Past
Grantees

JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $34,000 in support of the participation of six emerging choreographers in the Ballet Works Project. The mission of James Sewell Ballet is to create and perform works that connect artists with audiences and to advance contemporary ballet. The Ballet will select emerging choreographers based in Minnesota and New York City, and invite them to work with the company to test ideas and develop new works. The program allows for developmental time with the dancers for each choreographer. The works-in-progress will be shown to audiences. This choreographic laboratory is designed to push and play with the ballet idiom.

JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $8,625 in support of a production showcase featuring new works by emerging Minnesota-based choreographers within the 2014 Dance/USA Annual Conference held in Minnesota. Ballet Works served as the fiscal sponsor for the Minneapolis host committee. Dance/USA is the national service organization for the professional dance field, a membership entity currently serving nearly 500 companies, service and presenting organizations, individuals, and related organizations. It sustains and advances professional dance by addressing the needs, concerns, and interests of artists, administrators, and organizations.

SHAPIRO, NORAH, Minnesota, will travel to the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2014 as well as the concurrent Docs for Sale Market with her soon to be completed feature documentary Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile. Shapiro views this as an opportunity to stimulate awareness and recognition of the film, help to secure additional festival invitations, and ultimately broadcast distribution options throughout the international market.

SHOKRIAN, JOSEPHINE, New York City, will travel to Paris, France and Lussas, France to work with the artist run film laboratory, L’Abominable to investigate color hand processing techniques for 16mm film, as well as attend a seminar in Lussas, France for the State General Documentary Film Festival, and conduct film research at various institutions in Paris.  Time at this film lab will provide Shokrian a deeper understanding of various film processes, expanding her manual sensibilities and skills in order to more deeply inform her own work.

JACKIE J. STONE received support for Burning Angel Dust, a narrative short in which the central character, Mimi, a Nigérienne-American mother and immigrant, struggles to maintain a connection for her and her American born daughters to their native Nigér. Caught between her mother's expectations and the culture of her adoptive homeland, Mimi must decide to have her eldest daughter undergo a traditional rite of passage, genital cutting, or allow her children to fully embrace American life. The two cultures collide on the day of Violet's traditional coming out celebration. Violet is excited, thinking the ceremony will be like a birthday party. Mimi is conflicted, having kept the most gruesome details of the celebration from Violet. The day unfolds and slowly Violet discovers that something more will happen to her with only one person, her mother, having the power to stop it. Caught in the middle, Mimi must decide to either continue to practice her cultural ritual or allow her daughters to fully assimilate into American culture.

THE SOAP FACTORY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $20,000 to support the participation of emerging artists from Minnesota and New York City in the 2014 Exhibition Program. The Soap Factory is a laboratory for experimentation and innovation, dedicated to supporting artists and engaging audiences through the production and presentation of contemporary art. Founded in 1989 by artists, The Soap Factory provides a supportive exhibition environment for artists who are at the beginning of their careers or who are exploring new genres of expression. Housed in an historic 48,000 sq. ft. wood and brick warehouse, it offers a raw space for sculpture, installation, painting, performance, theatre, dance, photography, film, and video.

SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK, Long Island City, New York, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. Founded in 1986, Socrates is dedicated to providing artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale sculpture and multi-media installations in a unique outdoor environment that encourages strong interaction among artists, artworks, and the public. The Park’s existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization, and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity, and improvement of the urban environment. In the annual Emerging Artist Fellowship Program, Socrates selects fifteen artists and gives them the opportunity to produce and exhibit large-scale, site-specific sculptures or installations in the Park. Artists receive a production grant as well as a four-month studio residency, including access to resources and fabrication facilities in the Park’s outdoor studio. The completed work becomes part of a public exhibition opening in early September each year.

SOHO REP, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the commissioning, development, and production of new works by emerging New York City-based artists. Soho Rep is dedicated to artistic excellence by supporting distinctive, diverse, and pioneering theater. It empowers artists to make their boldest work and invites audiences to share in that intimate and transformative live experience. The Writer/Director Lab fosters collaboration between early-career writers and directors in the beginning stages of the creative process. Each year, up to five writers and directors are paired to create new plays from scratch, culminating in a public reading series.

STANFORD, CLAIRE MIYE, Minnesota, will travel to Japan to walk the 750-mile Shikoku pilgrimage as research for an upcoming novel that explores different cultural attitudes towards death and suicide through magical realism. Experiencing the temples, inns, forest trails, and pilgrims who walk the road will provide firsthand information for her novel.

STREB, Brooklyn, New York, received $23,000 in support of GO! An Emerging Artist Commissioning Program. STREB, founded in 1979, brings audiences and communities into the artistic process by breaking down barriers of participation and access with new approaches to creation, education, and presentation. The company’s mission is to create opportunities for artistic discovery and connection for a constituency whose diversity represents the breadth and complexity of society at large. It’s built around the organizing principle of Extreme Action, created by Elizabeth Streb. The goal of GO! is to support artists who can capitalize on the resources distinct to SLAM so that the space’s special and unusual characteristics and qualities inform and inspire exciting creative experiments. Emerging artists whose work is movement based, including choreographers, aerialists, and circus artists, are eligible to apply to the program. They receive opportunities to showcase their work throughout the development process, and are provided with resources tailored to the nature and scope of their projects. The resulting works and experiments are presented at SLAM.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, as fiscal sponsor for SuperGroup, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of the new work In Which _______ and Others Discover the End . Springboard is an economic and community development organization for artists and by artists. Its mission is to cultivate vibrant communities by connecting artists with the skills, information, and services they need to make a living and a life. SuperGroup is a performance collaboration of Erin Search-Wells, Sam Johnson, and Jeffrey Wells. It produces a range of performance, from durational structured improvisations to cabaret-style drag to highly layered works for stages. In Which _______ and Others Discover the End is a new dance-theater work investigating the paradoxical human need for stasis and change. Improvised and choreographic movement, song, and text born out of collaboration between SuperGroup and playwright Rachel Jendrzejewski. The performance of the work includes individual durational solos and visual installations in public spaces throughout Northeast Minneapolis.

TEMPORARY DISTORTION, Astoria, New York, received $10,000 in support of the creation, development and production of My Voice Has An Echo In It. Temporary Distortion explores the potential tensions and overlaps found between practices in visual art, theater, cinema, and music. The group, formed by interdisciplinary artist Kenneth Collins in 2002, works across disciplines to create performances, installations, films, albums, and works for the stage. My Voice Has An Echo In It is a six-hour, interactive, installation-based performance featuring live music, text, and video. The performance will take place inside a freestanding, soundproof installation 24 feet long and 6 feet wide, an immersive environment with performers and sequences, songs, interactions, and projected film, but no narrative. The audience member makes the choices of duration, attention, volume, and perspective.

HEATHER TENZER received support for the feature-length documentary The Rabbis’ Intifada. Heather Tenzer first met the ultra-Orthodox rabbis of Neturei Karta when she was a 13-year-old yeshiva (religious school) student. The rabbis were protesting the Israel Day Parade in New York City, in which she was marching. She was perplexed. Why would a Jew demonstrate against Israel? Neturei Karta (Aramaic for “Guardians of the City”) is one of the only religious Jewish groups publicly speaking out in support of Palestinian rights. The group, which was founded 75 years ago in Jerusalem, opposes Jewish nationalism in general, and the state of Israel in particular. The reasons are many, but perhaps at its heart, the group opposes the idea of transforming the Jewish religion into a nation state. For them, Israel—with its army and government—is a form of idolatry. Today, they openly call for Israel’s peaceful dismantlement. As a result of their activism, Neturei Karta rabbis are regularly beaten on the streets. Their synagogue was recently destroyed by arson. And in the 1920s, one of their leaders was assassinated in Jerusalem. Neturei Karta is deeply hated by the Zionist Jewish establishment. In fact, a few months ago, one of the most prominent American Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) included Neturei Karta on its list of top ten anti-Israel groups in the US. The Rabbis’ Intifada is a feature-length documentary film, which combines cinéma vérité, first-person narration, home movies, interviews, news reports, and archival films to tell the story of the filmmaker’s journey into the world of Neturei Karta.

The TEXTILE CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,000 in support of the Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grants Program and services to emerging professional textile artists. The Center's mission is to honor textile traditions and promote excellence and innovation in fiber art. The Project Grants Program expands opportunities for emerging fiber artists in Minnesota, supporting them as they undertake specific artistic projects. Four grants are awarded to support a wide range of project activities, from purchasing equipment and devoting time to studio work to travel and to study with established artists. A culminating exhibition caps the program year. There is an annual call for applications, which are reviewed by an independent panel of established artists who select project grant recipients.

The TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $31,800 in support of the Fiber Artist Project Grants Program and services for emerging textile artists. The Textile Center, a national center for fiber art, inspires and supports fiber artists, increases public access to and education about fiber art, fosters and promotes diversity in all areas of fiber art, preserves fiber art skills and traditions, and provides a central networking and resource facility for fiber artists. The Fiber Artist Project Grants Program supports four emerging Minnesota artists as they undertake specific artistic projects. The goal of the program is to advance the development of emerging fiber artists and increase public exposure for their creative work. An annual open call yields submissions that are reviewed by an independent jury. The program provides a project stipend, support services from the Center, and a culminating exhibition. 

ELA THIER received support for Tomorrow Ever After, a feature-length science-fiction comedy. Shaina is a historian who lives in the year 2592. Humans, at this point, have cleaned up the planet. War, poverty, pollution, greed, exploitation, depression, loneliness - these are things that she’s read about in history books. She has studied this dark period of history, in which most human labor was organized in the service of profits rather than human needs. But she has never, in the flesh, seen human beings hurt other human beings...until now. While getting involved with a group of physicists who experiment with time travel, Shaina accidentally ends up stranded in the year 2014. Despite her knowledge of history, old habits are hard to break, and she assumes that everyone around her is honest, generous and caring. When a character named Milton attempts to mug her, Shaina is thrilled to find someone who is willing to talk to her. Thrown by her trust and warm affection, Milton’s life slowly transforms as Shaina insists on a continued relationship of mutual support. Through Milton, Shaina meets a colorful cast of hilarious and tragic characters, as she tries to recruit their help to get back home. Shaina is heartbroken by her new understanding of what humans in this period of time had to live through. Ultimately, however, she fills with awe and gratitude. What kind of resilience and courage did it take, she wonders, for humanity to have hauled itself through this dark and thorny journey, and lead itself out of its state of despair, to build the world in which she was born?  

TOFTE LAKE CENTER, Ely, Minnesota, received $27,000 in support of residencies of emerging artists in the summer of 2014. Tofte Lake Center is a creative retreat center for artists, scholars, and thinkers of all disciplines. The Center offers residencies for individuals, artistic groups, and organizations who seek to create work in residence in a natural setting with arts facilities and confortable cabins. The facilities feature both individual and group workspaces. Jerome funding supports three weeklong residencies for emerging artists working in any discipline, one of those weeks dedicated to a group residency and two weeks dedicated to individuals and small creative teams. Jerome-supported residencies balance group activities, individual work time, facilitated conversations, and the exchange of ideas and work. Residencies are structured to meet an artist's specific needs. Applications in response to an open call are reviewed by an independent selection panel.

TOMAS, REBECCA, New York City, will travel to Madrid, Spain, for a three-week intensive study of Baston (percussive cane) and the masculine style within Flamenco dance to expand her choreographic style and influence works that she will be creating over the next year. Tomas inverts gender roles and integrates modern vocabulary grounded in the Flamenco tradition and will use this study to further her choreographic work. 

JINY UNG received support for Tofu Riot, a 2D animated short film about the stressful life of Tofui, a beancurd. Tofui is a symbol of the city, an aggressive, stressed-out workaholic who wants a promotion. In this animated piece, we follow Tofui as it struggles to survive in a busy city filled with gender ambiguous fruits, vegetables and legumes.

VALENCIA, MARIANA, New York City, will travel to Mexico City D.F., to research Cumbia Sonidera dancers. Cumbia Sonidera is a musical style created by DJs that originated in the marginalized neighborhoods of Mexico City. Valencia plans to work with artist Martin Lanz in Iztapalapa, Mariana Delgado, a member of Proyecto Sonidero, and scholar Nina Hoechtl at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) to expand her understanding of this style for use in future projects.