Past
Grantees

CHEAP THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $6,000 in support of its 1998 New Play Series. Cheap Theatre aims to provide exciting and satisfying evenings of theater by producing new plays, drawing on local and regional talent, in order to bring compelling new theater voices to Minnesota audiences. The 1998 Series will present the world premieres of two plays by playwrights Todd Irvine and Gwendolyn Schwinke. Irvines play will unfold in vignettes, illustrating the fantastic paradigms of quantum physics and the dreadful moral dilemma that ruined lives, minds and careers through the development of the atomic bomb. Schwinkes work is based on the return of Odysseus to his native Ithaca.

COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year commitment of $50,000 toward the publication of eight titles of fiction and poetry by emerging writers. Found in 1984, Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house with a reputation for presenting award-winning writers in beautifully designed books. The Press currently publishes 14 books of contemporary fiction and poetry per year, reaching an annual readership of 40,000. Its mission is to promote exciting, vital and enduring authors; to delight and inspire readers; to increase awareness of and appreciation for the traditional book arts; to contribute to the cultural life of its community; and to enrich our collective literary heritage. Jerome support allows the Press to dedicate resources to emerging authors, a majority of whom will be residents of Minnesota and New York City.

TYHEESHA COLLINS received funding to spend three weeks in New York City or Boston in intensive, one-on-one study of rhythm tap dance and choreography. Collins will study with master tap artists and instructors Brenda Buffalino and Diane Walker.

CORNING DANCES & COMPANY, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $26,000 toward the creation, development and production of choreography in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons. This company is dedicated to creating provocative and accessible works that address issues of relevance, and to working with communities to deepen the impact of the messages. One of the new works planned is a dance that explores success in midlife, and how one measures that. Corning will work collaboratively with playwright Kim Hines in the development of this work. Corning is also at work on the third and final part of her Human Trilogy. In this, shell address the following questions: What lies beyond ones relationship with self or fellow man? Where do belief and spirit intersect? What is it that is timeless, immortal? At the works core is a commissioned text written by Shelly Berc, who also wrote the text for Part I of the Trilogy. Cornings challenge has been her search for a particular movement vocabulary to reflect the more abstract and ephemeral concept of spirituality.

The COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS received $7,350 in general support of its program and as membership dues for 1998.

The Jerome Foundation Directors committed $200,000, over two years, to a newly created organization, the Creative Capital Foundation, established by the ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, New York City. Creative Capital will test a new way of offering support to individual creative artists. It is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, revolving national fund designed to support artists creating original work, and pursuing innovative approaches to form and/or content in the visual, performing and media arts. The Creative Capital Foundation will take a venture capital approachidentify an innovative product, service or idea that has some commercial potentialand then bring in the best advisors and partners to move it forward, with the originating artist in charge of the project. The goal is to build an ever changing portfolio of projects from conceptual investigations to fully developed, expanding projects, realizing that after the initial funding, projects will develop in different ways depending on real-world circumstances. Not every project is expected to succeed. Creative Capital will go public in January of 1999, under the direction of an independent Board of Directors. Jerome Foundation funding is restricted to the participation of artists from New York City and the state of Minnesota. Its likely that the program will operate as a pilot in its first year.

EVOLVING ARTS, New York City, is dedicated to the development of emerging and mature artists in dance. Founded on the belief that artists need to show their work in order to grow, the organization provides ways for dance artists to create, develop and present work in an atmosphere of support and challenge. It strives to build an artistic community for collaboration and inspiration. Artists represent a wide range of dance styles and genres. In the Company of Men presents work by emerging and established male choreographers. The organization selects featured choreographers from a wide field of submissions and referrals. Jerome subsidy of $10,000 was authorized to support the emerging choreographers engaged in this program.

A grant of $22,500 was authorized for the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the 1998 Dancer Pool Program. The Alliance supports and fosters dance in the State of Minnesota. It operates many programs, one of which, Dancer Pool, has received Jerome Foundation subsidy since 1981. The purpose of Dancer Pool is simpleto support rehearsal fees for dancers working with emerging independent choreographers. It remains as vital to the Minnesota dance community today as it was 16 years ago, when it was initiated. Funds are awarded so that choreographers can experiment with dancers to explore new areas of movement, to develop and create new pieces and to reconstruct past choreographic works intended to be used in upcoming performances. A peer panel process is used to competitively select recipients of grants.

DANSPACE PROJECT, New York City, received a two-year grant of $39,000 to support emerging choreographers commissions. Danspace offers an affordable performance venue for independent experimental choreographers. It encourages artists to take risks and realize their artistic visions in professional settings where they can have their work viewed by an educated and receptive public. In 1993, Danspace Project initiated a commissioning program in which it offers to a certain number of artists funds, over and above their fees, to assist in the creative development of their work. By joining with other funders also interested in commissioning, the Jerome Foundation has assisted Danspace Project in providing creative subsidies for the emerging choreographers it presents. Not all of the emerging artists to receive Jerome commissions in the 1998-99 season are identified as yet, but the group will include Karen Graham, Lance Gries, Mark Jarecke and Mia Lawrence.

DARE TO BREATHE is a five-person a cappella singing group. The performers received a grant to attend a vocal workshop in Northampton, Massachusetts given by the Western Wind, renowned vocal ensemble.

Filmmaker LIZA DAVITCH received funding to travel to Poland to create a collaborative documentary with filmmaker Grzegorz Zglinski about the Polish actress Krystyna Janda and her daughter Maria Seweryn. The proposed film will concentrate on their personal relationship, and will explore how the traditional roles of mother and daughter have been affected by their work as actresses.

KRAIG DIBB is the Director of the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He received a grant to spend six days in Minneapolis to study at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Minnetonka Center for the Arts toward the development of a foundry and a book arts production center in Grand Rapids.

A two-year grant of $30,000 was awarded to OPEN CHANNELS/DIXON PLACE, New York City, to support emerging artists' fees within the Works in Progress and More Time, More Money series. Dixon Place was founded in 1986 to enable artists to test new ideas and performance techniques. By virtue of its mission and atmosphere, Dixon Place is committed to commissioning and presenting works in progress, and has built an audience willing to support artists throughout that creative process. Jerome Foundation funding will seed small commissions for Works in Progress; and, it will also enable Dixon Place to commission artists ready to take the next steps to longer performance pieces and the possibility of extended runs, under the series title, More Time, More Money.

CECILIA DOUGHERTY received a grant in support of Gone, a 60-minute experimental narrative remake of episode two of An American Family, the acclaimed 1974 PBS documentary series on the Loud Family.

THALIA DRORI, Minneapolis, MN, $10,000. Drori received support for Waiting for Daryl, a 28-minute absurd, dark and comic 16mm experimental narrative based on her experiences growing up Jewish and female in America in the 1960s.

Artist/architect JOHN DURFEY based in Blooming Prairie will travel to Abilene, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Lawrence, Kansas. Durfey will tour and investigate restored theaters created in the Pueblo Deco style, a flamboyant, short-lived architectural form that fused the spirit of Indian cultures of the Southwest with the exuberance of America during the Roaring 20s. This trip will inform his work restoring the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Minnesota.

The theater ensemble ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE, which first performed in New York in 1991, received $8,000 in support of its 1998-99 season. The ensemble combines found objects and texts with elements of slapstick comedy, dance, audio design and dramatic literature. Elevator Repair Service embraces the unpredictable collisions among various source materials, theatrical styles and personalities. It aims to be mysterious, comical and gracefully awkward. Its fall 1998 show, Total Fictional Lie, concluded its run at P.S. 122. After the first of the year, the company will rework a 1994 piece titled Language Instruction: Love Family vs. Andy Kaufman. The company will continue the development of new work in the late spring, and plans to tour during the summer.

A grant of $10,000 was made to EN GARDE ARTS, New York City, in support of the Walking Tour. En Garde Arts produces site specific theater through the commissioning of playwrights, directors, composers and performance artists to create works emphasizing the strength and beauty of the urban landscape and rediscovering architectural treasures. En Garde works to gain a place for theater as part of everyday life by situating it in traveled and familiar spaces. Jerome subsidy is directed toward a new work developed by four emerging artists, who will each be given the missive of uncovering the cultures and histories of New York's Lower East Side. Artistic Director Anne Hamburger will work with the artists to weave their separate stories into a theatricalized walking tour of the Lower East Side.

A grant was awarded to writer LIN ENGER of Moorhead to spend three weeks in Norway. Enger will conduct research for his novel-in-progress about Scandinavian immigrants

The ETHOS PERCUSSION GROUP, Queens, New York, received $20,000 in support of a pilot commissioning program for emerging composers. The Group is dedicated to the advancement of the percussive arts in performance and education. It embraces musical styles from around the globe and highlights the players vibrant musicianship as well as an extensive and unique collection of instruments. Ethos received funding to support the commissioning and performance of new works by three emerging composers within the context of a chamber music series dedicated to percussion music. The aim is to create a supportive and prestigious environment that will both encourage and facilitate the artistic growth of the ensemble and the composers selected.