Past
Grantees

JUAN CARLOS MARTINEZ-ZALDIVAR received support for 90 MILES, an intensely personal, short video documentary about the emotional wounds Cubans and Cuban-Americans live with everyday because of the deep divide separating the United States and Cuba.

A commitment of $6,500 was made to the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal sponsor for 10,000 DANCES. 10,000 Dances is a professional, contemporary dance company dedicated to promoting artistic excellence by performing dance works created primarily by company choreographers. Funding was approved for Around the Block Again, a December 1998 concert season. This program concept results in fast-paced and highly diverse selections of dances, distinctively emphasizing the inclusive nature of the selection process. A variety of groups will participate including tap ensembles, Young Dance, break dance and popper groups and 10,000 Dances in choreography

A special, one time grant of $10,000 was authorized to the SOUTHERN THEATER FOUNDATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of a unique collaborative opportunity for CHRIS AIKEN, who has drawn together five expert contact improvisation choreographers and dancers. The group includes Steve Paxton, a seminal figure in dance and the creator of what is known as contact improvisation; Kirstie Simson, one of the most respected dance teachers and performers of dance improvisation in Great Britain; Ka Rustler, known in Europe for her innovative work as co-director of a center for new dance, Tanzfabrik; and Ray Chung, a performer and choreographer with whom Aiken has worked before. The drawing together of this group of exceptional artists working collaboratively with Aiken will challenge and expand his own work. From the perspective of audiences, it will be an incredible opportunity to see the best contact improvisers. A residency at Jacobs Pillow will launch the project. The artists will then travel to Minneapolis for a week of teaching and performances at the Southern Theater in October of 1998.

DOUG AITKEN received funding for Eraser, a process-based experimental film that follows a perfectly linear path, from North to South, for exactly six miles, exploring the effects of the Soufrieres volcano on the small Caribbean Island of Monserrat. In the process of making this journey, however, viewers will encounter a transformation that takes them from a tranquil garden island, to a landscape that reaches a point of complete abstraction, and ultimately reductive silver-gray landscape absent of any light, form or human activity-a void of absolute emptiness and neutrality.

Omonike Akinyemi - Nelly's Bodega, a 25-minute, color, 16mm drama that details the development of a friendship between Fatima, a twelve-year-old African-American girl, and Nelly, a physically abused Latina woman. It is through Fatima that Nelly realizes she must look to the literal and spiritual child within her for happiness and leave a marriage riddled with battery. When Nelly comes to this realization the entire neighborhood in which she lives begins to heal as well.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for ARENA DANCES BY MATHEW JANCZEWSKI, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the creation and production of new works. Janczewski began professionally presenting his choreography in 1993, while dancing with Jazzdance. The first full evening of his choreographic works took place in 1996. Jerome Foundations two-year commitment follows two annual grants the Foundation made toward his choreography in 1996 and 1997. For the next two seasons, Janczewski will schedule several smaller performances, and begin work toward a major McKnight Theater season early in the year 2000. Hes planned an extensive rehearsal schedule, with periodic two-month breaks, to develop new work over a longer period of time.

THE UNIVERSITY OF SAINT THOMAS, St. Paul, Minnesota, acted as fiscal agent for composer WILLIAM BANFIELD in his request for a grant to develop a master for a CD. A grant of $15,000 was authorized for this established, mid-career composer who is making a new push in his career toward developing his credentials and his work as a jazz musician and composer. He will put together a collection of his best jazz and popular music compositions heard within the recording/performing framework of a small jazz chamber orchestra/ band. While the recording of a master is no guarantee that a CD will be forthcoming and will be distributed effectively, it is a necessary first step. Funding was authorized to support this initiative based upon Banfields reasoned proposal, and the recognition that this was, professionally and creatively, a significant time in his career development.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acted as fiscal sponsor for independent artist ERIK BELGUMs request for a grant to support two CD projects. Belgum is a writer, composer and sound artist working in fiction, nonfiction, radio, performance art and opera. This grant will support recordings on compact disc of two works created for radio broadcast. The works can also be used on the Internet, in concerts of electroacoustic music and for home CD play. The first, titled Blodder, is comprised of four related stories arising from the robbery of a convenience store. The texts are arranged for five speaking voices. The second work PHON:E:ME is an elaborate multimedia hypertext created for the World Wide Web by Belgum and Mark Amerika. It is a story about cyberspace, Jewish mysticism

Zoe Beloff - Where Were There Where, an interactive film on CD ROM which is centered around the play "Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights" by Gertrude Stein, in the sense of finding a contemporary formal equivalent in digital media for the radical restructuring of the 1938 text. Also, as a playful philosophical investigation of the relationship between electricity, logic and language games that Stein's work inspires. Thus opening the text up to parallel radical perspectives in the work of I.P. Pavlov, Alan Turing and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Artist DJOLA BRANNER is developing a new work titled Mighty Real, a piece chronicling the life and times of the flamboyant singer/songwriter Sylvester in the form of a solo performance piece. This grant of $13,000 was awarded to INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor of the Branner production. The piece will explore Sylvesters contribution to contemporary music, his effect on popular culture as a champion of the progressive gender movement and his public and private struggles as an openly Black, gay male. The piece will open its run in June of 1999.

CORNING DANCES & COMPANY, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $26,000 toward the creation, development and production of choreography in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons. This company is dedicated to creating provocative and accessible works that address issues of relevance, and to working with communities to deepen the impact of the messages. One of the new works planned is a dance that explores success in midlife, and how one measures that. Corning will work collaboratively with playwright Kim Hines in the development of this work. Corning is also at work on the third and final part of her Human Trilogy. In this, shell address the following questions: What lies beyond ones relationship with self or fellow man? Where do belief and spirit intersect? What is it that is timeless, immortal? At the works core is a commissioned text written by Shelly Berc, who also wrote the text for Part I of the Trilogy. Cornings challenge has been her search for a particular movement vocabulary to reflect the more abstract and ephemeral concept of spirituality.

CECILIA DOUGHERTY received a grant in support of Gone, a 60-minute experimental narrative remake of episode two of An American Family, the acclaimed 1974 PBS documentary series on the Loud Family.

THALIA DRORI, Minneapolis, MN, $10,000. Drori received support for Waiting for Daryl, a 28-minute absurd, dark and comic 16mm experimental narrative based on her experiences growing up Jewish and female in America in the 1960s.

The theater ensemble ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE, which first performed in New York in 1991, received $8,000 in support of its 1998-99 season. The ensemble combines found objects and texts with elements of slapstick comedy, dance, audio design and dramatic literature. Elevator Repair Service embraces the unpredictable collisions among various source materials, theatrical styles and personalities. It aims to be mysterious, comical and gracefully awkward. Its fall 1998 show, Total Fictional Lie, concluded its run at P.S. 122. After the first of the year, the company will rework a 1994 piece titled Language Instruction: Love Family vs. Andy Kaufman. The company will continue the development of new work in the late spring, and plans to tour during the summer.

Robert Fenz - Revival, a poetic 16mm documentary/experimental film about jazz music as an art form which was created as a metaphorical and literal means out of slavery; a form of expression in which form directly addresses the basic dialectic of freedom and slavery, or structure and improvisation. Mr. Fenz will bring these considerations into his film project, while understanding and contextualizing other historical elements in the development of this unique musical art form as well.

HOLLY FISHER was awarded support for BURMA LAND/SCAPES, an experimental video which will involve the viewer in exploring the seemingly innocent activity of tourism in Burma. At its simplest level the viewer will witness the filmmaker's personal travelogue of locations, people, rhythms, and the interaction of a traveler discovering a new land. But as testimonies from refugees and archival materials from colonial, underground, and other sources are woven into the fabric of this diary, space is created for a multiplicity of narratives. This video panorama will exploit myriad levels of meaning while unleashing a fuller accounting of forced labor and relocation, bondage, terror and denial of basic human rights that underpin Burma's tourism campaign.

The Directors authorized a grant of $10,000 to THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal agent for KEELY GARFIELDS SINISTER SLAPSTICK, to support the creation and performance of new work during the 1998-99 season. Garfield has been choreographing and performing since 1982. She moved to New York City in 1986. She founded her company a year later and has performed in a variety of venues there. She is known for her wit as a choreographer and depth as a performer. She considers herself an archeologist 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.

The Jerome Foundation Directors made a commitment of $8,000 to the SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal sponsor for composer ANTHONY GATTO, in support of The Orchestra Dancing in Your Head. Gatto will assemble a nine-piece ensemble, integrating his academic training in music history and composition with his performance experience in rock, jazz and free improvisation in order to bring his music to audiences in concerts he designs.

THE SCHUBERT CLUB, St. Paul, Minnesota, acted as fiscal agent for composer EDIE HILL as she sought support to create new music compositions. The Schubert Club promotes the art of music through performance, education and music exhibitions. Hill requested support to develop new works in order to pursue higher visibility opportunities such as touring, composing works for larger ensembles and established venues, and composing solo work for artists who will champion her music. The three works to be subsidized are a piano trio, a flute concerto and song cycle. The piano trio will first be heard at the Montanea Chamber Music Festival in Switzerland, with two additional performances in Europe and U.S. performances in at lease four locations. The flute concerto will be premiered with the New York Chamber Ensemble by flutist Susan Rotholz. Hill will also research materials for a song cyle for mezzo soprano. Hill intends that this strategic plan will significantly advance her career.

THE QUINTET OF THE AMERICAS, New York City, acted as fiscal agent for composer KEVIN JAMES, who sought funding to create a large scale work, Portraits, for tape and a variety for soloists and chamber ensembles. James is a New York City based composer, trombonist and founder of the Quadragon Trombone Collective. In Portraits, James will paint the faces of homelessness in New York City. Interviews with over 700 homeless people will be used as part of the sound score for the work. The piece will consist of eight distinct sections, each drawing on specific themes arising from the interviewing process. The music will be varied stylistically. James will then have the work performed by a variety of ensembles, including Kronos Quartet, Glen Velez and Handance, Quintet of the Americas, The Meridian Arts Ensemble and The Sirius String Quartet. Funding of $10,000 was authorized for the development of this work leading toward a workshop performance of the piece at the Kitchen in late 1998.