Past
Grantees

KATORI HALL, a playwright from New York City, will travel to Kigali, Rwanda, to learn about the Rwandan genocide through the Summer Rwandan Genocide Studies program. She will use the information she learns about the history, politics and current societal structure of Rwanda as the cultural context for a new play.

HARLEM STAGE/AARON DAVIS HALL, New York City, received $22,500 in support of emerging artists commissions within the 2009-10 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. Through the Fund for New Work, Harlem Stage provides commissioning and development support to artists creating new works. The Jerome-supported part of the program provides emerging artists with commissions, subsidized rehearsal space, mentoring support with established artists and presenters, technical support, and other administrative and production support.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $16,660 in support of the 2009 MayDay Mentor Program. In the Heart of the Beast is a professional puppet and mask theatre that brings people together for the common good through the power of puppet and mask performance. It combines original design, writing, music and movement to create puppet and mask productions that captivate audiences of all ages. For 35 years, it has produced the annual MayDay parade and festival. The Mentor Program, introduced in 2006, is designed to give emerging puppet and mask artists formalized training in the artistic process of creating community ceremonial productions. Skills are required in community organizing and teaching as well as artistic vision and technique. The Mentor Program builds skills sets in emerging artists and prepares them to assume leadership roles in ceremonial productions.

DARIN HEINIS was awarded support for Detachment, a narrative short about an Iraq War veteran who attempts to assimilate back into his prewar life, and his struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Jack constantly revisits the horrors he witnessed in combat. He must confront those issues, and the dark shadow they cast on his life, in order to heal and finally realize that what happened in the past was not his fault. The story comes from a very personal place, as the filmmaker is a Gulf War veteran. Although he does not suffer from PTSD, he understands how the condition can be all consuming to those who do. Detachment is his attempt to tell the story of one mans struggle to conquer his war-related demons.

HERE ARTS CENTER, New York City, received $18,000 in support of the creation and development of new works by emerging artists participating in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). HARP nurtures the development of hybrid artists and their audiences, through cross-disciplinary exchange, peer-driven workshops, and panel discussions. HARP artists work at their own pace and in whatever directions their project requires. HARP has two primary components: development and production. The development aspect is thorough and intensive, including regular showings of works-in-progress and workshop presentations. In the production component, artists learn more about the creative and business elements of producing their work.

BEN HEYWOOD, Executive Director of The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Venice, Italy, to attend the 53rd Venice Biennale. The Soap Factory supports new and emerging practice across the visual arts. The Venice Biennale, since its founding in 1882, has promoted new artistic trends and organized international events in the contemporary arts in accordance with a multi-disciplinary model. This trip will be a powerful professional development opportunity for Heywood to connect with what is new in a global contemporary arts context.

The HIGHPOINT CENTER FOR PRINTMAKING, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $14,400 in support of three Emerging Printmakers Residencies. The Center, dedicated to advancing the art of printmaking, provides educational programs, studio access and collaborative publishing opportunities to engage a diverse community of printmakers and to increase public understanding of and appreciation for the printmaking arts. Since 2003, the Center has operated an Emerging Printmakers Residency program with support from the Jerome Foundation. An annual open call produces submissions reviewed by an independent jury, which selects three emerging artists for nine-month residencies followed by a culminating group show. Artists receive access to etching presses, lithography presses, lithographic stones, screenprinting tables, the technical and program support of a Printshop Coordinator, discounts on classes, free access to master classes and lectures, professional sets of digital images of their work, a group show and post-residency support. During the residency, the artists come together for group meetings and critiques led by art professionals. The program provides complete technical facilities and opportunities to engage in a professional community.

Playwright CORY HINKLE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Oklahoma and Kansas to do historical research on the creation of each of the two states and the failed attempt by Native Americans to create their own separate state, Sequoyah. Hinkle hopes to incorporate the research into a new play examining issues of American myths, dreams and cycles of injustice and violence.

Performance artist SOOZIN HIRSCHMUGL, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to England to study spectacle theater and celebratory art traditions of England's Horse and Bamboo Theater, The Heben Parade, The Liverpool Lantern Theater, and Walk the Plank Theater. She will utilize and integrate new skills and techniques in her work with Barebones Productions, a Minneapolis-based collective of visual and performing artists who create installations and performances.

SAMUEL D. HUNTER, a playwright residing in New York City, will travel to the Precious Moments Chapel and Park in Carthage, Missouri, to to conduct research for his play meat, which centers on the culture surrounding Precious Moments. Inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Rome, Precious Moments artist and creator Sam Butcher designed and constructed the Chapel as an extension of the spiritual ideas behind his figurines of teardrop-eyed children he calls "Precious Moments".

A grant was awarded to GABRIELA ILIJESKA for a narrative short titled Azra, a story about a young girl who longs for her family's old life in her home country as her parents attempt to forge a better life in America. The film will focus on Azra's perception of the new world, her rebellion against it, and her escapism into dreams where raspberries grow all year around, where her father is an astronaut, not an asbestos worker, and her mother is a beautiful queen, not a waitress. The film will use a visual style of storytelling, with little to no dialogue, blended with fantasy imagery that provides an important relief from the claustrophobic and cluttered reality in which the family lives.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,607 in support of the VERVE Awards for Spoken Word Artists and the S.A.S.E./Jerome Awards for emerging writers. The mission of Intermedia Arts is to be a catalyst that builds understanding among people through art. It operates multidisciplinary arts programs, stimulates broad civic dialogues, and gives voice to the issues and experiences of under-represented communities. The S.A.S.E./Jerome Awards are available in amounts up to $5,000 for five to seven emerging Minnesota writers who submit proposals in response to an open call. An independent peer panel selects recipients. The VERVE Awards are given to emerging spoken word poets, who submit applications for review and selection by a nationally recognized spoken word artist.

A grant of $12,000 was authorized for ISSUE PROJECT ROOM, Brooklyn, New York, to support an Artist In Residency (AIR) Program for four emerging New York City-based composers. ISSUE Project Room, founded in 2003, is dedicated to the presentation of works by contemporary composers. It provides an open and versatile environment in which both established and emerging artists conduct, exhibit, and perform new and site-specific work according to their individual visions. The AIR program focuses on emerging composers and sound artists whose works demonstrate an interest in pioneering new exploration within a field. Four emerging composers or composer-led ensembles will be selected for three-month, individually designed residencies to test new compositional ideas with the option to perform them as works-in-progress. Artists are given rehearsal space, technical and production support, and promotional/marketing resources.

Directors authorized $22,500 to THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, in support of commissions to emerging composers for new vocal works, lyrics and music. The Jazz Gallery provides an international venue where the youngest generation of professional jazz musicians can be nurtured, giving them an audience for their performances and a stage upon which to assemble their bands. This commitment marks the third from the Jerome Foundation, each grant intended to support commissions to emerging composers. The current grant supports four commissions for new works to be premiered at The Jazz Gallery in a sequence of two-night engagements. The composers to be commissioned have demonstrated significant innovative abilities in their chosen area. The Gallery believes that the commissions will have a major impact on their careers and allow them to extend their reach as leading figures of their generation.

MOLLY WORRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, CARRIE VOLK, St. Paul, Minnesota, and CARRIE BUSH, Minneapolis, Minnesota, were awarded a grant for Golden Hour, a mixed media HD and 16mm narrative short about a man named Jim who wakes up to the gray world around him. He suffers from dementia and is desperate to remember his past. His memories are tangled together in filmstrips projected in the black box of his mind. He relies on his book of prompts and Post-It reminders to carry him through the daywithout them, simple tasks like remembering to turn off the stove and take his medication are completely forgotten. Jim wanders alone in life but chases the fragmented memory of a lost love. As the visions of this love are revealed, his memories begin to invade his realitysnow speckled streets are blurred with crashing waves and hot summer sand. Jim becomes consumed with unraveling the Golden Hour. Near the end of the film, as his fragmented memories come rushing back in full clarity, he realizes the missing memories stolen by dementia have been romanticized and are better left forgotten.

Laptop composer and sound artist SAWAKO KATO, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to the Florida Keys to research echolocation, a sensory sonar system used by dolphins, to gather field recordings from the oceanic soundscape of the area, and to find inspiration for a new work involving underwater sound. Kato plans to attend a formalized program through the Dolphin Research Center in addition to the field recording work. Kato engages in prolific audio file exchange with other composers.

Puppeteer and performance artist MASANARI KAWAHARA, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel to the Deer Park Monastery in Escontito, California, to participate in a retreat led by Thich Nhat Hahn. Kawahara is developing a puppet show entitled A Path Home: A Story of Thich Nhat Hanh about Hanh's life teachings-especially focused on his peace activism in Vietnam and the U.S. Kawahara expects that this focused experience will bring real-world insight and spiritual foundation to the new work.

A grant was awarded to HOSSEIN KESHAVARZ for Dog Sweat, a narrative film about the schism between six young Iranians and their more conservative elders, in a country where over two-thirds of the population is under thirty. The film aspires to show the real Iran, a portrayal neither sanctioned by the government nor seen by the outside world. An Iran where young people drink alcohol, party, socialize with members of the opposite sex and cautiously allow themselves to be gay, all behind closed doors and blackened windows. The young actors in this fictional film, which was shot in Iran on HD video, put themselves at great risk to participate. The risk was worth taking in their view in order to tell the stories of this film.

THE KITCHEN (Haleakala), New York City, received $14,700 in support of commissioned performance and exhibition projects by emerging New York City-based artists. The Kitchen is an internationally recognized performance and exhibition space dedicated to supporting new work by innovative artists working within and across the fields of music, dance, theater, video and film, digital art and literature. The Kitchen is known for its commitment to experimental new work and for providing instrumental support during the early years of artists' careers. Jerome support allows The Kitchen to offer commissions to emerging creators to seed new works, which are then presented at The Kitchen. Building upon the commissions, The Kitchen offers technical and production support and increased exposure to a large audience base

The LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER, New York City, received $10,800 in support of programs serving emerging playwrights and the development of their works. A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark provides playwrights with resources to develop their work, nurturing artists at all stages in their careers, and inviting them to express themselves freely in a supportive and rigorous environment. Programs and services are divided into the three areas of play scouting, play incubation and play advancement. The Larks commitment to emerging playwrights is manifested in multiple programs and services, beginning with the practice of open access in which the Lark invites scripts from writers throughout the country and abroad. Programs encompass a playwrights workshop, an annual fellowship with a year of free housing in New York City, fully rehearsed public presentations of plays in the form of BareBones productions, studio retreats, roundtables, an annual playwrights week festival of eight to 12 new plays, international exchange programs, an alumni playwright program and launching new plays into the repertoire initiative. Jerome support is focused on emerging playwrights based in New York City and Minnesota.