Past
Grantees

RED EYE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for HIJACK, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $10,780 to support the creation of new works. HIJACK is the choreographic collaboration of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder. Grant support will subsidize the creation of four new dances, two duets for Van Loon and Wilder, a trio set on the performance collaborative Mad King Thomas and a second trio with Van Loon, Wilder and Scott Heron. HIJACK represents the confluence and clash of two independent compositional/kinesthetic impulses. It chooses specific inspirations and then investigates those sources, drawing compositional tactics from other genres and grappling with aesthetic, social and political issues.

INTAR THEATRE, New York City, received $19,600 to support developmental activities engaging emerging playwrights. INTAR's mission is to nurture the professional development of Latino theater artists; produce bold, innovative, artistically significant plays that reflect diverse perspectives; and make accessible the diversity inherent in America's cultural heritage. Jerome funding will support readings in the NewWorks Laboratory and the Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Laboratory. During the 2008-09 season, INTAR plans to produce 12 fully staged readings of works by emerging writers. The Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence program is a new play development activity that includes weekly sessions of writing exercises, readings and criticism, culminating in public readings of new plays.

The Directors authorized a grant of $12,000 to ILAND, New York City, in support of the iLAB Artist-in-Residence Program. Founded in 2004 by choreographer Jennifer Monson, iLAND investigates the power of dance to illuminate a kinetic understanding of the world. It is a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, and cultivates cross-disciplinary research. iLAB supports the creative collaborative process between movement-based artists and scientists, environmentalists, landscape architects and others. The goals of the residency program are to encourage emerging/innovative artists, to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and urban environment through kinetic experience; to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art and the ecology of physical interrelationships; and to support the development of process over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $86,240 in support of three literary programs and Naked Stages. This multidisciplinary organization aims to be a catalyst that builds understanding among people through art. In the literary component of Intermedia's program, Jerome Foundation is providing support for Writer-to-Writer Mentorships, the SASE/Jerome Awards for Writers and the VERVE Awards. The SASE/Jerome Awards for Writers are given annually to five to seven artists to enhance their literary careers and to advance their work. Each applicant asks for a specific amount and describes how she or he will use those dollars. The Writer-to-Writer Mentorships are designed for emerging Minnesota writers who seek to develop in skill and confidence, establish connections within Minnesota's thriving literary community and navigate the complex path between emerging and established writer. Emerging writers receive highly individualized attention and learning as they work in small groups with established writer/mentors in an intimate, nurturing and collaborative environment. Three Mentorships are offered twice a year. The VERVE Awards are given to emerging spoken word artists for individually designed projects. The Naked Stages program fosters artistic development among emerging performance artists. Four artists or groups of artists are selected each year through an open call and independent panel review. They meet over the course of nine months in creative work sessions and production meetings. The program concludes with a showing of works in progress. This is a comprehensive, developmental experience encompassing opportunities in performance, production and critical response.

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP THROUGH THE PERFORMING ARTS, Burnsville, Minnesota, received $9,000 to support the commissioning of three new music compositions by composer Gao Hong. The mission of the organization is to help bridge the gaps between the many diverse cultures found in the United States by promoting intercultural fellowship, interaction and understanding through activities in the performing arts. It presents, books and commissions performers of indigenous instruments from a variety of cultures. Gao Hong will be commissioned to create three new works. The first will be written for pipa with taiko, sitar, cello, percussion and tabla. The second will be written for the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. The third piece will be a work for Hong's newly formed new music ensemble Intersection.

MAI ISKANDER was awarded a grant for Garbage Dreams, a 75-minute documentary that celebrates the richness, strength and vitality of Egypt's community of indigenous garbage collectors, known as the Zaballeen or garbage people. Recycling 90% of the waste they collect, a rate unheard of in the rest of the world, 60,000 Zaballeen earn the bulk of their living from the sale of recycled material that they have gathered and processed from Cairo's streets. But what will happen to their livelihood and community now that the Egyptian government has hired multinational corporations to collect Cairo's garbage? Focusing on the lives of one teacher and two students at The Plastic Recycling School in Mokattam, Cairo's largest garbage village, this film follows the critical next chapter in the lives of the Zaballeen as they fight to find their place in this new global economy.

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, New York City, received $12,000 in support of its artist in residence program for emerging composers based in New York City and/or Minnesota. ISSUE Project Room is a multidisciplinary art space where artists conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work. The organization fosters a wide range of artistic projects that challenge and expand conventional practices in art. Funding will support three emerging composers or composer-led ensembles for four-month residencies. Each will participate in an individually-designed experimental laboratory opportunity to test new compositional ideas and have the option of presenting the work throughout the residency at ISSUE Project Room. Artists have full access to the well-equipped space. The goals of the program are to support the creative work of emerging composers, introduce them to the New York City community, foster new collaborations, garner media exposure and work on building audiences for experimental work.

THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, received $25,000 to support four commissions for emerging composers working with large ensembles and the performance of their new works. The Jazz Gallery is a cultural center that provides an international venue where a new generation of professional jazz musicians can be nurtured, giving them a performance venue with attentive audiences. The Gallery identified emerging composers who are on the verge of major recognition for their contribution to large ensemble composition. Jerome grant dollars will support commissions and performances in the form of two-night engagements.

JOE E. JEFFREYS, New York City, will travel to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin to study, explore and catalog 16mm film outtakes from the landmark pre-Stonewall drag documentary Queen (1968) for possible use in future drag documentary projects. The Queen outtakes are available only at the Center. The filmmaker's work focuses on the auditory and visual record of male and female impersonation in New York City.

A grant was awarded to ANA JOANES for Really Delicious, a documentary that looks at the alternative food movement in the United States. By focusing on solutions to the problems created by the industrial food system, this film will illustrate the far-reaching transformative potential of daily food choices. Really Delicious will follow the personal journey of the filmmaker through the heartland of America in her quest to feel connected to the food she consumes. As she travels, she meets a diverse group of people who educate and inspire her regarding the foods we eat and their impact on our lives.

OLIVER JOLLIFFE, New York City, will travel to Utah, New Mexico and Colorado to do research on the feasibility of shooting a video project using a thermal imaging cameras. The grant will allow him to visit three desired locations for a future shoot: White Sands in New Mexico, the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado. In 2005, Jolliffe directed a video art series that used thermal imaging cameras to highlight the thermal signatures of clothed/nude subjects in various landscapes. He now wants to take the technology a step further, scout locations and develop a coherent proposal for a film.

MIRIAM KARMEL, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to the American Jewish Historical Society, New York City, to conduct research on the Jewish Agricultural and Aid Society and its support for Jewish farm families settling in Minnesota in the early 1900s. Karmel hopes to discover material for a novel that she is planning to write about one of those farm families.

Jerome Directors authorized a grant of $15,000 to THE KITCHEN, New York City, in support of commissions for emerging creative artists. Founded in 1971, The Kitchen is a performance and exhibition space dedicated to supporting new work by innovative artists working within and across the fields of music, dance, theater, video and film, digital art and literature. It is known for its commitment to experimental new work and for providing instrumental support during the early years of artists' careers. The Kitchen will offer commissions to several emerging artists engaged in challenging, experimental practices and working in a broad spectrum of disciplines and media. These artists' works are then produced by The Kitchen.

TOU SAIKO LEE, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel with his grandmother to Thailand to capture the essence of the traditional art form of Kwv Txiaj, improvised or memorized chanted poetry. This will inform his spoken word practice. He seeks to work with his grandmother to understand the cultural roots of his Hmong identity so that they can continue to perform together and improve their collaborative work. They will work with a recognized practitioner of the art form, Joua Lee.

THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal sponsor for YOUNG JEAN LEE'S THEATER COMPANY, received $12,000 in support of the creation and production of a new work, The Shipment, which is designed to be a hip-hop African-American identity-politics show written and directed by a Korean-American, Young Jean Lee. The work is an uneasy exploration of ethnic appropriation that juxtaposes the spectacle of hip-hop virtuosity framed by genuine cultural cluelessness. It will have the feel of a show trying to destroy itself from within, offering up aesthetic maneuvers and narrative turns and ideas that are called into question and disrupted the moment everyone starts feeling sure of themselves. Her intent is to take apart the issues of appropriation and the realities and myths of representations of race.

Support was awarded to ERIK LEVINE for Cocker, an experimental film about the perception and meaning of cultural masculinity and values as seen through the ritual and history of cockfighting. Shot primarily in Puerto Rico, Cocker will focus on the atmosphere and attitudes of the participants engaged in a controversial competition with deep cultural roots. According to Levine, cockfighting has by some accounts the largest global viewing audience in the world, second only to soccer. It illustrates the collective dualities and ambiguities deeply held within us. It is outlawed in some countries, and celebrated in others. In a complex world wherein opposing viewpoints and beliefs are held as the basis for certain moral and ethical convictions, this piece will abstract and magnify our societal fascination with combat and death in visually rich images that evoke the complexities and deeply held masculine traits of demarcation, competition, power, custom and culture. Cocker will be harsher than Levine's earlier films, as it observes how men seek self-esteem and pride through a sport whose days may well be numbered in a world increasingly sensitive to animal rights.

KALUP LINZY received funding for an experimental narrative short called Notes From a Limerent. Wikipedia defines Limerent as an involuntary cognitive and emotional state in which a person feels an intense romantic desire for another person (the limerent object). This somewhat offbeat film is inspired by the 2006 Hollywood feature Notes on a Scandal in which Barbara Covett (Judy Dench) teaches history at a comprehensive school in London, England. A lonely old spinster, Barbara's primary relationship is with herself by means of a diary that she compulsively keeps-the only intimate relationship in her life. Limerent will tell the story of a novelist who is in love with his best friend, a drifter, who is dating a photographer. The novelist, who is the film's narrator, and is referred to as Man 3, documents his feelings in a journal, which are also notes for his next novel. In desperation, he resorts to the practice of black magic to gain the romantic love of the drifter. This unorthodox new work was largely motivated by what Kalup Linzy views as a lack of appreciation of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender R&B and Hip-Hop artists in American culture.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $49,000 in support of the Mentor Series. Founded in 1974, The Loft Literary Center fosters a writing community, supports the artistic development of writers and builds an audience for literature. Since 1979, the Jerome Foundation has supported the Mentor Series, a vehicle for emerging Minnesota writers to work in a small group setting with nationally recognized writers, and to be mentored by those writers in ways ranging from review of their work to providing inspiration and examples for the writing life. Twelve emerging Minnesota-based writers (four in poetry, four in fiction and four in creative nonfiction) are selected to work intensively with six nationally acclaimed writers (two in each genre). The Series encompasses small groups and individual sessions, public readings, master classes and workshops.

XENG LOR, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, will study the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Hmong villages and cities in Laos and Thailand. Lor has videotaped interviews with Hmong gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the Upper Midwest and California. He now wishes to expand that investigation to understand what happened to GLBT Hmong in Laos and Thailand 30 to 60 years ago and what happens to them now. Did they ever marry? How did they live their lives in Laos and Thailand? He hopes to gather enough information through field research and taped conversations to move forward on his concept for a documentary film.

MARY LOSURE, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel to France to inform her writing of a book of creative nonfiction for young adults, A Life So Strange, The Story of a Wild Boy. Her research will focus on Victor of Aveyron, a wild boy discovered in the forests of southern France in 1797. He survived in the woods, alone and naked, for most of his childhood. She will retrace the path of the wild boy's wanderings and photograph sites.