Past
Grantees

TANIA CYPRIANO received a grant for a feature-length documentary titled Grandmother and Her Video Camera, which utilizes the home video of Cypriano's grandmother to chronicle the lives of three generations of her Brazilian immigrant family over a ten-year period.

Choreographer ALYCE FINWALL received financial support to develop and produce a new dance work. A company member of Ballet of the Dolls Dance Company since 1995, Finwall choreographs under the company name DANCE COUNCIL, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mission of Dance Council is to speak through a vocabulary of dance that is dedicated to reinvention and experimentation and to collaborate with talents of all areas to create a language that is illuminated with vision, insight and imagination. Finwall's choreography has been described as emotional and lyrically intense, utilizing both modern and traditional styles. She often draws inspiration from two-dimensional images, and is currently exploring a ballet based on the human, tragic story of Mark Rothko. This work will be paired with three other ballets, utilizing video animation, and original sound design, in a concert for which funding of $10,000 was authorized.

MATT EHLING, St. Paul, MN, received a $8,000 grant in support of Access, a 60-minute documentary journey through the American spectrum of political and social opinion as reflected through the medium of public access television.

A mid-career grant of $15,000 was awarded to Elizabeth Streb/Ringside, New York City, in support of a collaboration with individuals from the Georgia Institute of Technologys Interactive Media Center. Streb will introduce the new technology into the box truss performance structure and stage show that she created in 1997. Streb will create two works. IMPACTS will electronically capture a moment in time when a dancer impacts a structure. The concept of the work entitled TRANSMISSION is to examine the quantum physics of particles through a barrier. Streb is well known for risk taking in the realm of movement and dance. Jerome Foundation awards mid-career grants to established artists whose projects provide an opportunity for significant career development and places the artist in a position of artistic risk and challenge.

ALICE ELLIOTT received funding for I'm a Collector!, a feature-length documentary about Larry Selman, the mentally challenged neighbor of Elliott, who raises thousands of dollars each year for charity from neighborhood residents.

RODNEY EVANS received support for Brother to Brother, an experimental narrative that follows the emotional and psychological journey of an eighteen year old gay, African-American artist as he discovers the hidden legacies of the Gay and Lesbian community within the Harlem Renaissance.

JENNIFER FIEBER received a grant for The Sundays of Life, an experimental film that explores the tension between observable objects and their connotations.

The Directors authorized a two-year grant of $15,000 to The Field, New York City, as fiscal agent for KEELEY GARFIELD's Sinister Slapstick, to support the creation and production of two new works, My Sister was a Refugee and Past Caring. These works will be presented in development in 1999-2000 and premiere performances at Dance Theater Workshop in 2000-2001. Through movement, Garfield explores the realm of emotions, senses, and instincts, and the way in which these elements of our internal experience are manifested. Garfield considers herself an archaeologist of the satirical soul, attempting to excavate the myriad places that open up inside as she unearths subterranean sensations, looking for places where laughter and tears hide, and revealing them in poetic and peculiar dance sagas.

Choreographer/dancer GERRY GIROUARD, in collaboration with composer Tod Winkler and lighting designer Stephen Rueff, received support of $9,500 through the fiscal agent sponsorship of the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, to create and present a new work in 1999. Girouards style of choreography is inspired by gymnastics, wall climbing and tumbling. It employs rigorous body contact and appears to suspend gravity. Exploring the potential of angular poles, corners and beams, dancers bound, leap and hang in expressive motion and contact. Winkler turns the performance space into a musical synthesizer, which transforms kinetic movement into percussive sounds, and interprets the amount of movement into ambient sound. Literally, the dancers become the musicians; and the music instantaneously and precisely matches the movement.

The Rose Ensemble, a 12-voice mixed ensemble, is dedicated to the historically informed performance of music written before 1750, and to new work by Minnesota composers. Minnesota-based composer EDIE HILL will be the ensemble's first composer-in-residence. Her works encompass chamber and solo repertoire, orchestra, chorus, solo voice and dance. Hill will spend a generous amount of time with the Ensemble throughout the season, will present concert talks prior to performances of her works and be available for questions and comments. She will travel with the Ensemble when it presents her works on tour, and will compose two works over the course of the upcoming season for the Ensemble, the first set to text based on a 15th Century secular eulogy by Italian poet Jacopo Sannazaro. A grant of $14,500 was awarded to THE SCHUBERT CLUB, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for the proposal.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to Thin Man Dance, Inc., a.k.a. John Jasperse Company, New York City, in support of a new evening-length work in 1999-2000. This is the first grant awarded to choreographer John Jasperse by Jerome Foundation. John Jasperse Company is deeply committed to breaking down the walls of the artist/audience dance "ghetto". Its work is rooted in physical experiences of the body, which are not exclusive to dancers. This grant will enable Jasperse to spend extensive development time on the new work.

MARY JOHN, Moorhead, MN, received $10,000 for All My Relatives, a 60-minute documentary that chronicles the last 100 years of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation through four generations of her relatives.

Bat Theatre Company, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer Sarah East Johnson, received $10,000, in continued support of the creation and production of LAVA Love Cabaret. This evening-length work will include the dance and circus-like movements that the company has been developing over the last several years, such as hoop diving, partner acrobatics, solo and double trapeze and pyramids. LAVA Love Cabaret will include an aerial that involves walking on the ceiling.

STEVEN KELLY, Minneapolis, MN, received $10,000 in support of Walking Giant, a feature-length documentary that will be a provocative city portrait of modern Beijing, China, presented through the stories and lyrics of China's obscure underground music scene.

NICOLE KOSCHMANN received support for Black, White and Yellow, a short, experimental documentary that will explore the relationship between two sisters - one White and the other Black/Chinese - at a time when their racial difference becomes an issue.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $10,000 to THE BAT THEATER, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for NICHOLASLEICHTERDANCE, which is committed to the development of innovative and exciting dance performances that break down the barriers between the audience and the performer. Funding is specifically designated for Breakdown, a piece about rebellion and breakdown, which uses urban, street and hip-hop styles to explore the depths of human sexuality. Breakdown will be presented this coming January in a three-week run, and will subsequently tour.

MATTHEW MAGRATTEN, Minneapolis, MN, received $17,000 in support of The Well, a short narrative film that explores the decision making process of a group of children in their budding moral universe, and the nature of action when it is free from accountability.

PATRICE MALLARD was provided with a grant for BRIARS WILL CUT: My Mother's Line, a video documentary that tells her story as an African-American woman born in the deep South who traces her matrilineal line back five generations.

STEVEN MATHESON, St. Paul, MN, received support of $10,000 for News/Year, a 52 episode (30-90 seconds each) online/CD-ROM weekly series of experimental moving-image works investigating the relationship between daily life and the daily news.

Founded in 1989, COLLABORATIVE URBAN SCULPTURE PROJECTS, Brooklyn, New York, supports community-based art projects that foster collaborations among artists and social service organizations. It creates innovative venues for emerging visual and performing artists, and engages diverse audiences in the experience of these works. Jerome funding of $15,000 was authorized for Witness, a public art work by BRADLEY MCCALLUM, which will present experiences of police-related violence in New York City in a series of public art installations. The piece will be installed at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and in communities where incidences of police-related violence have occurred. Audio and sculptural elements will document specific histories of the victims. The working concept for the site-specific sculptures is to create cast iron units, similar to fire department call boxes, installed at street intersections throughout the five counties that comprise New York City.