Past
Grantees

JESSICA SOWLS, photographer and new media artist, will spend two weeks in New Mexico at The Lightning Field and White Sands National Monument. She intends to investigate these remarkable sites in the desert landscape, which will supplement a project she is working on during a residency at The Center for Land Use Interpretation in the Great Salt Desert of Utah. Sowls has a particular interest in ominous and secretive places.

Eye of the Storm Theatre Artistic Director CASEY STANGL and Managing Director MICHELLE PETT, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received funding to learn from a consultant/coach how to build a stronger board and transition from a founder-driven organization to shared board governance, with the managing director assuming more board contact responsibilities. This new structure will allow the artistic director more time to focus on fulfilling the organizations mission and help it achieve its goals of growth, visibility, and the establishment of a permanent home. The coaching will cover board governance practices, defining board roles and responsibilities, and effective board functioning.

Eye of the Storm Theatre Artistic Director Casey Stangl and Managing Director Michelle Pett, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received funding to learn from a consultant/coach how to build a stronger board and transition from a founder-driven organization to shared board governance, with the managing director assuming more board contact responsibilities. This new structure will allow the artistic director more time to focus on fulfilling the organization's mission and help it achieve its goals of growth, visibility, and the establishment of a permanent home. The coaching will cover board governance practices, defining board roles and responsibilities, and effective board functioning.

MATTHEW STENERSON, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant to support How to Read a Letter at the End of a Movie, a film that presents ten movie endings in a series to examine how movie endings have lives of their own.

STEPPINGSTONE THEATRE, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $8,000 to commission new works by four emerging playwrights. The SteppingStone Theatre For Youth Development fulfills its mission of developing the whole child by offering educational theater programs and fully staged productions. It commissions plays with age appropriate roles for young people, which are relevant to youth of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Jerome support will also be used to expand the workshop and planning components of the play development process.

STEPPINGSTONE THEATRE, Saint Paul, Minnesota, received an $8,000 grant in support of the creation of new work for youth and general audiences by emerging Minnesota-based playwrights and composers. SteppingStones programs give young actors opportunities to work in age-appropriate roles with professional theater artists. Jerome funding supports commissions to emerging, professional playwrights and composers and the workshop development of new pieces.

Choreographer ROBIN STIEHM, using the SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent, received a $12,000 grant in support of the creation of new work in 2002. Dances for an April 2002 performance will include the womens quartet Speak Slow, Abandon Caution; In the In Crowd; the local premiere of a 2001 piece recently presented in Belarus; the premiere of a duet for Stiehm and Toni Pierce; and a new quartet. The focus of the show in April will be the new quartet, an exploration into ritual and its meaning for the participants in it.

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM, New York City, received a two-year grant of $22,000 in support of the Artists-in-Residence Program. The mission of The Studio Museum in Harlem is to exhibit, collect, research, and interpret the work of African American artists and artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally. The Studio Museum in Harlem's signature Artists-in-Residence Program supports three emerging artists of African descent for one year. The program offers 24-hour studio access, stipends, critical reviews, and a culminating exhibition.

Poet JOYCE SUTPHEN will travel to London for one month to revisit locations that generated much of her early work in order to create a new series of London poems. She will read her work at a number of venues and connect with poets, professors, and critics in order to enhance and strengthen exchanges between poets on both sides of the Atlantic. Sutphen will also visit the Poetry Library on the South Bank to listen to and watch recordings of poets reading and discussing their work.

AMANDA TAYLOR, St. Paul, MN, was awarded a grant for Freak of Nature, a documentary combining gender theory, case studies, scientific explanations, humorous anecdotes and musical interludes about the existence of gay animals.

The TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of exhibitions, workshops and master classes for emerging professional artists. The Centers mission is to promote excellence in fiber arts and preserve textile traditions. It supports fiber artists working in all forms including weaving, quilting, knitting, needlework, lace making, basketry, beading and sewing. The Textile Centers programs and activities are divided into three major areas: exhibitions, education and textile arts resources. The Center will mount eight exhibitions per year with the aims of presenting a wide array of fiber art forms and the work of a significant number of emerging artists. It will also offer classes and workshops designed to advance professional skills and careers.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY, New York City, received a grant of $14,000 in support of its Emerging Playwrights Program. Now in its 30th year, Theater for the New City is a cultural institution dedicated to nurturing established and emerging playwrights who experiment with new forms and to presenting theater ensembles through festivals and rentals. The Emerging Playwrights Program awards $1,000 commissions to playwrights and matching subsidies toward the production of their plays. The purpose of the program is to nurture and realize the playwrights vision through the actual testing ground of production, and to establish a relationship that invites the playwrights to create new works in subsequent seasons.

Filmmaker Marie-Françoise Theodore, Saint Paul, Minnesota, received funding to attend educational seminars in editing and screenwriting at the African American Women in Cinema annual Film Festival in New York City. Theodore will meet with television and film executives who have a special interest in promoting the work of emerging women of color filmmakers. She intends to gain an overview of the film business and learn the best ways to publicize, market, and distribute her work, especially her most recent film rebel in the soul. She also intends to develop connections with other women of color filmmakers at the festival.

Directors authorized funding for filmmaker MARIE-FRANOISE THEODORE, Saint Paul, Minnesota, to attend educational seminars in editing and screenwriting at the African American Women in Cinema annual Film Festival in New York City. Theodore will meet with television and film executives who have a special interest in promoting the work of emerging women of color filmmakers. She intends to gain an overview of the film business and learn the best ways to publicize, market, and distribute her work, especially her most recent film rebel in the soul. She also intends to develop connections with other women of color filmmakers at the festival.

Filmmaker VA-MEGN THOJ will spend one month in Thailand conducting research on Hmong refugees at the Tham Krabok Buddhist Monastery. Nearly 30,000 Hmong people, displaced after the Vietnam War, became refugees at Tham Krabok. They have no official status and are considered illegal foreigners in Thailand. The Thai government wants to repatriate them to Laos, but the refugees are protected by the monks. Because of their status, the refugees do not leave the monastery to find work and have therefore become isolated. Many of them have only known this life, having been born inside the refugee camps in the last 25 years. Thoj will use this research in a future film production exploring Hmong experiences across the globe.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for MORGAN THORSON AND COMPANY, received a two-year grant of $24,000 to support the development and production of Swamp and professional advancement opportunities for Thorson. Thorsons choreography is highly eclectic and pulls from a mix of improvisation, athletics, modern dance, ballet and, more recently, in-depth training and certification in Skinner Releasing Technique. She has a rigorous commitment to methodology that reveals her passion for movement invention. In Swamp, Thorson will develop the movement and commissioned sound score from theories of acceleration, the phenomenon of phantom limb sensations and psychic communication.

TROIKA RANCH, Brooklyn, New York, received $8,000 to support the creation and production of The Memory of the Future, a work that combines dance, theater, video projections, and interactive computer technology. Through the abstracted stories and experiences of five imagined characters, the work explores how we process the events of our lives, both beautiful and terrible, into memories that accumulate to define the essence of who we are as individuals and as a community. Choreographer Dawn Stoppiello and composer Mark Coniglio direct Troika Ranch. Their mission is to create works that fuse traditional elements of dance, music and theater performances with digital computer technology.

Playwright KA VANG will travel to Thailand, Laos, Burma, and China for 20 days to research traditional Hmong communities and folklore so she can incorporate more complex and authentic Hmong characters and issues into her plays. Vang often writes about identity and heritage and feels that her lack of knowledge about Hmong identities hinders her from developing complex and real characters.

KANG VANG, St. Paul, MN, received support for Miskas American, a docudrama that takes place before and during the court trials of an older Hmong man named Wa Her Yang, who is convicted of murdering his wife. During the proceedings, Yang finds solace through his lawyer, a young man.

VSA ARTS OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, was awarded a two-year grant of $35,000 in support of services to professional artists living with disabilities and the Minnesota Artist Recognition Grant Program. The organizations mission is to make the arts accessible to people with all types of disabilities throughout Minnesota. VSA arts provides information and referral resources, training, community awareness of arts access, and advocacy. It also provides direct arts programming opportunities for people with disabilities. The Artist Recognition Grant Program awards grants of $1,000 to six competitively selected artists each year. VSA arts presents a culminating exhibit of work by the selected visual artists, and readings and/or performances by the literary and performing artists.