Past
Grantees

THE PLAYWRIGHTS' CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $20,000 in support of the Many Voices program. The Playwrights' Center fuels the theater by providing services that support playwrights and playwriting. It is committed to the core values of artistic excellence, playwright initiative and leadership, the practice of cultural pluralism, the discovery of emerging artists, advocacy of playwrights and their work and new visions of theater. The goal of the Many Voices program is to increase cultural diversity in contemporary theater, both locally and nationally. The program provides cash grants, education and opportunities to develop new works through three program components: Many Voices residencies, Multi-Cultural Collaboration grants and a Playwrights' Roundtable.

Allison Prete - Lavender Lake, a one-hour documentary about South Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal which, when opened in 1866 was hailed as "one of the shortest and most important waterways in the world." Today it's known as one of the world's dirtiest cesspools and has been dubbed Lavender Lake. To give some idea of how extensive the problem is, local residents say its putrid, perfumed airs are highly recommended for head colds. One hundred-thirty-years of raw sewage, toxic sludge, dumped corpses and drowned dogs later, the community continues to fight to clean up the Gowanus by demanding it be flushed out or filled in. And, they just may win. Prete, who is from the area, chronicles the battle of her fellow community members.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to PRIMARY STAGES, New York City, in support of the New American Writers Group. Primary Stages devotes itself to producing contemporary plays by a mix of emerging and established playwrights. The New American Writers Group, under the direction of Associate Producer Seth Gordon, meets on a regular basis to encourage and support each others work. Funding from the Jerome Foundation will enable the theater to provide stipends to the playwrights and directors engaged in this work, as well as expanding the program to include workshops, readings and possibly a festival. Emphasis is placed on individualized attention to emerging playwrights.

MARSHA QUALEY, author of Young Adult Novels, was awarded a grant to spend five days in Beaufort, South Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina; and Washington, DC. Qualey will research background locations for the concluding novel of a Vietnam trilogy

Pola Rapaport - Blind Light, one-hour, color, 16mm mixed genre/experimental narrative about emotional repression and liberation, as well as about vision, light and blindness. Two parallel stories, one real and one fictional; two women drawn in by the same experiences of transformation. Both find their emotional lives re-awakened by their discovery of the Villa San Michele on the Mediterranean Isle of Capri in Italy.

Author LINDA LIGHTSEY RICE received funding to travel to Cork, Ireland, to do research for her novel Thistle Man which takes place during World War II. Rice will interview Irish citizens about the countrys neutrality during 1944 and 1945.

KAY M. ROBINSON, of Bemidji, is a director and theater professor. She will spend one week in Edmonton, Alberta, studying Canadian theater by attending the Edmonton Fringe Festival and utilizing the reading room of The Playwright Union of Canada for the purpose of informing her work as a director.

ROULETTE INTERMEDIUM, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of its experimental and adventurous concert series of works by emerging composers. The Roulette series provides opportunities for composers to perform their works for live audiences, and for those audiences to learn about new directions in music. A large portion of Roulettes schedule is given to the works of young and emerging composers working in a wide variety of musical styles, mixing new jazz, world music, experimental rock, improvisation, multimedia and interdisciplinary work, computer music and new technologies. Emerging composers test new ideas, experiment with new styles and presentation formats, and receive a variety of support services and related opportunities through their Roulette connection.

PHILIP RUKAVINA was awarded a grant to spend one and a half months in Basel, Switzerland, to study solo lute performance with Hopkinson Smith, one of the worlds most accomplished lutenists. Rukavina will also pursue performance opportunities in Europe.

The mission of S.A.S.E.: THE WRITE PLACE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is to provide affordable, quality programming, developed and administered by a diverse group of people for writers of all backgrounds to develop their craft and present or publish their works. Its distinctive approach involves taking programs out to the community, utilizing neighborhood venues and contracting with working artists to coordinate programs. A two-year grant of $37,000 was authorized to support fellowships for emerging writers and the Writer-to-Writer Mentoring program. Serving emerging writers of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction, the fellowship program offers grants of $1,000 to $2,000 to assist writers in advancing their work and careers. An independent selection panel determines recipients. The Writer-to-Writer Mentor

THE COLLEGE OF ST. CATHERINE, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $5,000 to support the production and promotion of two issues of the journal xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics. This journal is devoted to poetry, poetics, ethnography and cultural and ethnic studies. The inaugural issue appeared in the late spring of 1997. It included poetry and translations from nearly a dozen languages and dialects, and featured emerging and established writers. One major goal is to create a solid foundation on which to promote cultural understanding through a diverse collection of voices. The journal is the brainchild of Mark Nowak, professor of English at The College of St. Catherine. This grant supports the Jerome Foundation's program focus in literature and criticism.

PATRICK SCULLY, a choreographer, performance artist and nonprofit arts administrator, will spend three months in Ireland to research a new performance piece. He will gather stories and experiences to create a work that draws parallels between two contemporary conflicts: the Irish and British in Ireland, and Native Americans and European-Americans in Minnesota.

SECOND GENERATION PRODUCTIONS, New York City, received $10,000 to produce a musical, Making Tracks, about the Asian American experience. The work is described as a rock musical about an angst-ridden new media producer who kidnaps her dying grandfather from a suburban hospital to grant him his last wishto bring him home. She embarks with the old man on a fantastical journey across the country and into the history of Asians in America, guided by storytellers who challenge the granddaughter to rethink her journey in a new light as a continuation of those before her, and the beginning of those yet to come. The production unfolds in 12 fictional scenes including the building of the railroads, picture brides, World War II internment camps and the role of Asian American engineers in contributing to the construction of the high-tech backbone of this country. Following a first draft workshop production of Making Tracks in January of 1998, a select team of five of the original collaborators are developing the piece for full production in early 1999.

A mid-career project grant of $10,000 was authorized for SHAPIRO & SMITH DANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the further development of an evening-length dance/theater collaboration titled Babel. Danial Shapiro and Joanie Smith are collaborating with the Ilkhorn Theater Company and composer Dmitry Yanov-Yanovski to explore how human relationships inform choreographic

GIDEON SHMORAK was awarded support for An Ocean Apart, a one-hour documentary in two parts (30 minutes each) about fifty African-American and Jewish students from the Frederick Douglas and Stuyvesant high schools in New York, who were united with Palestinian and Israeli students from high schools in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Nazareth. The documentary will follow these students on their journeys to Israel and the United States, where they toured historical sites, visited with families, and took part in leadership and conflict resolution workshops. Through the students' perspectives, the documentary contrasts the Black-Jewish and the Israeli-Arab relations and presents their testimonies of how the Crown Heights riots, the Million Man March, the Palestinian uprising, and the terrorist suicide attacks affected the students' lives. By observing this group of youngsters, the documentary provides a study of how complicated race relations affect young adults when they try to communicate with members of a different race.

DANNELL DEVER received a grant to spend three weeks at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine. Dever will be involved in a course of intensive study in contact improvisation with master teacher Nancy Stark Smith.

NANDINA SIKAND was awarded support for Don't Fence Me In, a twenty-seven minute coming-of-age story of a young woman in post-colonial India. With the use of personal narrative, this documentary will weave together memories, photographs, letters and interviews to create a story of her mother, Krishna Sikund. This will be a retelling of the personal history of Krishna Sikund, who was born in the fall of 1938 and grew up in a country struggling for independence from the British. It was a nation which was just beginning to develop a national identity. This is a personal story told against the backdrop of a political and social context, it is not a historical documentary. It is the story of Krishna Sikund's life, her choices and her personal battles. It is a personal narrative of a life that is poignant and humorous, ironic and passionate. Don't Fence Me In will also look at the parallels between the life of Krishna and her two daughters, who have immigrated to the United States. Ironically, even though both daughters have grown up in different eras, many of the choices they face are the same as their mother's - choices that cut across lines of time and space.

A grant of $10,000 was authorized for SKEWED VISIONS PERFORMANCE COMPANY, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Specifically, the support will cover expenses in the remainder of the 1998 season which features two works, The Eye and the Door, Part II (the second in a series of performance installations) and Sniper 2, the second in a series of by-mail performances. Skewed Visions aims to encourage multi-perspective thinking about the correlation among art, theater and performance in public spaces. This emerging performance company specializes in site-specific performance, works engaging in and engaged by their physical environment. A Skewed Visions performance is an interplay of written text, performance, visual language, space and place.

NO NAME EXHIBITIONS/THE SOAP FACTORY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $34,000 in support of programs serving emerging visual artists in the 1998 and 1999 exhibition seasons. The mission of No Name is to support emerging artists; enhance public understanding and appreciation of their artistic expressions; and foster strength and vitality within the arts, cultural and educational communities. No Name is a community-driven entity operated by artist volunteers who believe in its mission and take action to insure its implementation. Artists are chosen through an open review process following a public call for entries, through the solicitation of references and through studio visits by volunteer staff and curators. One of No Names most significant assets is The Soap Factory, a raw and unencumbered building seen as an exciting exhibition space.

SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK, New York City, received a two-year grant of $35,000 to support the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. It is the aim of Socrates Sculpture Park to encourage creative interaction among artists, their art and the community through a series of programs. The Emerging Artist Fellowship Program, subsidized primarily with grants from the Jerome Foundation and the New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship Program, provides eight artists with subsidized residencies and stipends to create new works onsite for two major exhibition seasons in the fall and spring. Technical assistance is provided to the artists. Artists are selected for these fellowships via an open call and competitive review.