Past
Grantees

THE CHILDRENS THEATRE COMPANY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $30,000 in support of Playground, a new-play development program for emerging playwrights. As one of the largest professional theater companies for young people, The Childrens Theatre sets a standard for excellence. It collaborates with New Dramatists, New York City, a national playwrights membership and service organization, on Playground, which introduces playwrights to the challenging world of theater for young people by creating process oriented frameworks for venturing into new territory. Three emerging playwrights will be selected to work with a collaborative partner of their choice to develop new plays. There will be a ten-day Lab at the Childrens Theatre where the playwrights will have access to a full range of developmental resources. The plays will then be presented in staged readings in Minneapolis and New York City.

CREATE!, Brooklyn, New York, serving as fiscal agent for DANZAISA, received a grant of $10,000 in support of new work by choreographer Gabri Christa. Funding will support Dominata, the second installment of the Winti Project, which explores Christas Dutch Caribbean roots. In Dominata, Caribbean domino players come together after a devastating incident to play dominoes and search for community, distraction, and reflection. Christa is collaborating with composer/musician Greg Tate and his Burnt Sugar Arkestra.

Editor and poet CANDYCE CLAYTON will travel to London, England, and Cardiff, Wales, for three weeks to complete work on her second book of poetry, which focuses on the historical, social, mystical, and artistic. She will also complete the draft of an anthology of Welsh women poets, which she is co-editing with Welsh poet Gillian Clarke. Clayton will meet with Clarke in Wales to finalize project details. She will also meet with poets to review the Welsh poetry manuscript, and will meet with an editor at a Welsh press interested in the project.

A grant of $27,000 was awarded to COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the publication of three books by emerging literary artists, two of whom are residents of Minnesota and New York City. Coffee House Press publishes award-winning writers in beautifully designed books. The Press fulfills its mission by publishing books that advance the craft of writing, books that present the dreams and ambitions of peoples who have been underrepresented in published literature, and books that establish a common ground for all Americans. Funding will be used to publish Memory Jar, New York poet Brenda Coultass first full-length collection of poems, which is scheduled for a spring 2003 release. Funds will also support Foreign Wife Elegy, Minnesota writer Yuko Taniguchis first book, which focuses on the many roles she plays in life as foreigner, woman, wife, daughter, teacher and student.

A grant of $8,000 was awarded to the NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for artist GRISHA COLEMAN, in support of the development of a new piece through a creative co-production at the Banff New Media Institute. Coleman will bring together a group of collaborators of different disciplines to work on Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, a site-specific, time-based work that investigates the effects of technology on an increasingly fast-paced world. Coleman works as a composer, choreographer and performer.

A grant of $8,000 was awarded to THE COLLAPSABLE GIRAFFE, New York City, in support of the development and production of two new works in the 2002-03 season. Collapsable Giraffe is an experimental theater company dedicated to integrating all forms of contemporary technology into performance work. The Giraffe creates collaboratively with certain obsessions in mind: the chaotic energy of rock/punk music; the collision, disintegration and reconstitution of texts; and the beauty of the retarded, stupid, insane, isolated and broken. The first new work, Meat is Floating By, is about the human need to sequester, to build a wall, and to look into a mirror until ones image becomes unfamiliar. The second, Letter from Earth, is a one-man show with a cast of three, created by Jim Findlay, who describes it as a large soup pot to boil his frustrations and fantasies.

Jerome Foundation Directors approved two membership and general support grants to philanthropic associations. A grant commitment of $11,436 was made to the COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Washington, D.C., a national organization that promotes and enhances responsible and effective philanthropy. A grant of $12,050 was approved for the MINNESOTA COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, an organization dedicated to strengthening and increasing the participation of Minnesota foundations in organized philanthropy.

CREATIVE TIME, New York City, received $10,000 in support of its work with emerging creative artists. Creative Time presents large and small-scale multidisciplinary artists projects throughout New York City, ranging from highly visible installations to small individual projects. Its programs invigorate urban spaces, celebrate public life and engage New York Citys diverse public. Jerome support will be directed to the Holiday Light Show in Grand Central Terminal, the New York Project curated by Danny Kapilian and the Airtime Initiative.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for playwright LISA DAMOUR, received $8,000 in the support of the development and production of RIPTIDE, the final piece in DAmours Always/Never Her trilogy, that explores issues of womens agency, voice, self-censorship, and self-esteem. While the first two parts of the trilogy presented characters who failed to escape a cyclical crisis of identity/voice/power, DAmour will use the reclaimed sites that are the location for the third to enact a characters personal transformation. What does it mean to let go of previous history and move into the future with a newly discovered voice?

Photographer GINA DABROWSKI will spend three weeks in Beijing, China, exploring the cultural differences between China and the United States as they pertain to social space, specifically the design and architecture of bars and clubs. The paramount concern in this body of work is an exploration of class and community. Dabrowskis photographs expose sociocultural issues within the context of local gathering centers. She is currently making large color photographs that show interiors of clubs and bars in cosmopolitan sites.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to DANSOLOGY, a.k.a. DANCE KUMIKOKIMOTO, New York City, in support of the production of new work by choreographer Koosil-ja Hwang. Hwangs choreography combines elements of live music, song, film, video, and dance to create social sculptures. Funding will be directed toward the new work Mech(a), a nontraditional dance that negotiates with art and philosophy. The piece will feature a large pendulum built to swing in a figure eight motion and fitted with a video monitor to provide the audience with a 360-degree view of the action. The video images will inspire harmony, contradictions, and transparency.

DANSPACE PROJECT, New York City, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of emerging choreographers commissions. Since 1996, Jerome Foundation has contributed to a pool of funds used to commission new works by choreographers. In fiscal 2002, Jerome funds subsidized 15 new works by a variety of emerging makers for both split and full evening concerts. Selections are made by Danspace Executive Director Laurie Uprichard in consultation with an advisory council of choreographers. The Danspace Project performance series takes place at St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery. More than 25 weeks of contemporary dance are produced each season.

Directors authorized a two-year grant of $50,000 to DIXON PLACE, New York City, in support of artists' fees for the creation and development of new work in the Mondo Cane! commissioning series and ongoing works-in-progress programs. Dixon Place is dedicated to supporting the creative process for artists working in theater, performance art, dance, and literature, and offers a developmental laboratory, rehearsal space, performing arena with supportive audiences, and affordable, subsidized tickets. With Mondo Cane!, Dixon Place commissions new works from theater, performance, and dance artists, providing them with a one-to-three month workshop period, followed by a one-month performance run, from which they receive audience feedback crucial to the artists' development.

JOHN DONAHUE, storyteller, Duluth, Minnesota, will spend 15 days at the National Storytelling Conference in Denver, Colorado. Donahue will attend workshops to improve his presentation skills and meet with experienced storytellers. He has a deep attachment to the Native American storytelling tradition and uses many of the traditional stories in his naturalist presentations. Donahue is the coordinator and principal storyteller for a storytelling program offered by Men as Peacemakers, a local group committed to ending mens violence. Some of the conference workshops will improve his skills in working with teens and senior citizens.

Jerome Directors authorized a $12,000 grant to DANSPACE PROJECT, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for dance and performance artist DD DORVILLIER, in support of the creation of Big Snake, Small Ladder. Dorvilliers work is an eclectic mix of set and improvised dance states, using music, strange and absurd characters, mysterious and cartoon-like scenography with an affinity for the extreme and bizarre. Big Snake refers to the biggest obstacles, the things one fears the most, and Small Ladder is the subtle shift in thinking necessary to reckon with them. Big Snake, Small Ladder will explore objectification, scrutiny, and the limited and limitless nature of a dancer's silence. At the root of this work is an examination of the effects of sexual abuse and objectification occurring in the world at large and how these effects are reflected in art and dance circles in the guise of aesthetics and physical presence.

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE, New York City, received $15,000 toward the development and production of new work in the 2002-03 season. The ERS style is distinguished by elements of slapstick comedy, high-tech audio, low-tech set design, obscure historical events, literary and found texts, found objects and the groups own style of choreography. In full production this fall at P.S. 122 will be Room Tone, for which the primary inspiration is a William James work in which he analyzed dozens of first-person accounts of direct encounters with the divine. ERS is interested in his conclusion that the subjects revelatory experiences were the truest moments in their lives, even if those experiences could not be empirically measured or concretely documented. In the second half of the season, ERS will work on a series of short pieces, which increases the number of company members able to experiment with new ideas and generates the seeds for larger works.

NICOLE ERICKSON, gamelan musician and composer, will travel to Java and Bali, Indonesia, for twelve months to study traditional and new music repertoire for the gamelan. Erickson will focus her studies on the gender barung, an instrument used in the wayang kulit (traditional Javanese shadow puppet theater). Ericksons goals are to improve her playing technique, expand her repertoire, be exposed to new musical ideas, network with gamelan composers, and study the gender barung in-depth.

EYE OF THE STORM THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $17,500 to support its work with emerging playwrights during the 2002-03 season. Founded in 1991, Eye of the Storm dedicates itself to bringing audiences the best in contemporary playwriting, produced with freshness, flair and a high caliber of acting talent. Funding from the Jerome Foundation primarily supports Seed the Storm, an innovative festival of new works, which has been a successful addition to the theaters playwright development program. Four emerging playwrights are commissioned to create seeds of new plays, which may grow into future mainstage productions.

A two-year grant of $63,000 was made to FilmNorth (formerly Independent Filmmaker Project Minnesota), Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of MNTV. MNTV, a collaboration among IFP Minneapolis, Intermedia Arts, Twin Cities Public Television, and the Walker Art Center, provides a television broadcast venue for short works by film/video artists and nurtures an audience for these works. MNTV is structured as four, hour long episodes, which highlight new works made by Minnesotans within 18 months of the open call for entries. Grant funds are used to pay license fees to Minnesota film and video artists, and to administer, air, and promote the series.

FilmNorth (formerly Independent Filmmaker Project Minnesota), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of services to film and video artists and photographers. IFP Minneapolis is the combination of Independent Feature Project/North and Media Artists Resource Center and brings together programs from both organizations. Its vision is to create a dynamic organization that promotes and supports the creation of diverse and high quality media works by independent artists. The new organization will provide comprehensive training, equipment, funding, information, consultations, and exhibition opportunities to artists.