Past
Grantees

 Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $26,500 in support of the Jerome Ceramic Artists Project Grant Program. Founded in 1990, the Center’s mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Its goals are to promote excellence in the work of clay artists, provide educational opportunities for artists in the community, and encourage and expand the public’s appreciation and understanding of all forms of ceramic art. Programs include exhibitions, classes and workshops, studio space and grants for artists, and a sales gallery. The Jerome Ceramic Artists Project Grant Program supports emerging ceramic artists. The 2014 program will provide three grants of $6,000, with a culminating exhibition of produced work in January 2015. The project grants include activities such as experimenting with new techniques and materials, subsidizing studio time, purchasing supplies, and collaborating with other artists. There is an open call for applications and review by an independent panel of experts in the field.

ORTIZ-VIZCAY, ORLANDO ARUÁN, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Cuba to study the historic turning points in the development of Afro-Haitian music, percussion instruments, and the fusion of Afro-Haitian music with European music, in order to comprise a reference, structure, and philosophy for his future compositions. Ortiz-Vizcay was born in Santiago de Cuba and is of Cuban-Haitian descent. His formal musical training was nevertheless classically focused on Western jazz with no historical background or in-depth study of African elements in Cuban music and Haitian-Cuban music. In recent years, he has found his compositional interests pulled toward his cultural roots. Ortiz-Vizcay plans to interview individuals from key Afro-Cuban and Haitian-Cuban cultural centers and heritage societies as well as attend rehearsals and performances to understand how ensembles are arranged. He will take lessons with masters of Afro-Haitian percussion instruments such as premier tambour, second tambour, tambora, and catá, to understand the rhythmic variations.

OSWALD, SYLVAN, New York, will travel to Birmingham, Alabama, and Chicago, Illinois, to do experiential and archival research for a play on SUN RA in preparation for a fall 2014 production in New York City. As a white trans playwright living in New York, Oswald has had to make enormous imaginative leaps to write about an African-American male who grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama and came of age in 1940s and 50s Chicago. He was drawn to write about SUN RA because of his story of personal transformation – of self-production both literally and spiritually, the story of aradical, black, and probably queer and autistic artist in the twentieth century. Oswald will trace Sun Ra’s migratory path, beginning with the site of his childhood home near the Birmingham Amtrak station and traveling to Chicago’s South Side where he first made his name as a bandleader. Oswald will research SUN RA’s life-long collaborator and business partner, Alton Abraham, whose papers are archived at the University of Chicago and at the Experimental Sound Studio in Ravenswood.

PALISSIMO, New York City, received $12,000 in support of the development and production of Endangered Pieces, a multidisciplinary performance work merging dance, soundscape, and visual art. Palissimos mission is to attain artistic liberty in pursuit of communion/dialogue with the audience through live performances, research, and teaching. Palissimo is under the direction of choreographer, dancer, and sound designer Pavel Zutiak. Endangered Pieces responds to recent unprecedented shifts in the global landscape. It unravels as an opus of dream-like scenes, excavating the demise of a national dream and the relentless desire for meaning and solace in the face of global upheaval. It grows out of Zutiaks ongoing engagement with the sometimes gruesome, sometimes mundane images of life, reduced to elemental clarity. Endangered Pieces will premiere in the fall of 2013.

PANGEA WORLD THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received the second year of a two-year grant of $32,000 and a new commitment of $36,000 over two years in support of the participation of emerging playwrights in Alternate Visions.  The mission of Pangea World Theater is to illuminate the human condition, celebrate cultural differences, and promote human rights by creating and presenting international, multidisciplinary theater.  Jerome funding assists Pangea in developing new works by providing participating emerging artists with dramaturgy, workshops, and public readings to prepare their performances for mainstage productions.  Pangea hosts discussions between artists and audiences and facilitates public dialogues on issues raised in each of the plays.  Over the course of two years, five emerging Minnesota artists receive Jerome support.  

VINCENT PEONE and JOSH RUBEN, received a grant in support of The Sea is Blue, a stop-motion animated short that follows the journey of Dina, a girl who falls off her uncle Wolfy’s fishing boat and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. She finds herself in a murky, green, altogether alien world. Saddened by her inability to swim back up to the surface, she begins to cry. It’s then that a group of deep-sea fish hear her cries and surround her. They’ve never seen anything like the glowing blue substance coming from her eyes – her tears. Scared at first, the creatures calm and comfort her. Dina’s unlikely new friends eventually teach her how to swim. Just when she begins to feel at home with these otherworldly friends, an anchor falls – a beacon for Dina to make her way back to her life and her real family. As she leaves, the fish realize that Dina has taught them something – sadness. As Dina is hoisted up to the skies by the anchor of her Uncle’s boat, the fish begin to cry, forever changing the murky green sea into a beautiful blue. Dina is reunited with her uncle, but not without changing the ocean forever.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, received $38,000 in support of the commissioning of new works from six emerging artists, whose works will be produced by P.S. 122. Dedicated to supporting the creative risks taken by artists from diverse genres, cultures, and perspectives for over three decades, P.S. 122 is a hub for contemporary performance and an active member of the cultural community in New York City and across the globe.  It presents artists working in contemporary performance, theater, dance, multidisciplinary areas, new music, media and installation.  Jerome support allows P.S. 122 to commission new works by emerging artists based in New York City and Minnesota.

BENT-JORGEN PERLMUTT received support for Against the Clock, a documentary about car racing.  As Cuba lifts its 50-year ban on car racing, five of its top drag racers prepare their American classics to compete.  The vast changes sweeping Cuba are evident in these drivers’ struggle to gear up for the first official race since the Revolution. From the race’s announcement, through the challenges they face preparing their cars and the obstacles they encounter from the Government, these racers reveal an intimate portrait of life in Cuba today.  The film’s story is told from the perspective of the racers with no narration and few interviews, ultimately allowing the characters to speak for themselves.  Shot mostly hand-held in an observational style, the film will have an intimate, fly-on-the-wall demeanor providing a unique window into a society that could quite possibly be undergoing change. 

Peterson, Sonja, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to the Lake District and London, United Kingdom, to collect resource material and undertake research for an ongoing project that focuses on the Romantic vision of nature juxtaposed with the open frontier of current global financial systems. Recently, she has been making work inspired by the book Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes.  The book focuses on scientists, poets, explorers, and botanists of the Romantic Era.  She’s interested in juxtaposing the Romantic notion of the world with current day dilemmas, drawing parallels between how nature was once considered boundless in the Romantic Era with the idea of the financial market as an open frontier.  Thus far, much of her imagery has come from imagination.  She proposes to visit the homes and the environs of Romantic Era poets and then walk, draw, and document the Lake District countryside that was a source for their writings. She will visit the home and grounds of the Wordsworth Trust, which houses a wealth of manuscripts, books, drawings, and pictures of the Romantic Era.  It also is the beginning point for a number of walking tours to locations that inspired the poets. In London, she will visit the library of the Royal Society of the History of Science and the Chelsea Physic Garden. She will also visit and photogragh the financial center of London. 

PILLSBURY UNITED COMMUNITIES/PILLSBURY HOUSE + THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received two grants: $36,500 in support of the 2013 Late Nite series and $10,000 in support of the commissioning, development and production of new works by emerging playwrights and the Three Mondays reading series. Launched in 1992 as a professional arts institution committed to the Settlement House tradition of creating art in collaboration with community, the mission of Pillsbury House + Theatre is to produce challenging theater to inspire choice, change, and connection. Non-English Speaking Spoken Here: The Late Nite Series is a transformation of culture where text, music, spoken word, sounds, and images weave together in a fearless celebration of new voices and new art. The Series features new works in development from emerging artists based in New York City and Minnesota. The Three Mondays reading series develops and showcases the works of new and emerging playwrights. The Theatre also commissions and produces new works by emerging playwrights.

Pillsbury United Communities, on behalf of Pillsbury House+Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $12,000 in support of readings, developmental activities, and mainstage productions of new plays by emerging playwrights based in Minnesota and New York City. The Theatre’s mission is to create challenging theatre to inspire choice, change, and connection. The Theatre illuminates the differences that make each person unique and the similarities that bring people together within an artistic environment that promotes understanding and leads to positive action. The scope of the Theatre’s developmental process begins with commissioning and extends through readings, workshops, dramaturgy, and full production.

PILLSBURY UNITED COMMUNITIES/PILLSBURY HOUSE + THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $10,000 in support of the commissioning, development and production of new works by emerging playwrights and the Three Mondays reading series.  Launched in 1992 as a professional arts institution committed to the Settlement House tradition of creating art in collaboration with community, the mission of Pillsbury House + Theatre is to produce challenging theater to inspire choice, change, and connection. The Three Mondays reading series develops and showcases the works of new and emerging playwrights.  The Theatre also commissions and produces new works by emerging playwrights on its mainstage.

 Pillsbury United Communities, on behalf of Pillsbury House+Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $36,500 in support of the 2014 Naked Stages Program. The Theatre’s mission is to create challenging theatre to inspire choice, change, and connection. Naked Stages assists artists in acquiring tools to further their performance careers, including workshop opportunities in performance, critical response skills, marketing, and technical production. The program emphasizes artistic process, and provides a critical and supportive environment for creating new work. This multi-layered program is designed to empower artists to be their most bold and creative and to challenge artists and audiences to push past previous boundaries.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $144,000 in support of the Jerome Emerging Playwright Fellowship Program. The Center champions playwrights and new plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative works. Its vision is to be nationally recognized as a leader in the cultivation and promotion of playwrights and their works. Four Jerome Fellowships are awarded annually, providing emerging American playwrights with funds and services to aid them in the development of their craft. Fellows spend a year-long residency in Minnesota and have access to workshops with professional directors, dramaturgs, and actors. Selection is based on artistic excellence, potential for growth, and commitment to a vital life working in the field. 

ANN PRIM received $10,000 for Notes from There, the third and final story of The Vellum Trilogy. The trilogy is a collection of three fictional vignettes Prim began writing in 2009. Each story takes a brief but intimate look into the lives of gay women: a writer, a painter and dancers. Additionally the trilogy also examines rejection, grief, and transformation. The Jerome Foundation funded Little Words, the first chapter of The Vellum Trilogy in 2010.  Notes from There is a story told elliptically, that utilizes dance physically and metaphorically to reveal a tender love story of separation and the emotional transformation that is possible through creative expression.  In the late 1950s in a small modern dance studio run by German émigré Josette Holger, are two very promising but different dancers. The dancers Pepca and Martine become collaborators and lovers but are suddenly separated by Martine’s arrest by immigration officials.  Martine’s arrest causes Pepca to doubt the value of dance in her life and she begins to withdraw from the world. Martine’s reaction to her own arrest and the abrupt separation from Pepca cause her to transcend her physical confinement and enter into the world of her imagination. Martine creates a dance, which she sends to Pepca through a series of notes and hand drawn images. This dance reflects Martine’s confinement and passion for Pepca. These dance notes become an anchor of reality for Pepca and the path back to rediscovering her language of dance.

Printed Matter, New York City, received a disaster relief grant of $10,000 for losses and damages from Superstorm Sandy.

RANPURA, JANAKI, Minnesota, will travel to Athens, Greece, to study contemporary uses of Karagiosis shadow theater. Ranpura will work with puppeteers from the Gig Space of Six Dogs, a contemporary art gallery in Athens. She is interested in Karagiosis as a form of political puppet theater that has a long history and still continues to reinvent itself, making it ideal for her study of characters new and old. Her goal is to return with insight about how to create archetypes based on figures from the contemporary American and global economics scene that are resonant in American culture.

RED EYE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $31,500 in support of the 2012-13 New Works 4 Weeks Series and the commissioning and production of a new work by an emerging playwright.  Red Eye is a multidisciplinary creative laboratory that supports the development and production of pioneering performance work.  It’s a passionate champion of new work for the stage.  The New Works 4 Weeks Festival includes Works-In-Progress and Isolated Acts.  The overall purpose is to serve emerging artists who are exploring new directions in pieces that would benefit from an extensive reflective process and are best suited to an alternative venue for development.  Artists present new works in group evenings in the Works-In-Progress series.  Isolated Acts is a curated series, often drawn from prior years’ Works-In-Progress showings.  Grant dollars also support Red Eye’s selection of an emerging playwright based in Minnesota or New York City to create a new work for production by the Theater.

RHIZOME, New York City, received $20,000 in support of its Commissions Program.  Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.  Through open platforms for exchange and collaboration, it encourages and expands communities around these practices.  Programs, many of which happen online, include commissions, exhibitions, events, discussions, archives, and portfolios.  The goal of the Commissions Program is to support emerging artists by providing grants for the creation of significant works of new media art.  Commissioned works may take the forms of web-based pieces, works that engage mobile platforms, performance, video, installation, and sound art.  Jerome support allows Rhizome to award commissions to emerging artists based in New York City.

Rimpel, Adriana, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Mexico City, Mexico, to research her maternal Mexican lineage. Rimpel, of Mexican-American and Haitian descent, experienced a profound connection when she visited her mother's family in Mexico nine years ago. With this return trip, she seeks to map the correlations between her and her family, as inspiration and content for new work. Rimpel plans to conduct interviews with family members and research family records and archives to discover the influence of the arts in the lives of her family, their core personal values, professions and specialized skills, and any participation in activism and social justice work.