Past
Grantees

AMY JENKINS received a grant for Sheltering for Daydreaming, From the Same Water and Whirligig, a video installation, composed of three segments, that will investigate the home as a locus for memory, expectation and metamorphosis.

Kirsten Johnson/Julia Pimsleur - Innocent Until Proven Guilty, a one-hour video documentary about one African-American's struggle with the criminalization of black men in America. The son of prominent civil rights activists, James Foreman, Jr. was raised with the acute awareness of social responsibility. When he completed a law degree at Yale University, Forman was awarded a prestigious Supreme Court clerkship. From that post, he could have gone to any number of highly paid law positions; instead he chose to become a public defender in Washington, DC, where the crime rate is one of the highest in the country. At only 29, he juggles up to a dozen clients at a time, including some of the Public Defender Service's most challenging juvenile cases. This film takes us inside the criminal justice system, tracking Forman's relationship with three of his young clients-one imprisoned one acquitted, and one awaiting trail. Through Forman's experiences and insights as a public defender, the film explores the criminalization of a community and how James Forman lives with its legacy while trying to transform its future.

Choreographer and dancer MORRIS JOHNSON received support for the creation of new work through the fiscal sponsorship services of the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Johnsons choreography is a fusion of cultures, which brings together the beliefs of diverse peoples and communities to celebrate the common bonds of creative expression. The Jerome Foundation made a commitment of $7,500 toward the development of Naga, a piece revolving around the themes of tradition and change, realized through a young womans quest for independence. Naga explores the nuances of the father/daughter relationship and the power of the spiritual world to guide peoples choices.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for independent artist SARAH EAST JOHNSON, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the development of a new concert-length work titled Volcano Love, her fifth evening length production of multi-media acrobatic work. Johnsons work comes from a background in dance, but also integrates her experiences as a circus performer, athlete and student of geology and environmental science. Her movements are cultivated from sources that include contact improvisation, acrobatics, trapeze, collegiate and professional style wrestling, human pyramids and much more. Her new work is a continuation of her exploration into the volcanic activity of the earth, the rhythm of flows and explosions, and plate tectonic theory that describes how volcanic activity occurs.

The NRITYA JYOTI DANCE THEATRE, Crystal, Minnesota, received a grant of $10,000 toward the creation of new work for the 1998-99 season. Founded in 1987, Nritya Jyoti Dance Theatres mission is to present, promote and strengthen the understanding and advancement of the classical dance of India through creation, preservation and sponsorship of artistic and cultural endeavors. Artistic Director Rita Mustaphi bases her work on the Kathak dance of India, a classical form with a 2000-year history. With the intermingling of original choreographic dance pieces by Mustaphi and scripted dialogue, Nritya Jyoti blends dance and theater in concerts that reflect multicultural experiences.

Funding was awarded to SUSAN KORDA in support of Either/Or, a 60-minute experimental documentary that looks at how the personalities and destinies of a Holocaust survivor's two children were molded by the experiences of their parents.

A commitment of $14,000 was made to THE KITCHEN, New York City, as fiscal agent for choreographer Jennifer Monson. Monson received support to develop three dances to be premiered in the upcoming season. She will investigate energetic approaches to choreography and movement, and the relationship between music and dance. A small portion of the grant will be used to mount a previously completed work, Sender, at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1999. She will incorporate two Minneapolis-based dancers in the cast and will undertake a variety of community outreach efforts in the area

ERNEST LARSEN was awarded support for Yellow Cab, a point of view Hi-8 video documentary revolving around his re-emergence as a New York City cabdriver. What he's after is the archetypal American story as it is lived today, when you're only another bottom dog (in Edward Dahlberg's memorable phrase) in a tough city, and you know you have to make your way up. He is also after a portrayal of a culture that everybody in the city thinks they see everyday, but don't scarcely get more than the merest glance at; they never see it from the inside. This video will examine work as necessity and obsession, with relentless detailing of the life of the cabbie, the never-ending need to get the next fare, to get rid of that fare as soon as possible so as to find the next one, the brutal competition for fares, the calculations involved in where and when to go, and the nightmare of routine.

T.J. LARSON, Minneapolis, MN, $15,000. Larson received support for Stories from the Bottle, a 90-minute, 16mm narrative about the value of simple human companionship, as reflected through the relationships among various misfits and outcasts at Mickey's Diner.

KATHLEEN LAUGHLIN, Minneapolis, MN, $10,000. Laughlin received support for Reinventing Power: Origins of the Battered Women's Movement, a 58-minute video documentary on the genesis of the women's shelter movement as reflected through the actions of organizations such as Women's Advocates. Interestingly, this enormously empowering phenomenon, which spread throughout the world, began in St. Paul, Minnesota.

CROSS PERFORMANCE, New York City, received a grant of $30,000 to support the completion of Conservators Dream, a 30-minute film featuring choreographer/performers Ralph Lemon and Bebe Miller, filmed in collaboration with Isaac Julien and with text generated by bell hooks. This grant is an example of the Foundations very limited program focus on established, mid-career artists who are facing critical junctures in their work and who have unusual opportunities to make new work that is a significant challenge for them. Conservators Dream explores an emotionally amorphous relationship between an African-American woman and man, and revolves around interior and physical dialogues with spoken texts and movement that present a complicated love affair. The man is a somewhat shadowy but powerful figure; the woman finds a voice over his power that compels her to break away.

JENNY LION, St. Paul, MN, $19,000. Lion received support for Aloha Goodbye, a 30-minute, 16mm experimental documentary that is part faked travelogue and part actual historical investigation, which employs a highly unusual approach to representing political and individual history and memory.

Luca Buvoli - A Guide to Flying, a 15-minute, color, color, 16mm animated film about one of man's most ancient dreams, the dream of flying. In this step-by-step lesson, an unidentified professor instructs his audience to a series of movements of the body which when correctly performed allow one to lift him/herself from the ground and fly without the help of any mechanical device.

MARTI LUFKIN, St. Paul, MN, $3,500. Lufkin received support for An Asian Dance in Minnesota, a five to seven-minute 16mm film on Gamelan dance, a form of traditional dance which is characterized by moving the body, slowly and precisely, with strong emphasis on head and wrist movements. Small gestures take on monumental meaning in Gamelan dance. For example, the movement of one finger can have great cultural significance. Ms. Lufkin will explore the mysteries and beauty of this artistic form of physical expression.

ZEITGEIST, a contemporary music ensemble based in St. Paul, Minnesota, acted as fiscal agent for artist RUTH MACKENZIE, who sought funding to revise and mount a second production run of Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden. Jerome Foundation seeded the first production of this work in 1997. It cast MacKenzie in the new role of creator of a multidisciplinary performance piece, based on vocal sounds and oral poetry from Scandinavian and Finno-Ugrian traditions of ancient women's songs. The MacKenzie performance work told the story of a young woman who eluded the advances of a 900 year old tradition by transforming herself into a salmon (known as the fish of truth) in search of her own truth. The response to the first production was greater than anyone anticipated. MacKenzie will now make a CD recording of the piece and will mount it in a slightly revised form for a longer production run in 1998. The Jerome Foundation made a commitment of $14,000 toward this development and advancement of her work.

BENI MATIAS, Minneapolis, MN, $10,000. Matias received support for Leaving el Barrio, a one-hour video and Super-8 personal documentary about her 72-year-old mother and her brother's move from New York to a more peaceful setting in suburban Florida. This work will explore themes such as family, culture, class mobility, racism, feminist ideology and the American dream.

SHAWN MCCONNELOUG AND HER ORCHESTRA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a terminal two-year grant of $24,000 in support of the companys 1998 and 1999 seasons. This marks the culmination of a seven-year period of support the Foundation has authorized for the development of new work by choreographer Shawn McConneloug. The Orchestra was formed as a means to create work that stimulates audiences through the arts of dance, theater and film/video, manifested through performance, touring and teaching residencies. The Orchestras combination of movement, words, music, film and video in its work, and its poignant use of irony and humor to approach subjects, have met with increasing success and recognition. Funds will support the development of two new pieces, Women, Death and OperaWhats Wrong to Wanting to Die in Your Arms? and the Orpheum Project.

A grant was made to EVE-LAURE MOROS and ELIZABETH EMERY in support of Made in Thailand, a 30-minute video documentary about women factory workers in Thailand and their struggle to organize unions in their newly industrialized country.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for performance artist, dancer, choreographer and video maker DEAN MOSS, received a grant of $8,000 to develop a new work titled Spooky action at a distance. It will premiere in the spring of 1999. This will be a multimedia dance work that focuses on the individual as well as shared sensations and perceptions that layer meaning onto experiencein the life of the choreographer as well as the viewer. Moss describes the piece as a meditation on the sensation of togetherness, expressed through a performative deconstruction of the Bojangles dance sequence in the Astaire/Rogers film Swing Time, and in reference to Einsteins sarcastic description of Quantum Theorys tenet of non-locality

A grant of $12,000 was approved for THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for MOVIN SPIRITS DANCE THEATER, founded in 1989 by choreographer Marlies Yearby. Yearby uses movement memories, everyday gestures and dream fragments to explore the human experience. The grant will help to subsidize the development of three projects in the 1998-99 season: Feathers at the Flame, Alaskan Heat and America the Beautiful. Yearby will use workshops, residencies and showcase opportunities to work on these pieces. In the first, Yearby is collaborating with writer and performer Laurie Carlos. In Alaskan Heat, co-artistic director Laurie Carlos will be working with playwright/director Daniel Jones, in a work described as an exploration of intimacy and memory. Finally, America the Beautiful/A Quest for Light is a multidisciplinary project combining the talents of Yearby with performance poet Carl Hancock Rux and composer Vernon Reid. They will explore the dynamics of media and society, and the impact that media images have on shaping and influencing culture. Inherent in this exploration is an indictment of stereotypes and bigotry.