Past
Grantees

A grant was awarded to YANCE FORD in support of Strong Island, a gut-wrenchingly powerful feature-length documentary that explores the murder of the directors brother in 1992, looking at the way in which race influenced the investigation into his death and the effect the murder had on his family. It is an examination of how grief plays out over time. In 1992 there were 11,175 black men murdered in America. The filmmakers brother was among them. A black 24-year-old schoolteacher, he had been arguing with a white 19-year-old mechanic about the quality of a repair job. This rather common scenario turned deadly when the mechanic retrieved a .22 caliber rifle from the shop office and shot Ms. Fords brother once in the chest. When his killer claimed self-defense, the police focused their investigation solely Ms. Fords brother. When the DA decided not to press charges against the mechanic, Fords family retreated into a devastating silence. After nearly twenty years, the filmmaker has decided that its time for the silence to end. (All three panelists described this project as one of the most powerful they have ever seen. I thought the artful subtleties of the work sample were devastating. This is a truly remarkable project that is quite possibly the most compelling Ive seen in my years at Jerome.)

The FOUNDATION CENTER, New York City, received a grant of $2,000 in general support of its 2011 program. The Centers mission is to strengthen the social sector by advancing knowledge about philanthropy in the U.S. and around the world. Its current online database contains information on more than 2,000,000 grants and nearly 100,000 U.S. grantmakers. The Centers training, educational programs, and special events are attended by thousands of people throughout the United States every month. The Foundation Center of today is preparing for the knowledge-driven philanthropy of tomorrow. It is committed to providing grantmakers, advisors, social investors, nonprofits, and others with the kinds of data-driven tools, research, and analysis that help them maximize the allocation of their resources.

FOUR WAY BOOKS, New York City, received $13,000 in support of the publication of books by two emerging poets, and promotional book tours. The independent literary press Four Way Books publishes both poetry and fiction, sponsors a residency at a writers retreat, and hosts literary events. Now entering its 17th year, Four Way Books acquires and produces important, surprising, and potent works for readers. It seeks to expand the literary audience and nurture talented adult writers, spanning a wide range of geographic, cultural, and economic backgrounds.

FRANCONIA SCULPTURE PARK, Franconia, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $70,000 to support the Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. Franconia offers a combination of residence, work, and exhibition space for emerging and established artists. Its mission is to foster an inspiring environment for artists to expand their skills and promote the public education of three-dimensional art. Fellowships are given to emerging artists based in Minnesota and New York City. Artists are provided with room and board, outdoor studio space, equipment, tools, staff and intern support, materials, and stipends. There is an open call with an independent panel review to select the resident artists.

FRANKLIN ART WORKS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $21,000 in support of the participation of Minnesota and New York City-based emerging artists in the exhibition program. Franklin Art Works is a visual and performing arts center that has presented over 90 one-person exhibitions over the past nine years. Its purpose is to present cutting-edge work by contemporary artists, primarily based in Minnesota and New York City. Franklin Art Works celebrates the art of this time in all its complexity and diversity. Jerome support is directed toward the participation of emerging artists in the exhibition season, encompassing the Main Gallery, the Project Space, and Video Gallery. A majority of the exhibition opportunities are directed to emerging artists from the Foundation's two geographic areas, supplemented with artist talks, lectures, tours, brochures, and educational materials.

FULL CIRCLE PRODUCTIONS, Bronx, New York, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of Soul Intention. Full Circle Productions offers original programming of dance theater works, workshops, mentorships, and classes that cover all the major forms of Hip-Hop expressions. The organization operates under the artistic direction of Rokafella and Kwikstep. Soul Intention aims to show how music and dance inspire each other in the generation and development of new moves and sounds, and how audiences play a part in this creative moment on stage

DAVID FULMER, composer, violinist, and conductor, New York, New York, will travel to Oslo, Norway, to study and research Norwegian folk music and ancient instruments of Scandinavia. His specific interest in the Northern Germanic tradition includes uses of the ancient Norwegian fiddle, the Hardanger. Fulmer will compose new works based on Norwegian tunings and inspired by the artwork of Edvard Munch.

AARON GABRIEL, composer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Paris, France, to work with with the students, teaching artists and alumni of Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris learning the Lecoq technique with a focus on how music can be integrated into ensemble-created work. This study will expand his practice in integrating music into ensemble-created work for his company.

JEFFREY GIBSON, painter and installation artist, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Winnipeg, Canada, and Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to meet with traditional artisans working with weaving, beading, embroidery, appliqu, and basketry, and learn more about these techniques from observing the artists and conversing with them about their process and purpose for making cultural objects for their communities. Gibson hopes this experience will enrich his skills and vocabulary for describing these techniques and objects, open up new ideas for his work, and make lasting connections with artisans.

The GIVENS FOUNDATION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $18,000 in support of the Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program. The mission of the Givens Foundation is to enrich cultural understanding and learning through programs that advance and celebrate African American literature and writers. The Retreat Program engages ten emerging African American writers from diverse genres in an eight-month program providing mentoring and peer support, building literary community, honing literary craft, and producing new works. The Program begins with an intensive urban retreat and continues with monthly craft workshops, culminating in a performance of new work created during the year.

The Jerome Foundation Directors committed $20,000 to GRAYWOLF PRESS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the publication of three books by emerging authors based in New York City and Minnesota. Graywolf Press is dedicated to the creation and promotion of thoughtful and imaginative contemporary literature essential to a vital and diverse culture. Graywolf combines artistic integrity with the resources and professional capacity necessary to recognize and nurture writers and to take their work to readers eager for distinctive literature. Graywolfs commitment to new and emerging writers is a vital aspect of its nonprofit mission, ensuring that fresh literary voices have a strong outlet for their work.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for MIGUEL GUTIERREZ AND THE POWERFUL PEOPLE, New York City, received a grant of $9,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of the new work And Lose the Name of Action. The Field is dedicated to providing strategic services to performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond. It fosters creative exploration, stewards innovative management strategies, and helps artists reach their fullest potential. Miguel Gutierrez makes solo and group pieces with a variety of artists under the moniker Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. In his work, the interplay of movement, text, sound, and light creates, for the performers and the audience, an immersive state of immediacy and attention. And Lose the Name of Action will be an evening-length performance that uses dance and improvisation as the bridge between discoveries from research into neurology, embodied philosophy, somatic/healing practices, and the paranormal.

HARLEM STAGE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of emerging artists commissions within the Fund for New Work. Harlem Stage is a performing arts center that celebrates and perpetuates the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. It provides opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color; makes performances easily accessible to all audiences; and introduces children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts. The Fund for New Work addresses Harlem Stages long tradition of supporting the creation, development, and presentation of works by artists of color. It formalizes commissioning and development support for artists at all career levels. Jerome subsidy enables the Fund to provide commissioning and development support to emerging artists, many of whom receive their first commissions through this program.

HEATHER HART, visual artist, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Massachusetts, Virginia, North Dakota, and Washington to research sites and relics/icons from family history on both her black and white sides for use in future projects (installations/drawings), and investigating what is post-black in this post-Obama America. She creates environments, enigmatic spaces, that are simultaneously inside and outside, minimal and handmade, spiritual and natural.

HARVESTWORKS, New York City, received $17,000 in support of the Creative Residencies Program. The mission of Harvestworks is to support the creation and presentation of artworks achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies. It aims to create an environment where artists can make work inspired and achieved by electronic media; create a responsive public context for the appreciation of new work by presenting and disseminating the finished works; advance the art communitys and the publics agenda for the use of technology in art; and bring together innovative practitioners from all branches of the arts collaborating in the use of electronic media. Harvestworks supports artists working in the fields of music composition, film and video, radio production, and visual art including performance art and interactive installation. The Creative Residencies Program commissions artists and supports them through the production process. Artists receive stipends, equipment access, and expert artist/engineers to help them accomplish their artistic intentions.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer MARIA HASSABI, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of a new evening-length work, SHOW (working title), created by Hassabi. The New York Foundation for the Arts seeks to empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives. It provides fiscal sponsorship to individual artists and emerging organizations. Hassabis works are concerned with the language of images. Her interests lie in the way we see images and how our first conceptions may be shifted as they are suspended in time. SHOW begins the moment the doors of the theater open, and in the course of an hour, examines the basic ingredients existing within live performance in an attempt to revitalize them. Hassabi will create an installation in which the various components necessary for performance exist as individual bodies of activity. At the core of SHOWs exploration is the crucial paradox that exists within live performance: the attempt to be present in the moment within a pre-constructed theatricality.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $18,000 in support of PuppetLab. Drawing inspiration from the worlds traditions of puppet and mask theatre and its lively roots in transformative ritual and street theatre, In the Heart of the Beast creates vital, poetic theatre for all ages and backgrounds. With a dual commitment to originality and education, In the Heart of the Beast devised PuppetLab, a creative process allowing space for trial and error, time for artistic experimentation, and critical peer response to new work in development. PuppetLab will engage four emerging artists who use puppet and/or object theatre to articulate their visions in an intensive seven-month puppet and mask workshop culminating in performances of the artists new works. Lab sessions will focus on such topics as storyboard creation, character and narrative development, voice and movement, specific puppet building techniques, and scene development.

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT/ABRONS ARTS CENTER, New York City, received $15,000 in support of a commissioning program to seed the development of new works by three choreographers. Since its founding in 1893, the arts have been central to Henry Street Settlements mission of opening doors of opportunity to enrich lives of Lower East Side residents and New Yorkers through social services, arts, and health care programs. The Abrons Arts Center, opened in 1975, embraces the breadth of creativity on the experimental performance scene by promoting avant-garde trends in conceptual choreography, performance art, body art, multimedia, nonrepresentational theater, contemporary music, and the visual arts combined with stage/body-based work. In addition to the commission, the Center will provide rehearsal workspace throughout the creative process, technical and administrative assistance, works-in-progress showings if needed, and full productions of the new works.

ODED HIRSCH was awarded a grant for There is Nothing New, a short experimental film that aims to reconstruct the spirit of community of a Kibbutz in rural Israel. The plot is centered on an absurd scene where a group of people try to release and rescue a person whose parachute got caught on electricity lines in a desolate open field. As time goes by, people gather around the parachutist in order to pull him out of the entangled and dangerous situation. In spite of the urgent need for immediate action, they react in very cumbersome and lingering ways that only serve to highlight the absurdity of the situation. According to the filmmaker, this work will function in between the mediums of fragmented video art and narrative fiction. Hirsch feels it will be the most ambitious project of his career as an emerging experimental filmmaker.

RICHARD HITCHLER, Artistic Director, SteppingStone Theatre for Youth Development, Saint Paul, Minnesota, will travel to Action Transport Theatre (Ellesmere Port, England) and TADA! Youth Theater (New YorkCity), to bring the playwriting process into more of a direct dialogue with other aspects of theatre for young audiences and explore a theatre exchange model that will foster long-distance co-creation opportunities for professional artists working in youth theatre, as well as for youth casts.