Past
Grantees

A grant was awarded to writer JEROD SANTEK to travel to Phoenix and Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for one month to conduct research on the relocation of the London Bridge and contemporary cultural attitudes in Lake Havasu City. Santeks research in Arizona is for his novel titled Stone So Strong.

A grant was awarded to SUSAN SCALF/KRISTIN VAN LOON/ARWEN WILDER, choreographers and dancers comprising three-quarters of the company Concrete Farm, to travel to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The choreographers plan to undergo intensive study with Julyan Hamilton, an internationally acclaimed improviser whose current artistic exploration is aligned with theirs.

HOLLY SCHROEDER, a cabaret singer, was awarded funding to attend the ONeill Theater Centers Cabaret Symposium in August. Schroeder hopes to gain further skills as a cabaret artist and to learn from the directors, composers, writers and teachers at the Symposium.

TOM SHROEDER, Minneapolis, MN. Shroeder received support for Riding With Harv, a 15-minute animated film about a character named Dave, a college student who is entertained one afternoon by his grandparents' neighbors, Harv and Olga. He is driven around the small town where they live, while they tell stories. Harv and Olga are an old couple who can barely stand each other, but cannot possibly live without one another. During their drive, another motorist scratches Harv's car, which angers him to the point of seeking revenge.

SHELLY SILVER, received funding for an experimental narrative called suicide, about a filmmaker who is contemplating suicide. Rejected by and rejecting her own country, she starts traveling aimlessly, camera in hand. What she did formerly as a profession she now does in desperation, filming everything and everyone in a last ditch effort to make a connection. Zig-zagging the globe, from New York to Osaka to Berlin to Mexico, as she increasingly loses touch with reality. Her filming becomes more searching, poignant and aggressive.

SKEWED VISIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $12,500 to develop a new work titled The Car. This company specializes in site-specific performance, producing works engaging in and engaged by their physical environment. The Car, to be presented during the Minnesota Fringe Festival in August 2000, will reveal, through performance, spaces in the metropolitan area and the lives of people not usually encountered by the ordinary citizen. Three performances will be designed to take place in three separate vehicles. Audience members will sit in the back seat and witness the performances either while in transit or at specific stops. Once the performance is over in one vehicle, passengers move to the next until they've witnessed all three segments.

SMACK MELLON STUDIOS, Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $28,000 to subsidize the participation of emerging artists in the exhibition program. Smack Mellons mission is to nurture and support emerging and under-represented mid-career artists by providing access to technology, studio space and exhibition opportunities. The organization also supports an artist-in-residence program. Jerome funding will finance eight exhibitions, four in 2000 and four in 2001. Grant funds will cover the expenses of honoraria, materials, technical assistance, promotion, administrative support and insurance. The 2000 exhibition schedule begins with The Skin Game, an exploration of the nature of skin and the tension it creates as dialogue.

Funding was awarded to arts administrator PATRICE SNEAD to spend five days at the Urban World Film Festival in New York City. Snead is program and film funds administrator for Independent Feature Project/North and development director for the Junteenth Film Festival. The Festival is an internationally competitive event dedicated to redefining and enhancing the role of minorities in contemporary independent cinema.

A two-year grant of $40,000 was awarded to NO NAME EXHIBITIONS AT THE SOAP FACTORY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of exhibition programming serving emerging artists. No Name was founded in 1988 by a small group of Minnesota artists. It now occupies a 48,000 sq. ft. turn-of-the-century wood and brick warehouse near the Minneapolis riverfront. This building provides a unique showcase for sculpture, performance and installation art as well as traditional gallery spaces for painting, photography and other two-dimensional work. Each year, No Name presents several large-scale visual exhibitions featuring a wide range of work from local, regional and national emerging artists. It maintains an open submission policy for receipt of artists slides and proposals.

SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK, Long Island City, New York, received a two-year grant of $40,000 for the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. Socrates supports the creation and exhibition of large-scale sculpture on four and a half acres of grass, rocks and trees along the shore in Long Island City. The guiding principle is to encourage creative interaction among artists, their art and the community. The Outdoor Studio Program allows artists to create large-scale projects on site. The Park provides fellowships to emerging artists who are given extended residencies in the Outdoor Studio and grants to create new works. Socrates will provide 18 emerging artists with Fellowships and Residencies over the two years of this request.

SOHO REPERTORY THEATRE, New York City, was incorporated in 1975 to present new and experimental theater productions. It fully produces two to three plays per season plus numerous readings and workshops of new plays. It calls itself a hothouse for exuberant theatrical work; and it's been operating in that way for over 24 years. A Jerome grant of $10,000 was made to support the development of new work by emerging playwrights.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $70,000 in support of productions by and services for emerging creative artists. The Southern Theater produces work that is highly experimental and exploratory, and which looks for new ways to articulate aesthetic ideas. The Southern presents alternative performance by artists working at the grassroots of the Twin Cities varied cultural, political and economic communities--artists who are creating works that respond to issues and life situations that are often invisible to mainstream society. The Southern's commitment to emerging artists who are developing new work that reflects personal growth coincides with the Jerome Foundation's priorities.

Funding was awarded to SANDRA SPIELER, Artistic Director of in the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre to spend 37 days in Korea and Germany. While in Korea, Spieler will visit with Dr. Dong Il Lee and learn about mask and ritual theater. In Germany, she will attend a special session of the International School of Theater Anthropology.

CARLA STETSON, a sculptor, received a grant spend time working at the Ochs Brick Manufacturing Plant in Springfield, Minnesota, to carve, shape and lay out bricks, which she will then use to construct a prototype sculptural bench. This is a hands-on investigation about brick and the way it can be used in functional exterior sculptures.

EVE SUSSMAN received funding for China/White - Scenes from an Exile, a panoramic film/video that will be shown as a gallery installation. It is about two principal characters, HER and HIM, who are caught in the turmoil of emotional, psychological and physical exile and take their dysfunctional communication to its erotic limit. Their condition is contrasted by the presence of LEAH, THE DOG, THE SOOTHSAYER and THE STRANGER, who foil the couple's unbearable existentialism.

REIKO TAHARA, was awarded a grant for Enmyoin, a documentary that will provide critical social analysis, from the filmmaker's point of view, of Sister Enmyoin, a 95-year-old Japanese female Buddhist priest who passed away in August 1999.

Writer RICHARD TERRILL, of Mankato, was awarded a grant to travel to New York City, Florida, Wisconsin, Chicago and Indiana performing readings and making author appearances regarding his memoir on playing jazz entitled Fakebook (New York, Limelight Editions, 2000).

SAI THAO, a video artist, received a grant to travel to Bangkok, Phetchabun and Louangphrabang, in Thailand and Laos. As a young Hmong woman, Tauo grew up hearing the stories of these areas, but has no firsthand experience; therefore, she will return to her parents roots and discover her own culture.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 to provide commissions to ten emerging playwrights each year and provide production subsidies to produce their works. Theater for the New City discovers new plays, nurtures and develops playwrights and acts as a bridge between playwrights and audiences. Each year, it produces 30 to 40 new American plays. All production decisions are made by the playwrights. Jerome support allows emerging writers to develop their craft by seeing their works fully produced, in a theater, with professional actors, designers and technicians. Theater for the New City nurtures and realizes the playwrights vision through the testing ground of production.

Teacher, dancer, and choreographer ERIN THOMPSON was awarded a grant to spend eight days in an intensive workshop retreat entitled Dancespa, which is presented by Chicago-based company Jan Erkert & Dancers. Thompson will expand her teaching skills in this rejuvenative atmosphere.