Past
Grantees

The Directors authorized a two-year grant of $15,000 to THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for KEELY GARFIELDS SINISTER SLAPSTICK, in support of the creation and performance of three new works, FREE DRINKS FOR LADIES WITH NUTS, Im With Stupid!, and an untitled third work. Garfield excavates personal imagery and stories, revealing them in ironic and poetic soap-operatic dance sagas. FREE DRINKS FOR LADIES WITH NUTS is about the reluctance to accept responsibility, the ways that stress permeates lives, and the relief experienced in letting go. The two other new works in development explore maturing artistic relationships formed during past projects.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer GERRY GIROUARD, received a two-year grant of $19,000 in support of the creation of new work. Girouard and his dancers utilize nontraditional dance surfaces, ranging from walls to specifically designed set pieces, and even the performers bodies themselves, navigating through spaces as if exempt from the laws of gravity. His work is rigorously athletic and visually arresting. He has integrated technology into his work and expanded the possibilities for audiences viewing the movement. Girouards new dance drama is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray and will explore Faustian bargains in contemporary America.

A grant was awarded to MICHAEL GITLIN for Field Marks, an hour-long experimental nonfiction that explores some attempts to (re)construct nature in the Imaginary, centered on ornithology and the subculture of birding. One section of the film will examine the continuing search for the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird now presumed extinct, in order to ask the question: what constitutes proof of a species' extinction? How does one prove a disappearance, a lack? The film will also investigate the aesthetics and culture of natural history specimen collection and the diorama, which rebuilds nature as narrative. the film will posit its own counter-narrative.

Independent media artist EMILY GOLDBERG received funding to attend educational seminars at the annual Independent Feature Project Market in New York. She will meet with distributors, television executives, and publicists who specialize in independent documentary films. Goldberg plans to get an overview of the film industry and business practices and learn how to market her work.

HIPS ROAD, INC., New York City, acted as fiscal agent for composer ANNIE GOSFIELD, who sought a grant to support a CD recording of her work. Hips Road, created by composer John Zorn, advances experimental and avant-garde music and composers. Tzadik Records, founded for the purpose of releasing the best in avant-garde and experimental music, presents contemporary musician-composers who find it difficult to release their music through more conventional channels. Jerome funding of $11,650 was authorized to assist with CD production expenses including studio costs, musicians fees and mixing. The compositions on the CD are intended to demonstrate diverse facets of Gosfields work, and her use of contrasting techniques to create a musically cohesive collection inspired by the ambiance, energy and sheer power of industrial sound.

The SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for HIJACK, the team of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder, received a grant of $10,500 in support of the creation of new work. Hijack is an eleven-year choreographic collaboration that embraces juxtaposition with equal emphasis on process and product. Hijack will create two duets and two ensemble works. In each, Van Loon and Wilder will explore a different production elementsound, lighting, costume, and text.

The INTERGALACTIC CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $16,000 to support the creation and recording of new works by composer EDIE HILL . The ensemble is a flexible chamber orchestra dedicated to the performance of modern and new music. Hill, as composer-in-residence, will compose a 25-minute three-movement work for chamber orchestra, work closely with the musicians during the composition period, be present for and coach the musicians in rehearsals, record a debut CD of chamber and chamber orchestra music and then tour with the ensemble and the CD.

HARRIET HIRSHORN (previous recipient), received funding for Pote Mak Sonje: The Raboteau Trial, a documentary that chronicles the trial and eventual conviction of military and paramilitary leaders for their role in the 1994 massacre of civilians in the poor neighborhood of Raboteau in Goniaves, Haiti.

The Directors authorized a $12,500 grant to THIN MAN DANCE/JOHN JASPERSE COMPANY, New York City, in support of the development of a new evening length work. Jerome funding will help with the costs of creating which takes place, a work for four dancers, which will be performed in the Next Wave Festival 2001 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Jasperse is interested in exploring the internal physical and psychic space of the body as it relates to the bodys external shell as a container, and how this relation is reflected and paralleled in the space that contains humans and their actions. Hes interested in the disconnect between meanings projected by an assumed understanding of a given space and the meanings established through the actions that occur in the space.

A grant of $10,500 was awarded to RESOURCES AND COUNSELING FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for CATALYST: DANCES BY EMILY JOHNSON. Johnson formed Catalyst in 1998 as a seven-member contemporary dance company. She magnifies the accustomed routine of daily life, paying particular attention to things that go unnoticed or taken for granted as one moves through the day. A grant of $10,500 will enable Johnson to develop several new dance works. Face Control is a duet for two women, which deals with how we carry ourselves through encounters in life that are fearful, demeaning or stressful in order to protect dignity and some semblance of security. Unrefined/Unfinished, a solo to be created with visual artist Krista Walsh and playwright Lisa DAmour, will look at the individual experience of self-construction in a society excited by obsessions and destructive behavior. If I Shut My Eyes, You Cant See Me is a quartet in which each dancer has control of the illumination of two light bulbs. As the piece is danced, moments of what one would not want seen, or what is embarrassing to be seen, are seen. The dancers disguise what they have revealed. A fourth dance, yet to be titled, originated from a Travel and Study Grant Johnson received to study Yupik dance.

KATHA DANCE THEATRE, Crystal, Minnesota, received a two-year concluding grant of $24,000 in support of the creation of new works by choreographer Rita Mustaphi. The mission of Katha Dance Theatre is to present, promote and strengthen the art of Indian classical dance through creation, preservation and sponsorship of artistic and cultural endeavors. Jerome funding will be directed toward the development and production of new works. Mustaphi creates pieces that push beyond the Kathak tradition yet are firmly rooted within that tradition. In 2001, Mustaphi will stage the epic Ramayana, using the dance, music, storytelling and puppet theater traditions of India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Laos.

GEORGIA LEE was awarded a grant in support of Marionette, a feature-length narrative that chronicles the struggle of Celine, a young female urbanite, against her material uber-capitalistic life. Along with her eccentric, yet oddly enlightened sister Vish, Celine is drawn into an increasingly fantastical set of adventures that are, at once, macabre and sublime as she struggles to find where she herself belongs.

LYNN LUKKAS, Minneapolis, MN, received funding to support The Oculus Projects: South Africa, an interactive video installation that employs a machine/human interface to read the biological functions of the human body to control the projection of video and sound.

Funding was awarded to AARON MATTHEWS for A Panther in Africa, an in-depth portrait of Pete ONeal, founder of the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panthers and an American exile living in Tanzania. It is the story of how a 1960s radical who advocated violence becomes a global activist who advocates community service.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to the NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal agent for YIN MEI DANCE, in support of the creation of /Asunder, a collaboration among Yin Mei, composer Robert Een, visual artist Cai Juo Qiang and poet Mark Strand. It will be premiered at Danspace Project and will tour. Thematically, /Asunder explores notions of lovethe effects of its presence and absence, the consequences of its pursuit and loss, and the striving toward an emotional and spiritual understanding. The genesis lies within choreographer and dancer Yin Meis contemplative practice and her personal examination. Her aesthetic employs Chinese energy direction, reminiscent of Tai Chi, and spatial principles as a means of creating dance within the rubric of Western avant-garde dance theater.

SCOTT MILLER, Minneapolis, MN, received support for Shape of A Shadow, a collection of ten, 2-minute, 16mm shorts presented individually as 2-minute segments and collectively as a 20-minute film. Its an analogous look at the personal travails of Miller, from technophobia to an eventual understanding and union of modern tools and fundamental techniques.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for artist DEAN MOSS, received a two-year concluding grant of $16,000 in support of artists fees and production expenses for the performance work supplement. Conceived and constructed by Moss, supplement is a multidisciplinary piece that reflects questions about sensation, perception, identity, and illusion. supplement will present opposing mediations on the passage from life into death. It will premiere in the fall of 2002.

MOVIN' SPIRITS DANCE THEATER, Brooklyn, New York, received a grant of $15,000 in support of the development of two works by Marlies Yearby in the 2001-02 season. She creates dances using movement memories, everyday gestures, and dream fragments. Jerome funding will be applied to the development and workshop production of The Womens Project and developmental rehearsal and production of Brown Butterfly. The Womens Project is a personal exploration of women. It draws on their varied stories, lives, and experiences shared through workshops, interviews, and physical expression. Brown Butterfly examines cultural shifts based on the physicality, language, and larger-than-life personality of Muhammad Ali.

A grant of $12,000 was awarded to the FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer BEN MUNISTERI, in support of the creation and production of new work. O for a Muse of Fire is a new dance about the way Munisteri choreographs and about his dancers. He will invite the audience into the creative process and offer explosive dancing in an intimate setting.

MANOSHI CHITRA NEOGY received funding for Sand Shades, a "cinepoem" that explores the nature of dualities inherent in people as perceived through the eyes of a young Indian woman. The film will interweave the struggles and textures of two contrasting cultures, experienced and lived in one individual.