Past
Grantees

The Directors voted to continue support for the NORTHERN CLAY CENTERs Artists Project Grants, a program initiated in 1993. The Centers mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts through promoting excellence in the work of clay artists, providing educational opportunities for artists and encouraging the publics appreciation and understanding of the ceramic arts. The Artists Project Grants Program provides project grants to advance, artistically and technically, the work of emerging Minnesota ceramic artists. Three grants of $6,000 each will be awarded in 1999, with an application deadline in February. Projects may include experimenting with new techniques and materials, working or studying with a mentor, bringing in a respective figure to critique individual work, purchasing equipment to facilitate an aesthetic or technical investigation, studio rental, buying time to work in the studio, purchasing supplies, collaborations with other artists, technical support, education, exhibition opportunities and travel. An independent

A supplementary grant of $14,510 was awarded to the NORTHWEST REGIONAL ARTS COUNCIL, Warren, Minnesota, to increase the number of flood relief grants made to individual artists ravaged by the 1997 floods in northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.

THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for TERE O'CONNOR DANCE, received $8,000 in support of the creation of new work for the 1998 season. O'Connor is interested in challenging the boundaries of dance by developing a dense, eclectic movement style filled with references and nuance, and a fierce commitment to encountering stark emotional territory. O'Connor will focus on the use of spoken word in dance as he develops a major new piece for his 1998 Dance Theater Workshop season.

A two-year grant of $34,000 was authorized for the EUGENE ONEILL THEATER CENTER, New York City, in support of the participation of Minnesota and New York City emerging playwrights in the 1998 and 1999 National Playwrights Conference. The ONeill Center is an umbrella institution which supports a variety of activities, one of which is the Playwrights Conference. Dedicated to the development of talented writers, the Conference has nurtured 338 playwrights and has helped develop 475 plays. Writers are given opportunities to work on their plays in the company of other professional theater artists. Manuscripts are submitted in response to an open call, and judged competitively. Each year, 12 playwrights are selected to engage in the ONeill process. In recognition of the substantive nature of this developmental program for emerging American writers, the Jerome Foundation was pleased to authorize continued support.

JEFFREY OESTREICH is a potter who lives in Taylors Falls, Minnesota. He will spend six weeks in England, Scotland and Wales to exhibit ceramic pieces, work in residence at the Bernard Leach Pottery and see comprehensive collections of ceramics in British museums.

Painter HOWARD ORANSKY received funding to spend two weeks in Washington, DC, to conduct research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Still Picture and Film Division of the United States National Archives in Maryland in order to bring distinct and individual voices into his paintings in very specific historical terms.

ST. LUKES ORCHESTRA AND CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, New York City, received an 18-month grant of $24,000 to support commissions for three emerging composers. St. Lukes was formed in 1974 with an initial group of 20 musicians offering a season of concerts at the Church of St. Lukes in Greenwich Village. Programs now include chamber music, orchestra, chamber operas, early music on original instruments and premieres of new works by contemporary American composers. Through the 25th Anniversary New Music Project, St. Lukes will substantially expand its involvement with and commitment to contemporary music and emerging composers by commissioning at least eight new works and presenting 12 concerts devoted exclusively to new music within three years. It intends to produce two new recordings devoted to contemporary music, arrange for the national broadcast of its contemporary music programs and broaden its contemporary repertoire. Jerome subsidy will support emerging composers commissions, beginning this season with Jon Magnussen, who is writing a string quartet for acoustic instruments that will be amplified with contact microphones. There will be an improvisational aspect to the piece via the sounds of instruments sent through a digital effects processor, enabling the musicians to manipulate the sound with foot pedals.

Filmmaker AMY OSTERGAARD, will spend four days in Seattle, Washington and four days in New York City. Ostergaard will conduct research for a new documentary focusing on the emotional impact of personal debt.

Through the fiscal agent services of the NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, the Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $10,000 to support OTHER COUNTRIES. This is an arts organization dedicated to the development, dissemination and preservation of literature and other forms of cultural expression of gay men and lesbians of African heritage. It began as a writing workshop in 1986. It published its first journal two years later, with a second anthology published in 1993, noted for its depiction of the realities of black gay men in the midst of the AIDS crisis. In addition to publications, Other Countries offers workshops, readings and performances. The Jerome Foundation was persuaded to offer subsidy because of the focus on nurturing and bringing to public attention the work of emerging writers.

PANGEA WORLD THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $11,000 to support the development and production of two plays created by emerging playwrights/writers. Playwrights Luu Pham and Meena Natarajan will collaborate on a theatrical piece dealing with the centurys wars and refugees from the Armenian Genocide to Tiananmen Square, through the eyes of poets from five continents. Playwright Carlyle Brown will create a new work adapted from the novel No Longer At Ease by Nigerian writer Chinua Acheve, dealing with the tragic consequences of the African encounter with Europe, and one mans confusion in the face of Colonialism. These two works fall within a three-play season planned by Pangea, which is an organization committed to international works, styles and traditions that illuminate the human condition, end divisiveness and celebrate differences. Pangea views the stage as a powerful international forum and a podium for discussion.

The Directors authorized a grant of $20,000 to PATRICKS CABARET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of core programming and the Exposures program. The mission of the Cabaret is to support artists in their growth and development by providing an informal, supportive environment in which to develop and test work. It provides artists with opportunities to take risks; and it encourages artists to try new things by presenting work-in-progress and short finished pieces. While it serves a broad range of artists, the Cabaret specifically reaches out to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender artists, and artists of color. The Exposures program is a more comprehensive next-step approach to developing new work and promoting emerging artists careers. Exposures is designed for emerging artists who are ready to create longer works, to present in longer runs, and to learn more about the business of performance production. The goal is to develop the artistic and production skills of emerging artists with exceptional promise.

SARAH PENMAN and MARK ANTHONY ROLO, Minneapolis, MN, $15,000. Penman and Rolo received support for The Great Woodland Indian Mini-Tour, a 30-minute S-VHS documentary about a fast-moving road trip through the Ojibway reservations of Minnesota. At a time when perceptions about Indians are too often shaped by mainstream news coverage of treaty rights issues, and Indian gaming, the real lives of everyday Indians remain invisible. This film will provide a glimpse into some of those lives.

PENUMBRA THEATRE, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a three-part grant of $40,000 in support of Cornerstone activities, the Late Night Series and a commissioning fund for emerging Minnesota and New York City playwrights. Penumbra provides opportunities to observe, acknowledge, learn and celebrate the richness, diversity and reality of the African American experience. Cornerstone dramaturgy and development activities nurture the new works of African American playwrights, with the levels and kinds of support tailored to the needs of individuals and the demands of the scripts. The focus of the program is to identify new and emerging playwrights and to support them in a theatrical setting. Funding was authorized for Non-English Spoken Here: A Late Night Series, a performance art program curated and produced by Laurie Carlos. This brings diverse voices to Penumbra, opening up the possibilities of what theatrical performance can be and who can do it. Late Night draws a younger theatergoer. Finally, Penumbra received support to constitute a commissioning fund that will be used to provide subsidies for the creation of new work by emerging playwrights.

The Directors authorized a two-year grant of $80,000 to P.S. 122, New York City, to subsidize commissions for emerging artists appearing in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons. P.S. 122 is a performance laboratory that supports the development of works by individual artists with authentic visions. It finds, develops and brings to the public eye new artistic creations from diverse cultures and points of view. Artists investigations are encouraged through commissions, performance opportunities, donated and rented rehearsal space, workshop space, constructive criticism and discerning audiences. Jerome commissions are up-front monies that pass through P.S. 122 to the creative artist who uses them for expenses associated with the development of the new workrehearsal fees, rental of space, costumes, music, etc.

The Jerome Foundation made a grant of $6,000 to the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer JELENA PETROVIC, in support of the creation and production of new work. The Dance Alliance frequently acts as fiscal agent for independent choreographers and their companies. In the coming season, Petrovic will perform new work at Red Eye Collaboration, Studio 6A in the Hennepin Center for the Arts and a dance festival at Mount Holyoke College. Petrovic will investigate her process of making dance and will create one large evening-length piece. She will work on an extended duet with dancer Kelli Tennyson, exploring the more angular and confrontational sides of a relationship. She intends to layer and focus her ideas into stronger statements.

Actor and playwright LUU PHAM will travel with his 94 year-old grandfather for seven weeks in Vietnam. Together they will investigate significant places from his grandfathers life, and the cultural symbolism in the practice and content of the theater and literature of Vietnam. Pham expects this journey to inform the writing of a new play.

The Jerome Foundation previously authorized two grants to the PICK-UP PERFORMANCE COMPANY, New York City, in support of the development of new works by Ain Gordon. A new grant of $10,000 will be directed to the development of Eighteen Fifty, an evening-length play. The work will be a mini-historical cavalcade of a city that has changed entirely, but actually never changed at alla city where social reform, social ideals, commerce and reality have always been in conflict. The drained out, filled in, paved over Collect Pondwhich in New York Citys early days was the islands largest body of fresh wateris the entry point for Gordons script. In less than 200 years, the site has evolved from a quiet pond, to a place of execution for Revolutionary War prisoners, slaves and criminals, to a respectable waterside residence, to a waste repository for surrounding tanneries, to a landfill supporting the slum known as The Five Points, to a parking garage, and finally, to the ghost of a pond found under the future site of a home for law and order.

AMY PIVAR DANCES, New York City, has received Jerome Foundation subsidy since 1994. A two-year grant of $20,000 was authorized in support of the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons. Amy Pivar Dances is directed by the collaborative team of dancer/choreographer Amy Pivar and psychotherapist/writer Freda Rosen, who have come together to create a dance theater that embodies and celebrates a powerful voice and vision for women. The mission is to create sophisticated, accessible and physically charged dance works that illuminate the power, strength and infinite potential of human relations in an increasingly complex world.

THE PLAINS ART MUSEUM, serving the regional area surrounding Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota, received a grant of $15,000 to subsidize a pilot Printmaking Studio Program for emerging Minnesota artists. This museum is housed in a splendid new facility which provides exceptional exhibition, education and workshop areas. One of the unique aspects of the new facility is that the design reflects and accommodates not only the exhibition and preservation of the visual arts, but creation as well. One of the studios on the third floor will be a printmaking studio/living exhibit. The Printmaking Program will offer residencies to artists to work in the studio for determined amounts of time. A professionally trained printer, capable of executing the production of original prints, will staff the studio. The purpose of the funded program is to assist emerging artists in creating original fine art prints in partnership with the museum.

In 1971, PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS, New York City, was founded as a writers theater dedicated to the support and development of new American playwrights, composers and lyricists. The New Theater Wing, established in 1988, is the theaters play development program that supports work through every stage of its evolution, tailor-making assistance to the needs of each individual creator. It includes readings, commissions, playwrights units and a substantial literary program of reviewing and evaluating scripts. For its comprehensive work with emerging playwrights, the Jerome Foundation made a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the New Theater Wing of Playwrights Horizons.