Past
Grantees

KELLA PRILL, Minneapolis, MN, $12,618. Support was awarded to Prill to produce Freight, a short narrative film about three homeless men who are trying to escape their troubles by hopping a freight train out of town. These three people only want their right to self-determination but instead are shipped around like human freight: out of sight and out of mind.

JEFFREY NOYES SCHER was awarded support for Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, a film about the darker parts of a particularly dark period of the filmmaker's life, cross-cut with the elements of an imagined sort of apocalyptic collective consciousness. It will be filmed as an animation using a variety of techniques including roto-scoping, painting on glass, clay and wire animation, as well as stop motion with objects. The painting will be aggressive in style; and the film personally cathartic and visually arresting.

A grant of $10,000 was authorized for THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal agent for LYNN SHAPIRO DANCE, in support of the dance companys 1997-98 season. Shapiro works from an improvisational base, looking for singular movements that spring from the subconscious, attempting to push them as far as possible in search of multiplicity of meaning. Shapiro plans to develop two new pieces, the first inspired by species of exotic and beautiful fish living at extreme depths. The second piece will be fueled by the excitement derived from expressing forbidden thoughts.

HIGHER GROUND PROJECTS, New York City, received a two-year grant of $24,000 for the development, rehearsal and production of a new work by Sarah Skaggs Dance. Skaggs is interested in bringing seemingly different vocabularies and voices together, and in creating dance events that stretch the boundaries of popular, concert, traditional and modern dance. She uses popular formats to frame challenging movement work. Her aim is to integrate modern dance into the culture at large. Skaggs is currently working on a large-scale dance event titled Paradise.

A grant of $12,000 was authorized for DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP, New York City, toward the development and presentation of new work in the 1997-98season of WIL SWANSON AND DANCERS. Raised in Minnesota, Swanson for several years danced with noted American choreographer Trisha Brown. Returning to choreography, he sought support for the assembly of new, recent and older work in a program scheduled to be presented at Dance Theater Workshop in November of 1997, and subsequently in Minnesota and at Swarthmore College. A large portion of the subsidy is dedicated to the creation of a new half-evening length work using two groups of dancers. The Jerome Foundation had previously underwritten Swansons choreographic work in 1986, and was pleased to return with a second grant.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for choreographer MORGAN THORSON, received a grant of $7,000 in support of the development of three choreographic works. She begins with a period of individual research to develop ideas, then moves to rehearsals to make choreography from a group process and solo rehearsals to work on movement development. Bottom Heavy, commissioned by the Walker Art Center, will be presented in mid-1997. A duet titled Counter Hold, based on wrestling techniques and contact improvisation, will be featured in an upcoming New York concert of works by choreographer Sarah Johnson. The third dance, Operation Wet, is a site-specific movement/swimming piece in which Thorson explores movement in water as a metaphor for transformation.

ERIC TRETBAR, Minneapolis, MN, $15,000. Tretbar will produce Snow, a feature film about a failed guitarist who spends a romantic 24 hours with an ex-punk rock girl around wintry Minneapolis. They briefly relive their carefree earlier days but the journey only reminds them of the present, forcing the guitarist to confront his failure as a musician.

RAFAEL VIERA, Minnetonka, MN, $15,000. Viera will produce a 30-minute drama titled Leaving With Love. This film is the story of a father telling his wife he has AIDS, their initial despair and then re-commitment to their marriage and family. The story ends at Christmas, as the father makes his farewell and his spirit begins to vanish.

A grant of $7,500 was made to the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for choreographer CATHY YOUNG to support the creation and presentation of new work in 1997. The proposed concert, One-on-One, is an exploration of the dynamics existing within relationships. The choreography will make physical an emotional landscape. Most of the works will be duets, newly created.

Shelli Ainsworth, Minneapolis, MN, $8,000. For the production of "Stay Then Go", a one-hour experimental documentary about her autistic son and her own experience as his mother. The piece will juxtapose "home videos" with short dramatic scenes which describe the experiences of fictional characters in similar predicaments.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer MATHEW JANCZEWSKI, received $6,000 to support the creation of a new work titled Twitch to be performed in the spring of 1997. This 20-minute piece uses eight dancers to investigate the individuals struggle to remain unique and yet maintain connections to a group. Emerging choreographer Janczewski has danced with several professional companies in the Twin Cities. He presented his first choreographic piece in 1993. His proposed 1997 concert is designed to showcase his creative work.

TERRY BERKOWITZ was awarded support for an installation dealing with the appropriation of property and belongings from those who have been displaced for political reasons. This is meant to be an evocative work, although it will utilize some documentation and interviews with people who have suffered this experience. It will focus on displacement as a mirror of the 20th Century. The installation will be placed in a gallery as though it were someone's living room, with a soundtrack blending comments culled from interviews with displaced people and information taken from newspapers about current situations around the world, especially examples of mass displacement and appropriation. On two of the chairs, videotapes will be projected. Partially covered photographs will be on the walls, images of occupiers of the house exposed to the viewer.

GREG BORDOWITZ was awarded support for The Suicide, a feature-length film adaptation of Nikolai Erdman's play, which was banned by Stalin in 1932. Bordowitz's film will self-consciously employ the conventions developed for theatrical productions of American television, as well as strategies employed by early television situation comedies. The play was intended to be a critique of the political conditions of Erdman's society in his day; Bordowitz's film brings the themes of The Suicide into a contemporary environment. The themes are exhaustion and despair, the sense of loss accompanied by disillusionment with one's ideals. The scope of the philosophical and political questions proposed in The Suicide range from the responsibilities of the individual to the manner in which state repression compromises the behavior of individuals.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal agent for composer and performer SUSAN BOTTI and SUBO MUSIC received $5,000 to produce Telaio: Desdemona in a fully staged concert presentation in May of 1997. The work is written for soprano, harp, piano, percussion and string quartet; and is an operatic soliloquy exploring the character of Desdemona from Shakespeares Othello. The libretto uses text from the play along poems by Gaspara Stampa to create a collage portrait.

Pamela Colby, Minneapolis, MN, $5,000. For the production of "The Trials of Margaret Randall", a video documentary about activist/photographer/writer Margaret Randall, which will use the voices of the INS judges in Randall's landmark trial to restore her US citizenship, as a narrative frame for a portrait of her life.

A grant of $8,000 was awarded to the Southern Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for Concrete Farm, in support of the commissioning and production of new works by the members of the collective. The largest component of Concrete Farms work in the coming year will be the Flatbed project, in which Concrete Farm will embark on a two-week statewide tour performing on a flatbed truck. Flatbed is an opportunity to develop a public dance work for a variety of peoples and locations. The choreography will focus on what can be performed on a flatbed surface, with the addition of wildcard dances which will take advantage of different surroundings on the tour.

The SOUTHERN THEATER FOUNDATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $18,000 in support of the upcoming seasons of CORNING DANCES & COMPANY, which was established in the Twin Cities in 1993. Cornings goal is to have a company functioning as a full-time modern ensemble with a small, but efficient staff, drawing upon and collaborating with local artists and arts organization. Corning will continue work on The Human Trilogy, a set of three evening-length works which have exploded from her, surprising her with some of the most exciting and inspirational work of her life. Part III, tentatively titled Echoes in the Ghetto, should premiere in 1997.

PUBLIC ART ST. PAUL, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $15,000 to support the Living Water Garden project in Chengdu, China, conceived by artist BETSY DAMON. Damons conceptual work on the Fu Nan River in Chengdu will be a large (5.9 acre) park designed specifically to address water quality issues. The Living Water Garden will clean 400 cubic meters of river a day by diverting a portion of the river water and treating it through natural processes that run the length of the park. The design will contain an environmental education center, a public greenhouse and an amphitheater. Damon is also developing two companion parks, located south of the main Water Garden, which will feature sculptures by Chinese artists. As Artistic Director of the Design Team, Damons project exemplifies the synchronicity of environmental concern and aesthetic purpose.

SANDI DUBOWSKI received subsidy to produce Trembling Before G-d, an hour-long experimental documentary about Hasidim and Orthodox Jews who come out as gays and lesbians and must abandon their intertwined worlds of family and faith. This is also a story about those who choose to remain Orthodox and how they must constantly negotiate their sexuality and identity in religious communities. The work is structured as a series of journeys depicting the moving and humorous relationships that develop between DuBowski and a Diaspora of exiles. DuBowski returns with each subject to places in their Orthodox past which evoke loss, joy, nostalgia and the turbulence of emotions which derive from being cut off from one's community.

Matt Ehling, Minneapolis, MN, $6,500. To produce "Prairie Downs", an experimental video documentary about the evolution of the suburb, which will juxtapose a documentary about a "gated community" - Bearpath in Eden Prairie - with a narrative taking place in the more "old fashioned" suburb of Brooklyn Center.