Past
Grantees

NICHOLAS BLAIR received support for Coming of Age at the End of the World, a documentary about a 71-year-old Jewish grandmother who takes her granddaughter back to her homeland of Poland, where she faced incredible trauma during the war.

A grant of $15,000 was awarded to the BRONX COUNCIL ON THE ARTS, New York City, for Longwood's Cyber Studio Fellowship Program. This is a new initiative that provides a unique opportunity for emerging artists to use cyber technology as a creative tool. The project's main purpose is to provide opportunities for artists to work in its new cyber studio to create new work within a supportive and creative environment.

EVA ILONA BRZESKI was given support for Last Seen, a feature-length narrative film about the disappearance of a high school girl, who was last seen running in desperation around a school track in street clothes and bare feet.

>A grant of $10,000 was authorized for The Builders Association, New York City, in support of the development and production of TOSCA. Under the artistic direction of Marianne Weems, The Builders Association produces large-scale performance events exploring the languages of theater, media and architecture. TOSCA is envisioned as embodying a more fluid approach than The Builders Association has used in the past. This piece will be approached through the explosion of youth-oriented techno music and video, and based largely on fragments or samples drawn from that culture.

MARTHA BURGESS was supported for Ignatz' Nose Travels in Still Life, an interactive CD-ROM that will consciously select a concealed aspect of our culture and tease out its meaning, desirability and use via everyday objects. It will contain a series of still life photographs within which animation, sound tracks, video clips, poems, jokes and interactive stories are associated and accessible.

A grant was awarded to singer/songwriter GARY BURT of Grand Rapids to travel to the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina to study songwriting with renowned contemporary folk artists.

WALLY CARDONA VENTURES, New York City, received $10,000 in support of the Solos Project in 1999. Cardona will create an evening-length program of solos featuring guest artists renowned for their work as exemplars of certain styles and techniques. The soloists/guest artists will perform on stage with the four-person Wally Cardona Quartet. Solos will be created for individual performers with the Royal Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Merce Cunningham Company, the New York City Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Jos Limn Company. Solos will also be created for each member of the quartet. Cardona hopes to engage young experimental composers to create electronic music for the work.

Actor and storyteller WILLETHA (TONI) CARTER and writer and storyteller ROSE MCGEE will travel to Ghana, West Africa to attend the Fourth Annual Pan African Historical & Theatre Festival and participate in the First Annual International Black Storytelling Festival. Through firsthand exposure to West African culture, they will gather information to enrich their storytelling presentations.

CAVE CANEM, New York City, received subsidy of $22,000 to support the participation of New York City and Minnesota emerging writers in the summer retreat and workshop at Mount St. Alphonsus and the 1999-2000 New York City poetry workshops. Cave Canem was founded in 1996 as a summer writing workshop designed to enhance the development of emerging and under-recognized African American poets, strategically positioned to be an affordable alternative to larger, more expensive workshops. Cave Canem fosters a community of African American writers and creates an atmosphere in which participants freely take creative risks.

Vocalist and composer LILA KANE received a grant to travel for three months in New Delhi, Haridwar, Beas and Rishikesh, India, and Athens, Greece, to further her study of ancient mystical/sacred music, chanting and sound practices, which will be incorporated into her next opera.

CHEAP THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $8,000 to support New Play Series 4. Cheap Theatre's mission is to produce new plays, drawing on local and regional talent to bring compelling new theater voices to Midwest audiences. Its name reflects a policy of providing inexpensive tickets for each production in order to make new plays accessible. The New Play Series is the primary vehicle for advancing the mission of the company to provide playwrights with full professional productions. This coming season, the two new plays in the Series are Stroganoff by Erica Christ and Santa Concepcion, by Anne Garcia Romero.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $20,000 to support the 1999-2000 Mentor Project of CHERRY LANE ALTERNATIVE THEATRE, New York City. Cherry Lane is committed to the development of emerging artists and to presenting them with opportunities to work with experienced and outstanding theater artists. It provides readings, workshops, master classes and productions, in order to create a working community of artists and a home base for the development of new works. The Mentor Project provides opportunities for five emerging playwrights to develop new scripts, working one-on-one with master playwrights. Mentors for the current season include Craig Lucas, Alfred Uhry, A.R. Gurney, Wendy Wasserstein and Michael Weller, with Edward Albee as the overall Mentor for the project. Emerging writers, each receiving a stipend, are selected from a field of nominations made by an advisory committee.

Composer MARY ELLEN CHILDS, applying through the sponsorship of the SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $12,000 in support of artists' fees and other costs associated with a major entrepreneurial initiative designed to advance her work, forge a productive working relationship with a commercial cymbal company and underwrite a European tour for her company CRASH. Childs moves from the conception of musical scores through staging, working much like a stage director or choreographer for musical pieces that incorporate movement, theater and visual media. CRASH is the ensemble through which Childs develops and produces her visual percussion music.

LAURIE COLLYER received a grant for Nuyorican Dream, a feature-length, video documentary about the attempt of a young Latino man named Robert Torres to leave his comfortable life as a school teacher in California. He returns to the Brooklyn home of his childhood in order to help his troubled family.

The COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Washington, D.C., received $7,350. The Council on Foundations, an association of foundations and corporations, serves the public good by promoting and enhancing responsible and effective philanthropy.

CREARTE's mission is to promote and support the artists, the arts and the cultural activities of the Mexican, Chicano and Latino communities in Minnesota. The organization, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sponsors an annual Dia De Los Muertos celebration, mounts exhibitions, offers workshops and seminars, presents literary and performing arts programming, and undertakes a variety of multidisciplinary efforts. Jerome funding of $20,000 for one year, half of which is dedicated to artists' fees, will enable CreArte to continue its programming.

CREATIVE TIME, New York City, received $12,000 in support of the creation and placement of new works by emerging artists in public venues. Established in 1973, Creative Time presents the work of established and emerging artists in all media to the public in unusual and unexpected places. It fosters partnerships among artists, property owners and community organizations. It encourages artists to experiment with new forms, take risks and explore untested areas. Through various mechanisms of selecting artists, from open application processes to curatorial initiatives, Creative Time supports a number of new works by emerging artists each season. It is for these artists that Jerome funding was authorized.

TANIA CYPRIANO received a grant for a feature-length documentary titled Grandmother and Her Video Camera, which utilizes the home video of Cypriano's grandmother to chronicle the lives of three generations of her Brazilian immigrant family over a ten-year period.

Choreographer ALYCE FINWALL received financial support to develop and produce a new dance work. A company member of Ballet of the Dolls Dance Company since 1995, Finwall choreographs under the company name DANCE COUNCIL, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mission of Dance Council is to speak through a vocabulary of dance that is dedicated to reinvention and experimentation and to collaborate with talents of all areas to create a language that is illuminated with vision, insight and imagination. Finwall's choreography has been described as emotional and lyrically intense, utilizing both modern and traditional styles. She often draws inspiration from two-dimensional images, and is currently exploring a ballet based on the human, tragic story of Mark Rothko. This work will be paired with three other ballets, utilizing video animation, and original sound design, in a concert for which funding of $10,000 was authorized.

A one-time grant of $10,000 was made to DANSPACE PROJECT at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, New York City, to begin The Office for independent choreographers. Danspace, founded in 1974, provides an affordable performance venue for independent experimental choreographers, who are encouraged to take risks and realize their artistic visions in a professional setting where their works are viewed by an educated and receptive public. The Office will provide a professional, well equipped office space for independent choreographers and their administrators. It will support their business with presenting organizations, producers, funders and peers.