Past
Grantees

A $12,000 commitment to the Contemporanea series of EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO, New York City, will allow the institution to support the work of emerging artists. Founded in 1969, El Museo del Barrios mission is to preserve and protect the dynamic cultural heritage of Puerto Ricans and all Latin Americans in the United States. The Contemporanea series, initiated in January of 1996, features newly commissioned, site-specific installations by contemporary artists in four-month rotating slots, shown in a high visibility gallery at the entrance of El Museo.

EN GARDE ARTS, New York City, received $10,000 to continue its support of emerging creative artists. En Garde produces site-specific theater on a large scale, under the artistic direction of founder Anne Hamburger. It commissions playwrights, directors and composers to create events that call attention to treasured city landmarks, historic streets and neighborhoods, and striking architectural structures. Artists to be engaged in the current season include Chay Yew, Sapphire, Eve Ensler and Sarah Kane.

The Jerome Foundation authorized a grant of $35,000 to Exit Art, New York City, in support of exhibitions featuring works by emerging artists in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 exhibition program years. Since 1982, Exit Art has organized and presented exhibitions, film and video programs, site-specific installations, theater performances and publicationsall of which explore the diversity of art, and reflect the transcultural nature of contemporary American society.

The LORING PLAYHOUSE THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for EYE OF THE STORM, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the production of new works by emerging playwrights in the 1996 season. The first work, Hate Mail, was created by playwrights Kira Obolensky and Bill Corbett. The second will be selected for production in the fall. Funding was authorized for this adventurous theater companys growing interest in playwrights.

FilmNorth (formerly Independent Feature Project/North), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $5,000 in support of artists services. The organizations mission is to promote and encourage quality independent video and filmmaking, and to develop public appreciation for the art form. The Jerome Foundations commitment to offering production grants to emerging film and video artists in Minnesota is aided by the presence of strong service organizations such as IFP/North.

Lisa Fisher, Minneapolis, MN, $5,000. For the production of "Slash, Burn & Poison", a video documentary about breast cancer, which will consist both of personal testimonies and of political debate over various environmental and medical issues.

Arts administrator KATHLEEN FORAN, who has been working at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, has designed a two-part travel trip which will assist her in learning more about the what and how of puppet companies. She will visit Bread & Puppet Theatre in Clover, Vermont, to experience their annual Domestic Resurrection Circus, and visit New York City to see the International Festival of Puppet Theatre produced by the Jim Henson Foundation.

FRANKLIN FURNACE, New York City, received $32,000 for the Fund for Performance Art and the Performance and Installation Program. The Furnaces primary programs have been an archive of artists books, a performance series for emerging artists, and exhibitions of historical and contemporary artists books and other time-based ephemeral art. For nearly 20 years, the Furnace has presented exhibitions and performances which have given many emerging artists their first New York exposure. The Fund for Performance Art places small grants of approximately $2,000 in the hands of emerging performance artists so that they can develop and present new work. A rotating member selection panel is convened annually to review Fund applications and determine those which receive funding.

FRANKLIN FURNACE, New York City, received $32,000 for the Fund for Performance Art and the Performance and Installation Program. The Furnaces primary programs have been an archive of artists books, a performance series for emerging artists, and exhibitions of historical and contemporary artists books and other time-based ephemeral art. For nearly 20 years, the Furnace has presented exhibitions and performances which have given many emerging artists their first New York exposure. The Fund for Performance Art places small grants of approximately $2,000 in the hands of emerging performance artists so that they can develop and present new work. A rotating member selection panel is convened annually to review Fund applications and determine those which receive funding.

Support was awarded to dancer KATSUSHI FUKASAWA to experience traditional Bharatanatyam dance in its place of origin. Fukasawa, for the past two years has been performing with Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, and will travel to India to study with noted teachers and to observe performance.

GRAYWOLF PRESS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received one-year subsidy of $20,000 to support the participation of emerging writers in its 1996-97 publishing program. For more than 21 years, Graywolf Press has been publishing creative literature by contemporary writers. It will publish a total of 16 titles this year, a good portion of which will feature emerging authors. Jerome support will underwrite three titles by Jan Zita Grover, Charles Baxter, Martha Bergland; and an anthology featuring several emerging authors under the title Tolstoys Dictaphone: Technology and the Muse, which addresses the creative individuals role in a society increasingly interconnected by mass technological innovation.

Artist RAFALA GREEN will spend an extended period of time exploring the cultural and spiritual relationship to the creative process among Navajo weavers. The trip will afford her an opportunity to experience creative and spiritual energies within another culture with which she feels some affinity. Greens work is grounded in her particular realities and experiences. She recognizes an ever increasing need to build bridges of respect and meaningful communication with others whose realities and experiences are different.

AARON DAVIS HALL, New York City, received $8,000 to support commissions given to emerging creative artists within the Fund for New Works program. Under the direction of curator Laura Greer, the Fund makes it possible for artists to develop new works. Monies are used for such purposes as paying collaborators fees and subsidizing rehearsal time. Many Fund supported works are presented in one of the Halls most prominent series, New Faces/New Voices/New Visions, now entering its fifth season as a program which presents contemporary directions and innovations in the arts, and features multicultural performers who are in the vanguard of creating new traditions in their field.

Harvestworks, New York City, provides sound and computer technology and related services to emerging and mid-career artists through a Production Access Studio and a multimedia laboratory. Jerome Foundation funding of $18,000 over a two-year period will assist Harvestworks in continuing its Artist-in-Residence program.

The ILLUSION THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for playwright JEFFREY HATCHER, was awarded a grant of $9,500 to support the Hatcher production of The Turn of the Screw. Hatcher is working from the Henry James novella to create a new work scheduled for presentation in 1997. He will direct the work as part of a strategy to promote the idea of playwrights becoming entrepreneurial. The Foundations grant allows this playwright to exercise new creative muscles, and to advance his work and career.

Writer and editor SUSAN CARROL HAUSER will travel, by passenger boat, on the Mississippi River from Saint Paul to New Orleans for the purpose of reflecting on the progress and future of her writing career, as illuminated by the progress of the river from its origin near her home in Northern Minnesota to its delta in the Gulf of Mexico. She will reflect not only on her horizons, both personal and geographic, but on her writing and how it expands to match her experiences, and how her experiences expand to match the writing; and finally, on the motion and destination of water.

A grant of $7,000 was authorized for IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET & MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the development and production of a new work written by emerging playwright Andrew Kimm and based on a short story by Gabriel Garcia Mrquez. In The Heart of the Beast performs professional puppet and mask theater for the entertainment and enrichment of audiences of all ages and cultures, creating a sense of community among performers and audiences, and building a vital and healthy culture through art, festivity, work and play. A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings will be Kimms first full-length production as both writer and director. He intends to make careful use of puppets, masks, movement and sound to speak the need for personal and collective change, in the language of dreams.

Patrick Hennessey, Minneapolis, MN, $5,000. For the completion of "The Homeless Home Movie", a feature-length video documentary about the wide diversity of people who are homeless in Minnesota, as well as some of the activists who aim to assist them.

Theater director MICHELLE HENSLEY will spend four days in Austin, Texas, participating in the 1996 RAT Conference. While attending, she will further her work with San Francisco playwright Erik Ehn on a new theater piece he and her theater company, 10,000 Things, are in the process of creating. The RAT Conference is a loose collective of small theater companies from across the country, born in 1994 at a conference held at the University of Iowa.

The Great American History Theatre, St. Paul, Minnesota, received an 18-month grant of $20,000 in support of emerging playwrights stipends, royalties and workshops. The History Theatre produces theatrical works which mirror the lives of the people of Minnesota and the Midwest, with a window back to other people and other times. This grant allows the History Theatre to commission new works that dramatize the history, folklore and social issues of its region.