Past
Grantees

The Jerome Foundation, on a very limited basis, makes grants to established mid-career artists if they are facing particularly steep challenges and are at critical junctures in their work and careers. A grant of $15,000 was awarded to FIVE MYLES, Brooklyn, New York, to support the creation and production of a new work by puppet theater artist HANNE TIERNEY. Tierneys project represents new artistic territory for her, an investigation into changing the relationship between audience and performance, to let the audience experience a sense of complete participation in the action on stage. Shell change this relationship through the unorthodox use of video projection. Her new work titled How Wang-Fo Was Saved, based on an old Chinese legend and a story by Margaret Yourcenar, tells the story of the triumph of art over life.

The mission of the Plymouth Music series is to explore the interaction of voices and instruments through innovative programming of music, past and present. we seek to engage and enrich our audiences, who expect fro us the unexpected. Our focus is on commissioned and first performances of music as well as important, but rarely heard, works of the past. The PLYMOUTH MUSIC SERIES, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $47,000 in continued support of the Orchestra Reading Project. The Series, founded in 1969 by conductor Philip Brunelle, maintains a 105-voice chorus with a paid professional core of 24 voices performing as the Ensemble Singers. The Orchestra Reading Project was initiated in 1994. As of May 2000, 66 composers have heard a professional orchestra perform their works for the first time. Musicians are contracted for rehearsals, which serve as reading sessions for in-progress and recently completed orchestral works by emerging composers. A wide public announcement garners applications, which the Plymouth Music Series reviews in cooperation with the American Composers Forum. Eligibility is restricted to orchestral works that have received neither readings nor performances. Various enhancements strengthen the appeal of this program and add to the central experience of hearing ones work read by a group of capable and committed musicians.

The Jerome Foundation Directors made a two-year grant of $35,000 to VSA ARTS OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the Artist Recognition Grant program and services to professional artists. The mission of this organization is to make the arts accessible to people with all types of disabilities throughout the State of Minnesota. Its four-part approach includes an information and referral resource center, training, community awareness of arts access and advocacy on behalf of artists with disabilities. Each year, VSA issues an open call for artists and reviews those proposals via an independent multidisciplinary panel. Jerome funding will enable VSA Arts of Minnesota to continue a regranting program for emerging artists and to increase the level of subsidy awarded.

GARY WAHL, an artist and education coordinator living in Rochester, Minnesota, received funding to spend 16 days in various locations in Italy, taking the railroad to visit archeological, architectural and historic sites. He will observe physical conditions and conceptual effects of overlapping art historical periods. Wahl is primarily a sculptor whose work has been influenced by ruins and historical remnants.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $40,000 to the WALKER ART CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of choreographic commissions in Momentum: New Dance Works. A unique multidisciplinary arts center with an international reputation, the Walker has developed and sustained artistic programming that champions the new and untested while charting groundbreaking historical research of the work of 20th Century masters. The Momentum series will commission, develop and present new contemporary dance works by 12 emerging Minnesota choreographers. The Series will be curated and co-presented by the Walker, the Southern Theater and the Minnesota Dance Alliance. It will run one week per month during winter/spring 2001 and 2002. In addition to performing, the choreographers will participate in post-performance discussions and critical feedback sessions.

The WALKER ART CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, through the curatorial leadership of Steve Dietz, created an Emerging Artists/Emerging Medium program for which Jerome Foundation provided artist commissioning monies of $40,000 for the creation of new on-line works for the Walker's web site gallery. This virtual gallery may be found at http://www.walkerart.org/gallery9/. By highlighting and supporting the work of emerging new media artists, the Walker creates a context, supportive and critical, that helps establish individual artists of merit and advance new media as a serious avenue of creative expression. These new works help other organizations understand better how to utilize the vast potential of new media and the Internet to advance artistic missions. An open call is posted on the web for any artist wishing to submit a proposal. The program offers commissions, technical assistance and critical, contextual writing about the new works.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, acted as fiscal agent for a request by multimedia artist CLAUDE WAMPLER to support the development and production of new work in the 2000-01 season. Wampler is a visual and performance artist whose work encompasses video, painting, photography, lighting, sculpture, costume and text. Funding from Jerome Foundation will feed the development of Ambulance, Present Absence and Painting, the movie.

SUSAN STEGER WELSH is a poet who received funding to attend a writers workshop in Hofss, a fishing town on the north coast of Iceland.

Funding was awarded to HANNAH WEYER, for La Escuela (School), a feature-length documentary that follows a Mexican-American migrant teenager over the course of her freshman year in high school.

WHITE COLUMNS, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 to support programs serving emerging artists in the 2000 and 2001 exhibition seasons. Jerome funding goes toward group exhibitions, White Room solo shows, slide review and the maintenance of the Artist Slide File. The Artist Slide File contains images from approximately 3,500 emerging artists, and may be viewed by appointment. The annual schedule consists of six thematic group exhibitions and 12 White Room shows featuring the work of over 200 emerging visual artists. A good portion of the Jerome Foundation grant is used to pay artists fees.

A grant was awarded to writer DIANE WILSON to travel to the Crow Creek and Santee Reservations in South Dakota. Wilsons mother is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Tribe in South Dakota and Wilsons research and writings will include stories from the lives of four generations of women focusing on cultural identity, interracial marriage, religion, poverty and the governments assimilation policies.

The WOMENS ART REGISTRY OF MINNESOTA (W.A.R.M.), St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $37,000 for the 2001-02 Mentor Program. W.A.R.M. addresses the lack of sufficient exhibition opportunities and validation of women artists work. In the Mentor program, women participate in teams comprised of a mentor, a professional artist producing mature work who has statewide and often national recognition, and a protg, a serious artist who has finished her formal education and is in the early stages of career development. The mentorships are established for two-year terms, beginning with introductions and interviews and concluding with a group exhibition. Mentors provide developing artists with guidance and support. Participants attend workshops designed to explore and support their public role as artists.

The Directors authorized a grant of $25,000 to the WOMENS PROJECT & PRODUCTIONS, New York City, in support of developmental programs serving emerging playwrights. The Womens Project & Productions is a nonprofit Off-Broadway institution dedicated to the development and production of new plays by women. Developmental programs encompass the Playwrights Lab, a readings and workshop series, commissions, publication of play anthologies and mainstage productions. The organization offers conferences, holds post performance discussions and panels. The purpose is to create a community of women playwrights and directors and assist them in forming lasting working relationships.

FREE RANGE ARTS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for WOOD DANCE, received $10,000 for the production of two works, Feeling Lilaand Funktionlust. Free Range Arts serves the performing arts community by making available low cost rehearsal space, facilitating the work of emerging performing artists and producing performance art events. Choreographer Ellis Wood has been based in New York City since 1989. Funding from the Jerome Foundation will enable Wood to create two new pieces, the first of four pieces of a suite of dances that will take a deeper and riskier approach than past endeavors, and bring her work to a new level of intensity. Feeling Lilais a trio about discovering the many layers that have grown over pure being, and stripping away the obstacles firmly planted in the way of reaching the purer states of lives. Funktionlustis a solo work for Wood, based on the German word meaning the pleasure of doing. It will deal with the concept of women and pleasure, as well as the successes and failures involved in attempting to move from an authentic place of joy.

The Jerome Foundation authorized a grant of $15,000 to THE WRITERS ROOM, New York City, in support of programs and services for emerging writers. The mission of The Writers Room is to provide professional and subsidized workspace, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, to writers. It serves more than 300 writers a year. Each quarter, membership rotates, according to a pattern that brings approximately 160 new participants each year. The Writers Room provides affordable workspace in a city where market rate rents for office space are prohibitive for the emerging writer. The Room houses a 1,000+ volume reference and resource library; and it offers in-house seminars on subjects of importance to writers such as how to find a literary agent. It hosts readings for members at local cafes; and celebrates the achievements of members with a collective book party each year.

GREG YOLEN, Minneapolis, MN. Yolen received support for Don Ciegna, a 35mm feature-film about former baseball great Sam Maddox and his attempts to escape the consequences of his bi-polar personality. Sam led a rollercoaster life. Good looking and athletic, he breezed through his childhood as the playground enforcer. During his youth he was the designated hitter on the school team, which led to his successful career on the baseball diamond. At the same time, however, dark visions began to creep into his consciousness. He found himself plunged from the heights of being on top to the depths of complete desperation. This film follows his tumultuous journey.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, presents alternative performance by artists working at the grassroots of the Twin Cities varied cultural, political and economic communities. It acted as fiscal agent for a proposal from choreographer Cathy Young, who has received support from the Foundation since 1997 for the development and production of new works. A two-year grant of $30,000 was authorized to support CATHY YOUNG DANCE. Young brings to her work an understanding of diverse kinds of movement including jazz, postmodern, improvisation, social dance and gymnastics. Her work is defined by its musicality, athleticism and classic choreographic structure. Jerome support will allow Young to develop three new projects over the course of the next two years. The first is Cabaret, which will focus on vernacular dance and music of the past four decades. The second will be the reworking of Night of Many Dreams, a piece that explores ideas of connection and isolation, constraint and freedom. A one-time additional grant of $10,000 was authorized for The Gospel Project, the working title of a collaborative piece involving Cathy Young; Robert "Eddie" Robinson, Director of the Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir; Mary Easter, writer, poet and Director of the Dance Department at Carleton College; and choreographer, director and performance artist Djola Branner. The seeds of this project are in the collaborators desire to explore racism, mistrust and separatism. Ultimately, The Gospel Project is about salvation, redemption, hope and inclusion.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, presents alternative performance by artists working at the grassroots of the Twin Cities varied cultural, political and economic communities. It acted as fiscal agent for a proposal from choreographer Cathy Young, who has received support from the Foundation since 1997 for the development and production of new works. A two-year grant of $30,000 was authorized to support CATHY YOUNG DANCE. Young brings to her work an understanding of diverse kinds of movement including jazz, postmodern, improvisation, social dance and gymnastics. Her work is defined by its musicality, athleticism and classic choreographic structure. Jerome support will allow Young to develop three new projects over the course of the next two years. The first is Cabaret, which will focus on vernacular dance and music of the past four decades. The second will be the reworking of Night of Many Dreams, a piece that explores ideas of connection and isolation, constraint and freedom. A one-time additional grant of $10,000 was authorized for The Gospel Project, the working title of a collaborative piece involving Cathy Young; Robert "Eddie" Robinson, Director of the Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir; Mary Easter, writer, poet and Director of the Dance Department at Carleton College; and choreographer, director and performance artist Djola Branner. The seeds of this project are in the collaborators desire to explore racism, mistrust and separatism. Ultimately, The Gospel Project is about salvation, redemption, hope and inclusion.

MARCUS YOUNG, a performance artist and arts administrator, received a grant to spend up to one year in Beijing, China, studying the Chinese language, reconnecting with his cultural heritage, and laying the groundwork for future creative work. He is exploring new theatrical vocabularies, and seeks further development as the chief administrator for CAAM Chinese Dance Theater.

15 HEAD-a theatre lab, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $20,000. Funding will underwrite the development and production of two new pieces, Dracula and the Opera Project. 15 HEAD is an experimental theatre lab that presents works marked by collaborative script development utilizing classic and new texts, experimentation and highly creative and stylized staging that often focuses on epic and/or political themes. In Julia Fischers version of the tale about vampires, Dracula will be a woman; the work will explore the dark, hidden side of womens desire. 15-HEAD's artistic associates will stage songs, arias and other vocal ensemble music as theater/movement pieces in the Opera Project.