory, case studies, scientific explanations, humorous anecdotes and musical interludes about the existence of gay animals.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for MORGAN THORSON AND COMPANY, received a two-year grant of $24,000 to support the development and production of Swamp and professional advancement opportunities for Thorson. Thorsons choreography is highly eclectic and pulls from a mix of improvisation, athletics, modern dance, ballet and, more recently, in-depth training and certification in Skinner Releasing Technique. She has a rigorous commitment to methodology that reveals her passion for movement invention. In Swamp, Thorson will develop the movement and commissioned sound score from theories of acceleration, the phenomenon of phantom limb sensations and psychic communication.

KANG VANG, St. Paul, MN, received support for Miskas American, a docudrama that takes place before and during the court trials of an older Hmong man named Wa Her Yang, who is convicted of murdering his wife. During the proceedings, Yang finds solace through his lawyer, a young man.

MARK WOJAHN, St. Paul, MN, was awarded funding for What America Needs 2002, an experimental documentary about the United States, a sequel to What America Needs 1994. The filmmaker will travel from Manhattan to San Francisco asking people the question, What do you think America needs?

THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for ELLIS WOOD/WOOD DANCE, received a two-year grant of $20,000 to support the development and production of new work. In the first year, funding will support the creation and work-in-progress showing of A.F.E.W. Girls in the Mud, which will premiere during the second year of the grant period. A.F.E.W. highlights aspects of female identity as they relate to the elements of air, fire, earth and water. Wood creates dances that focus on womens issues, and in particular, gender politics.