Past
Grantees

MARY COLLINS, producer of the Twin Cities Tap Festival, received a grant to travel to Chicago, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Portland, Oregon. Collins will attend and examine long established tap dance festivals in each of the three cities in order to collect information which will contribute to the effectiveness of the festival in the Twin Cities.

CIRCUM-ARTS FOUNDATION, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for COMMON SENSE COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE, received $5,000 in support of a self-produced concert featuring works by eight emerging composers. These originating artists are collaborating with Twisted Tutu, a New York City-based performance duo, to present the concert. Works-in-progress sessions will continue throughout the summer with the premiere performance taking place in the fall.

A two-year authorization of $20,000 was awarded to the SOUTHERN THEATER FOUNDATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for the CONCRETE FARM DANCE COLLECTIVE. Concrete Farm consists of dancers and choreographers Susan Scalf, Morgan Thorson, Kristin VanLoon and Arwen Wilder. The first phase of this two-year program is a Dance Laboratory, an extended time in which members of the Collective will experiment with their singular creative processes and choreographic collaborations. This will lead to the presentation of a full concert event a the Southern Theater in the spring of 1999. There will be open rehearsals during the duration of the grant period.

CREATIVE TIME, New York City, received a one-year grant of $12,000 to support the participation of emerging artists in the 1997-98 CityWide and CyberWide programs. Creative Time has presented the work of hundreds of emerging, under-recognized and established artists of all disciplines to the public in unusual and expected sites. It works closely with each artist from project conception to final presentation, as a form of technical assistance which expands upon the direct financial support provided. The organization is willing to experiment with new forms, reach out to new communities and be adventurous about content concerning contemporary social issues. An open application process produces a number of artists proposals which qualified selection panels review. Jerome subsidy supports the participation of emerging artists. The CyberWide program, a newer initiative, assists artists in developing projects which explore public space on the Internet.

CRUCIBLE, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $15,000 to support professional development programs for artists working in glass. The Crucible Glass Project offers intensive workshops taught by acclaimed artists, hosts public lectures, organizes exhibitions and promotes critical dialogue. Jerome funding will support a hot glass workshop, a casting workshop and a fellowship for an artist of color.

A grant of $7,000 was designated for P. S. 122, New York City, a producing organization acting as fiscal agent for performance artist KYLE DECAMP. deCamp is developing a solo performance based on the enigmatic life and career of the movie icon Jean Seberg. The primary text of the work is a continuous interview based on verbatim utterances from Seberg, from her first appearance in the media at age seven to her published suicide note at age 40. The piece is scheduled for a two-week run at P.S. 122 in September 1997. deCamps work process involves extensive research, playing with source materials and developing them in rehearsal, then more gathering, editing and construction of different layers.

Choreographer and flamenco dancer SUSANA DI PALMA received funding to travel to Seville and Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. She will attend a flamenco festival and will also conduct research at the Foundacion del Arte Flamenco.

MO DONAHUE, Minneapolis, MN, $11,500. Donahue received support for Soft Boiled Desire, a 30-minute experimental narrative video exploring the story of a woman who struggles for the courage to free herself and her daughter from an abusive relationship. Through improvisation, Donahue will create and develop characters and scenes which express her thoughts and feelings about perceived reality and the nature of being female in a male dominated world.

ARTS SWEATS, INC./DAVID DORFMAN DANCE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in general support of the 1997 -98 and 1998-99 seasons. Funding will support the companys touring and residency work in 1997-98, as well as the development of new works, and Dorfmans first self-produced concert run at the Joyce Theater in the 1998-99 season. Hell create his third community-based work, Arts in Action: The No Rolls Barred Project, a new piece made to a commissioned scored by composer/violinist Hahn Rowe and a new duet for Dorfman and Dan Froot.

THE DRAWING CENTER, New York City, received a two-year grant of $29,000 in support of the Viewing Program and Selections exhibitions over the 1997-98 and the 1998-99 program years. These grants subsidize the participation of emerging artists in two primary activities of The Drawing Center. Selections exhibitions present the work of emerging and under-represented artists and claim a prominent place in The Drawing Centers exhibition season. The Viewing Program is a service offered to emerging artists and the primary source from which The Drawing Center chooses works that appear in Selections exhibitions. In the Viewing Program, Center curators meet personally with 30 to 40 artists per week, in one-on-one reviewing sessions which provide artists with professional critique and discussion. Once artists have presented their work to the curators, they are invited to place examples of their work in the Centers slide registry.

Writer and storyteller ANNE DUNN, from Cass Lake, will travel to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee, Scotland. Dunn is of Anishinabe Ojibwe, French, Irish and Scottish heritage. She will explore the story of a Scottish ancestor who served on a ship that burned at sea and was rescued by indigenous peoples in the Horn of South America.

TOM DUNN, a playwright from St. Cloud, will travel to New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Quebec over a 23-day period. Dunn will follow the trail of Winslow Homer for the purpose of writing a play about his life and work.

A grant of $12,000 was authorized for EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO, New York City, in support of 1998 Contempornea exhibitions. The mission of El Museo del Barrio is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret works of art that reflect the cultural heritage of Latin Americans in the United States. Amidst a large and diverse program, El Museo mounts Contempornea, an innovative series designed to provide emerging and under-recognized artists with significant opportunities to create and exhibit new works which advance their artistic development and professional careers through large-scale installations in a high-visibility gallery. Artists to be featured in 1998 are Valeska Soares, and Gonzalo Diaz and Sergio Vega.

ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATRE, New York City, a long-term grantee of the Jerome Foundation, received a two-year grant of $35,000 in support of playwright development programming in the current and 1998-99 seasons. Ensemble Studio Theatre was founded in 1971 with two primary goals: to nurture individual theater artists and to develop new American plays. Under the guidance of founder and Artistic Director Curt Dempster, the membership has grown from a core of 20 artists to a flourishing community of close to 500 theater artists. EST has a multi-faceted developmental program which includes Youngblood, a series of works by artists in their early to late 20s; Internfest which is a presentation of new work developed by an intern company; a summer conference; Octoberfest which is a month-long festival of member initiated projects; First Look, a series of staged readings; the Spring Marathon of One-Act Plays; and a cabaret series titled Hells Kitchen Sink. The Literary Department reads and evaluates approximately 2,000 scripts each year and undertakes a variety of initiatives designed to assist writers.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a $15,000 18-month grant in support of EVERGREEN CHRONICLES and its Novella project. Evergreen is a gay and lesbian literary and cultural publication which features poetry, fiction, cultural commentary and visual art. The publication responds to changing notions of literature, arts, cultures, and of gay and lesbian peoples. For the Novella contest, submissions are reviewed by Evergreen editors and finalists reviewed by independent jurors. Subsidy will assist in paying writers and artists whose works are published as well as supporting technical assistance and services offered by Evergreen Chronicles staff and Board.

The Jerome Foundation Directors offered continued support in the form of a two-year grant of $25,000 to EYE OF THE STORM, a theater which has contracted with THE LORING PLAYHOUSE THEATRE COMPANY of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as its fiscal agent. Founded in 1991, Eye of the Storm produces new and contemporary plays. The works reveal vision, clarity, exhilaration and risk. Funding will support a two to three-play annual season schedule, with a commitment to emerging playwrights, actors and designers. This includes works by playwrights Bridget Carpenter and David Sadaris, a yet-to-be identified playwright who will create a play for the 1998-99 season and a fourth work for which negotiations are not yet completed.

Composer ERIC FAWCETT received funding to study with two excolas de samba in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He will also attend Terrerio services of the Candomble religion to experience and investigate its various rhythms which he hopes to incorporate into his compositions for dance.

A grant of $5,000 in support of services to film and video artists was authorized for FilmNorth (formerly Independent Feature Project/North), Minneapolis. IFP/North is a nonprofit service organization for independent film and video makers, founded in 1987 to promote and encourage quality independent video and film making, and to develop public appreciation for media. Services and programs range from small and informal gatherings to screenings of members works and intensive seminars which deal with topics such as film financing, production and distribution.

FLYING FOOT FORUM, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $20,000 in support of the 1997-98 and 1998-99 program years. Flying Foot Forum was founded in 1991 by choreographer Joe Chvala, with the mission of reawakening the dormant potential of percussive dance by fleshing out the full scope of its dramatic possibilities and bringing that work to audiences. The company stretches existing percussive dance forms (such as tap, clogging, ancient hula, and stepdance) into unusual and varied theatrical contexts to create a living, expanding tradition of percussive dance. Funds from Jerome Foundation will be allocated to new work development over the next two years, during which time Chvala expects to finish four pieces and present two local concerts each season.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $18,000 to FORECAST Public Art Works, St. Paul, Minnesota, to support the development phase of an AIDS Memorial project. This grant allows FORECAST and co-sponsoring agencies to undertake community discussions to receive counsel from and form partnerships with the parks department, neighborhood groups, HIV/AIDS support groups, youth groups, corporations, sponsors, artists and the broader cultural community. A detailed request for proposals for demonstration projects will be distributed broadly to emerging artists and interdisciplinary teams throughout Minnesota. Four demonstration projects, designed to provide a range of ideas on a memorial, will be selected.