Past
Grantees

A two-year commitment of $2,000 was made to THE FOUNDATION CENTER, New York City. The Foundation Center supports the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about philanthropy. Its information, research and educational programs promote fairness and efficiency in the philanthropic process and informed discourse about the field.

THE FOUNDRY THEATRE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $46,000 in support of commissions, developmental and production work with emerging playwrights/theater creators. Founded in 1994, the Foundry is a producing theater fed by an artist think tank. It commissions, develops, premieres and tours works of theater alongside civic dialogue events that help artists and the public understand their relationship to the world. The Foundry is proud of the fact that it is a place where an emerging creator can find support from commission to premiere and then to tour. Actively under development in 2006 are Ecstatic States, created by playwright/performer Juliana Francis, and Out of Time, created by Steve Cosson and Michael Friedman. Early in 2006, Major Bang, performed by Steve Cuiffo and Maggie Hoffman, and written by Kirk Lynn, was produced.

FRANCONIA SCULPTURE PARK, Shafer, Minnesota, received $34,000 in support of the Emerging Artist Program. The mission of the Park is to support artists and their careers, conduct educational programs, and offer residencies. Its aesthetic is broad and inclusive. It combines work, residency and exhibition space in one venue. Most pieces are built on site; and the Park's objective is to enable artists to work in synergistic combination. Artists are given physical space, technical assistance, equipment and materials. In the Emerging Artist Program, six to eight Jerome Fellowships are awarded to artists, which allows them to create new work at the Park.

FRANKLIN ART WORKS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $20,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Exhibition Program. The mission of Franklin Art Works is to present cutting edge contemporary work by artists through a mix of exhibitions, performing arts, film and arts education. It annually presents 15 one-person exhibitions in three galleries, the Main Gallery, the Project Space and the Video Gallery. Since 1999, it has presented 61 large-scale one-person exhibitions featuring works predominantly by emerging artists from New York City and Minnesota.

FRANKLIN FURNACE, Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $77,000 in support of the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art and The Future of the Present Programs. Franklin Furnace presents, preserves, interprets, proselytizes and advocates on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature or politically unpopular content. Franklin Furnace serves emerging artists and their ideas by assuming an aggressive educational stance with regard to the value of avant-garde art to contemporary cultural life. The Fund for Performance Art awards grants to emerging experimental artists in the field of performance art. The Future of the Present awards grants to artists and offers its resources to facilitate the creation of live art on the Internet and works that engage the Internet as an art medium and public venue.

WYNN FRICKE, a choreographer based in Minneapolis, will spend time in Konya, Turkey, visiting museums and mosques and attending the ritual performance of the Traditional Islamic Whirling Dance (Whirling Dervishes), which was founded by 13th century mystic Muhammad Jalaluddin Rumi. Fricke is conducting research on the poetry of Rumi for an evening-length production of contemporary dance inspired by the gestures of Arabic letters. Rumi and his followers lived in Konya, where their sacred traditions continue to this day.

Filmmaker LAURENS GRANT, New York City, will spend time in Mali, West Africa, to investigate the ancient musical instruments and traditions that African vocalist Rokia Traore uses in her music compositions. Grant intends to better understand the reasons why so many young women admire Traore as a significant voice for their generation. This research will inform her one-hour documentary film, Rokia: Voice of a New Generation.

DANSPACE PROJECT, New York City, acting as fiscal sponsor for choreographer MIGUEL GUTIERREZ, received $9,000 in support of the development and production of Hybrid, a work for seven to nine dancers, created in collaboration between Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. Hybrid looks at different manifestations of hybridity in the spaces of form, culture, the body and performance. This work will explore and create fluid pathways between a mix of performance forms and between people in the space, generating an exchange of energy and experience. Gutierrez continues his investigation of how to translate the experimental nature of performing into a sensory experience for the audience.

HARLEM STAGE, New York City, received $20,000 in support of emerging artists' commissions in the Fund for New Work. In 2005, Aaron Davis Hall celebrated its 25th anniversary as Harlem's principal center for the performing arts, responsible for the management and programming of a three-theater complex. In 2006, it renamed itself Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Inc., and finished the restoration of the historic West 135th Street Gatehouse, a 19th Century landmark that is now a 199-seat performance hall. Through the Fund for New Work, Harlem Stage provides direct support to emerging artists, including commissions, subsidized rehearsal space, and workshop presentations. Artists are given long and short-term residencies that include support services and space. Jerome support is directed to the Fund's work with emerging artists exploring new directions.

AARON DAVIS HALL, New York City, received $20,000 in support of emerging artists' commissions for the creation of new work as part of the 2006 Fund for New Work. Aaron Davis is a multidisciplinary performing arts presenter providing a variety of programs in dance, theater, music, art and film. Through the Fund for New Work, the Hall provides direct support to emerging artists. This includes commissions, subsidized rehearsal space, residencies and workshop presentations. Jerome support enables Aaron Davis to focus on emerging artists exploring new directions, providing financial support, time and space required for the development of new work. Works created through these commissions are considered for presentation in the NewFacesNewVoicesNewVision series, which includes Sunday works and the E-moves series.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $17,000 in support of a mentor program for emerging artists. This professional puppet and mask theater, founded in 1973, explores and celebrates the human experience and the wonders of the world's natural and cultural richness through performance, ceremony and teaching. It combines original designs, writing, music and movement to create puppet and mask productions, drawing from puppetry forms around the world. Three emerging artists will be selected by Artistic Director Sandy Spieler and company artists to participate in the development of the 2006 MayDay Parade and Festival. They will participate in training sessions led by Spieler, work with assigned mentors, explore their own creative ideas, work with artist and community teams, contribute design elements, lead community-building workshops and rehearse community participants.

MAERI S. HEDSTROM received a grant for a 15-minute narrative film titled Interludes, which is composed of three five-minute vignettes, thematically linked by the same actress whose appearance and character change to represent the three emotions of fear, sadness and love. The central idea of this film is to reveal how a woman's physical appearance determines the manner in which she navigates her way through the world and expresses herself to others.

The HIGHPOINT CENTER FOR PRINTMAKING, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $16,000 in support of the 2006 Emerging Printmakers' Residency Program. The Center is a professional, community-oriented nonprofit printmaking facility that offers access, education and exhibition programs. The Emerging Printmakers' Residency Program begins with an open call for applications and a competitive independent panel review. Three emerging artists receive eight months of subsidized residency time with unlimited access to facilities, equipment and materials. Artists receive the technical support of a printshop coordinator and participate in a culminating exhibition. They meet regularly as a group and receive critiques from guest artists.

Poet SEAN HILL of Bemidji, Minnesota, received funding to travel to Kenya and Tanzania to attend the Summer Literary Seminars program in Kenya and spend two additional weeks in the region. The seminar will offer him an opportunity to meet, exchange ideas with and be inspired by African writers, artists and intellectuals in Nairobi. He'll enroll in poetry workshops, attend lectures and readings, and participate in a writing retreat.

THE HMONG AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING (HAIL), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $11,000 to support literary publication, public readings and writing workshops for emerging artists working in poetry, short fiction, novel and memoir. The mission of HAIL is to promote and preserve Hmong expressive culture. Its primary activity is publishing Paj Ntaub Voice, the premier Hmong literary arts journal in the United States, whose mission is to build a vibrant body of emerging Hmong writers and visual artists, promote their work, and celebrate and affirm their artistry to the broader public. Paj Ntaub Voice has published over 200 emerging Hmong writers and artists. The first of two issues receiving Jerome support will feature writing on the theme of spirit and the second on the theme of tales.

YUNAH HONG received a grant for Anna May Wong, a feature-length documentary about Anna May Wong's (1905-1961) struggle against racism and sexism in Hollywood in her day. A premier Chinese American film star and stage actress, Wong achieved worldwide fame in the 1920's and the 1930's. Today, her life story and career-defining struggles resonate among many young women of color who face issues of race, identity and career. This documentary will elucidate how Anna May Wong's life story is an integral part of American cultural history.

SHAUN IRONS, a multidisciplinary artist, and LAUREN PETTY, a video artist, working in Brooklyn, New York, create evocative and poetic combinations of video, film and audio as multiple-channel and single-channel works. Irons and Petty received funding to travel to Kyoto, Japan, to immerse themselves in the culture, expanding on their aesthetic range by gaining an in-depth appreciation of the intersections among ritual, ceremony, performance, meditation, nature and artistic practice.

The JAMAICA CENTER FOR ARTS & LEARNING, Jamaica, New York, received a two-year grant of $30,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Visual Arts Program. The Jamaica Center is dedicated to supporting the creation of work by emerging and established artists, especially those who are working from cultural traditions and artistic disciplines under-represented in the larger artistic community. The Center presents four major gallery exhibitions each year, a year-long Workspace artist-in-residence program, lectures, panel discussions, career development workshops, and large-scale special exhibitions.

DIMITRI KAASAN, a writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was awarded funding to travel to Italy to research an autobiographical novel and short stories about the Etruscans. His novel Etruscans is based, in part, on his early life in Italy where he and his parents lived as expatriates in the 1970s. Kaasan will spend time in Impruneta, Tavarnuzze, Galuzzo, Florence, Bologna, Rome and Fiesole.

Novelist ELAINE KIM, New York City, will spend ten weeks in Kwangju, South Korea, to interview survivors and their family members about the impact of the 1980 Kwangju uprisings on their lives. Kim will absorb the sites and sounds of the birthplace of the majority of the characters in her novel Kwangju. Kim also plans to interview those who were part of the organized movement-student leaders, members of the famous taxi brigade, and some of the hundreds of ordinary people who joined in protest against the siege of a military dictator, Chun Doo Hwan. It is widely acknowledged that the movement strengthened opposition to the repressive regime in Korea and ushered in a new era of democracy.