Past
Grantees

PRIMARY STAGES, New York City, received $13,000 to support the New American Writers Group. For 14 years, Primary Stages has developed and produced new works by American playwrights. In 1996, Associate Producer Seth Gordon began sponsoring the New American Writers' Group to nurture the development of early-career playwrights. This is a structured forum to write new material and receive critical feedback, on a weekly basis. As further developmental steps, Primary Stages schedules readings and workshops. Eventually, it will produce a mainstage festival of new plays.

WALID RAAD received support for Hostage, an experimental documentary about the Western Hostage Crisis. The crisis refers to the abduction and detention in Lebanon in the 1980's and early 1990's of western men such as Terry Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, Terry Waite and Brian Keenan by so-called Islamic Militants. This episode directly and indirectly consumed Lebanese, US, French, and British political and public life. The crisis also precipitated a number of high profile political scandal like the Iran-Contra affair in the US, and L'Affaire Gordgi in France.

SUSAN RAFFO, writer, will spend four weeks in New York City to conduct research for her book How I Became Italian. Raffo will visit different Italian American neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island.

APARNA RAMASWAMY, dancer and choreographer in the Bharatanatyam style of India, was awarded a grant to travel to Indonesia. She will conduct in-depth research in the Kecak style of dance and music, which will be incorporated into her work with Ragamala Music and Dance Theater.

Morris resident JODY RAMBO will travel to Corning, New York, to conduct research at the Rakon Research Library on women in the United States glass industry, particularly in relation to mirror-making. The research will be used as source material for a book of poems.

POLA RAPAPORT received support for Family Secret, a nonfiction film about Rapaport's discovery in the last few months of a half-brother she never knew existed, who is now in his fifties and lives in Romania.

RED EYE COLLABORATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, was awarded a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of its varied and substantial work with emerging creative artists. Founded in 1983 by Steve Busa and Miriam Must, Red Eye presents multimedia theater, and functions as a creative laboratory. It is a producer and developer of experimental art. Funding will be used to support the participation of emerging artists in the Works-in-Progress series, now in its 15th year, and in Isolated Acts, a seven-week celebration of the artistic drive to pursue fresh challenges and create new works.

A grant was awarded to writer CHERYL REED to spend four weeks in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; and Salt Lake City, Utah. She will complete research for a literary journalism book on the lives of Catholic nuns.

CRAIG RENAUD received support for This World, a feature-length documentary that tells the two-year story of an inner-city youth, from the projects of Harlem, who struggles to lift up his family from the hardships of ghetto life.

A two-year grant of $28,000 was awarded to REPERTORIO ESPAOL, New York City, in support of the Voces Nuevas series. Repertorio Espaol was founded in 1968 to produce the finest Spanish-language theater; to create and maintain a professional company of actors, singers and directors to perform works in the Spanish language; to serve as a catalyst for cultural exchange; and to reach a broad audience. In 1993, Voces Nuevas began to take form as Repertorio sought effective ways to develop new plays for production. Jerome funding will continue to support the readings program, held on Monday evenings and open to the public, as well as a series of workshop productions, designed to develop new works by emerging playwrights.

DEMPSEY RICE received a grant for Daughter of Suicide, a personal documentary about the suicide of the filmmaker's mother and the path her family has taken to heal.

ROBERT "EDDIE" ROBINSON, gospel singer and choir director, received funding to attend the 1999 Gospel Music Workshop of America in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the purpose of deepening professional relationships with gospel groups and artists and learning from other gospel choir directors.

Artist KAY RUANE received a grant to study with Vincent Desidario and Betye Saar at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She will focus on her current work, which places a female figure within a landscape to explore the relationship of ones physical, spiritual and psychological self to ones body and environment.

Xcp is a journal devoted to poetry, poetics, ethnography and cultural and ethnic studies. It is published under the auspices of the COLLEGE OF SAINT CATHERINE, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Xcp highlights emerging writers and artists with diverse cultural perspectives. It began as a reading series for local and national writers at the College; and soon grew to encompass a journal, community workshops, a major conference, an interactive web site and readings at other local venues. A majority of the authors whose works appear in the journal are emerging. The publication was first supported by the Jerome Foundation in 1998. A second, two-year grant of up to $24,000 was authorized to continue publication and to pay writers' fees.

ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY, Collegeville, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $54,000 to continue the Emerging Artist in Residence Program at the St. John's Pottery Studio. Under the direction of artist Richard Bresnahan, the Pottery Studio educates students and artists in the philosophy and practices of sustainable resource development, involves them in an indigenous artistic environment within an academic setting and assists local communities with the sustainable development of indigenous resources. The Emerging Artist in Residence Program supports three artists annually selected through a competitive application process. Jerome Foundation has supported the Residency Program since 1984. This most recent grant will subsidize six emerging artists' residencies over a two-year period. Each will be in residence for two months, will receive a travel and living stipend, and will have full access to the studio and free materials.

The SONORA HOUSE, New York City, a presenter, producer and multicultural education programmer, provides sponsorship services to independent artists and organizations that do not yet have nonprofit status. Composer and pianist JUDITH SAINTE CROIX, under the auspices of Sonora House, received a grant of $10,000 to support the production, performance, distribution and marketing of a concert version of a new opera. This is the second grant Jerome Foundation has committed to this entrepreneurial composer/performer. She wishes to guide the performance, production, distribution and marketing of her work, with the goal being the implementation of a comprehensive marketing plan to result in increased bookings of Sainte Croix as a composer and performer. The immediate objectives are to create a total marketing package for Sainte Croixs music consisting of press regarding professional performances in New York City, production of the music on CD and marketing through touring and radio play.

JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ received support for Venus in Furs, a feature-length narrative film about the masochistic relationship between a young poet and dilettante named Severin, and Wanda, the free-spirited widow with whom he falls in love.

A grant was awarded to MICHAEL SCHLEMPER of Beltrami to travel to Bemidji, Minnesota; Mandan and Dickenson, North Dakota; Miles City, Livingston and Bozeman, Montana; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Schlemper will attend a Writers at Work conference and will keep a journal on the trip, using the changing physical landscape of the American West as a metaphor for social and cultural differences.

The JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of the Ballet Works Project. The mission of the company is to create and perform an engaging repertoire based in the ballet idiom in an effort to broaden audience access to dance and to advance the art form. Funding will support a four-week period in which company dancers work with four choreographers in the creation of new works. Three of those choreographers are members of the company: Penelope Freeh, Jesse Hammel and Benjamin Johnson. A fourth will be selected by the company members from the Twin Cities or New York City choreographic communities.

A grant was awarded to photographer PAUL SHAMBROOM to travel New York; Silicon Valley, California; and various Upper Midwest states to visit small towns and economic centers to make photographs for his project Imagine and Influence: A Photographic Study of Meetings and Power.