2006 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ March 14, 2005 deadline ]

Dance | Design | Folk & Traditional Arts | Literature | Local Arts Agencies
Media Arts | Museum | Music | Musical Theater | Opera | Presenting
Theater | Visual Arts

Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval.

Folk and Traditional Arts

African Caribbean Dance Theatre, Inc.
Tallahassee, FL
$15,000
To support the 9th Annual Florida African Dance Festival. The festival consists of a conference which will feature African immigrant artists in dance and drum workshops and culminate in a concert.

Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music, Inc.
Berkeley, CA
$10,000
To support Hidden Treasures: Roots Music of Berkeley's Diverse Ethnic Communities. The project will consist of a series of concerts designed to reflect the broad range of Berkeley's ethic and cultural community.

Bowery Arts and Science (Consortium)
New York, NY
$35,000
To support Harpsong: A Program of Celtic Poetry and Music at the People's Poetry Gathering, a biennial event to galvanize public attention around issues of preserving cultural forms and languages. A collaboration with New York University's Glucksman Ireland House, the project will present poets and musicians from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Brittany, along with Celtic artists in the United States.

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
Durant, OK
$20,000
To support the Labor Day Cultural Project, a component of the annual Choctaw Labor Day Festival featuring dancing, a pow wow, and a Living Indian Village.The festival draws people from all backgrounds to experience a wide array of Choctaw history, culture, arts, and activities.

CityCelebrations, Inc.
Richmond, VA
$35,000
To support the National Folk Festival. The project will support research, planning, presentation, and curation of the festival's material culture program and school residency activities.

Comanche Nation of Oklahoma
Lawton, OK
$30,000
To support fieldwork and programming. Activities will include technical assistance, establishment of a folk arts program, and an exhibit of Native traditional arts and artists discovered through fieldwork.

Community Economic Development Center of SE Massachusetts
New Bedford, MA
$35,000
To support the 2006 Working Waterfront Festival. The event will be a celebration of the occupational culture of the commercial fishing industry with activities including demonstrations and contests of occupational skills, children's activities, oral history stations, and cultural musical performances.

Elk County Council On The Arts
Ridgway, PA
$10,000
To support the 7th Annual Ridgway Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous. The Rendezvous is a gathering of U.S. and international carvers who meet to share their knowledge and demonstrate the technique of chainsaw carving for the general public.

Fort Collins Museum Foundation
Fort Collins, CO
$15,000
To support the Crossroads at the Council Tree Native American Music Festival. The project will consist of music performances and educational programming for elementary and high school students.

Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum
Sitka, AK
$20,000
To support demonstrations and interpretation of Alaskan Native art. The project is designed to showcase the work of Native Tlingit, Haida, Tsimpsian, Aleut, Alutiq, Athabaskan, Yup'ik, and Inupiag artists found in the museum's collections and exhibits.

Gamelan Sekar Jaya
El Cerrito, CA
$15,000
To support the creation of a new dance-drama titled Kali Yuga. The project will involve a collaboration between Indonesian and American artists to produce a work commemorating the bombing of a nightclub in Kuta, Bali, in 2002.

Hmong Cultural Center Inc.
St. Paul, MN
$10,000
To support video clips of Hmong traditional music and orally recited songs to be featured on the LearnaboutHmong.com Web site. The recordings will capture artists performing a series of funeral ceremonies using the qeej (a ceremonial flute), orally recited marriage songs, and two string violin songs.

Indian Music Society of Minnesota (Consortium)
Minneapolis, MN
$5,000
To support a consortium project for the Masters of Percussion concert. In partnership with the Pangea World Theater, the concert will be preceded by a percussion workshop and lecture-demonstration led by North Indian master tabla drummer and 1999 NEA National Heritage Fellow Zakir Hussain.

International Accordion Festival
San Antonio, TX
$40,000
To support the 6th Annual International Accordion Festival. The festival is designed to celebrate the instrument's local identity and global reach; preserve and present accordion music traditions of ethnic, regional, and national cultures; and educate audiences about free-reed instruments central to the music.

Jubilee Community Arts, Inc.
Knoxville, TN
$15,000
To support live presentations, broadcasts, and documentation of traditional music. The project will include a series of weekly concerts, performances at the Jubilee Festival, programs focusing on the traditional music of the southern Appalachian region, and research and documentation of traditional artsts in east Tennessee.

KanKouran West African Dance Company
Washington, DC
$20,000
To support a new dance production, The Legend of Sunjata. Legend will tell the story of Mali King Sunjata and his defeat of King Sumonguru in 1235.

Kulintang Arts (aka Kularts) (Consortium)
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
A consortium project to support the Parol Lantern Festival Project. A partnership with the Filipino American Development Foundation, the project will consist of a residency by master artist Robert David, creation of several giant parol lanterns, and a community stroll lantern parade.

La Frontera Mariachi Conference, Inc.
Tucson, AZ
$10,000
To spport the Tucson International Mariachi Conference. The conference will consist of workshops in mariachi music and baile follorico dance, music and dance concerts, and a festival with performances, traditional foods, and traditional arts and crafts.

Maimouna Keita School of African Dance Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
$15,000
To support the 14th Annual Dance Conference and Concert. The conference will consist of a series of workshops in traditional African dance, drum, and accessory making, culminating in a concert.

Media Working Group, Inc.
Lexington, KY
$20,000
To support post-production and editing costs for a documentary film titled The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Barn Dance. The film is based on a pioneering country music radio program that became a national phenomenon in the 1930s and 1940s.

Moanalua Gardens Foundation, Inc.
Honolulu, HI
$10,000
To support the 29th Annual Prince Lot Hula Festival. The oldest and largest non-competitive hula event in Hawaii, the festival features exhibits and demonstrations of traditional crafts, an art exhibit by native Hawaiian artists and artisans, and performances of ancient and modern hula.

National Council for the Traditional Arts
Silver Spring, MD
$45,000
To support a series of urban and rural festivals, a Masters of Caribbean Music tour on the West Coast, and a series of outdoor concerts in an underserved region of Appalachia. The project honors folk, tribal, and ethnic communities across the nation by developing audiences and providing national exposure for folk artists.

North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance, Inc. (aka Folk Alliance) (Consortium)
Memphis, TN
$25,000
A consortium project to support the 2006 Annual International Conference. In collaboration with the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Austin conference will introduce and showcase a wide variety of Texas folk musicians to the Folk Alliance membership, which consists of performing arts presenters, festival bookers, marketing and public relations specialists, and record label representatives.

Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association
Omak, WA
$20,000
To support the 2005 Annual Gathering of Basketweavers. The gathering offers an opportunity for indigenous weavers to showcase and sell their basketry, share techniques with one another and the public, and teach Native youth about the cultural significance of basketweaving.

ODUNDE, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$20,000
To support the 2006 ODUNDE Festival. The festival is the oldest African American community festival in Philadelphia, annually featuring local and international African American dancers, musicians, and performers.

Philadelphia Folklore Project (Consortium)
Philadelphia, PA
$40,000
A consortuim project to support Art Happens Here. A collaboration with Asian Americans United, the project will document and present Philadelphia folk artists, in arts such as Cambodian dance, klezmer music, and Khmer dressmaking, through residencies and public performances to audiences in community sites throughout the region.

Philippine Dance Company of San Antonio, Inc.
San Antonio, TX
$5,000
To support performances at the Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio and the Texas State Fair in Dallas. Performances will represent the rural, mountain provinces, and Spanish and Muslim influences in the Filipino culture.

Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance, Inc.
Austin, TX
$10,000
To support a series of music and dance workshops. Activities will include beginner and master-level workshops on plena dance and music, the history and tradition of pregones (street cries), and other Puerto Rican artistic and cultural traditions.

Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Association, Inc.
Woodhaven, NY
$25,000
To support the 6th Annual Peking Opera Festival. The festival will be designed to attract recent immigrants and college students in performances at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Theatre at St. Clements in New York City; the Community Theatre in Morristown, New Jersey; the Lyman Center in Connecticut; and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Radio Bilingue, Inc.
Fresno, CA
$40,000
To support !Viva el Mariachi! Festival. The festival will showcase local, national, and international mariachi groups while also providing workshops with master musicians and "open mic" performance opportunities for youth and community members.

Redhawk Indian Arts Council (aka Redhawk Native American Arts Council)
Brooklyn, NY
$10,000
To support the Heritage Celebrations and Student Day components of the Redhawk Native American Heritage Festival. The project will consist of lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on activities related to a variety of art forms including wood carving, Oneida bow making and carving, and storytelling..

Sealaska Heritage Foundation (aka Naa Kahidi Theater)
Juneau, AK
$40,000
To suppport the Celebration 2006 Festival, a biannual event designed to teach and preserve the cultural heritage of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Native people. Festival activities include a parade, performances, Native language workshops, traditional foods, and a Native artists market.

ShadowLight Productions
San Francisco, CA
$10,000
To support the production of a shadow puppet play titled Monkey at Spider Cave. The project is based on Journey to the West, the traditional story of how Buddhism was brought to China.

Stone Soup Fresno
Fresno, CA
$30,000
To support workshops and demonstrations in traditional Hmong silversmith, blacksmith and needle arts, and the qeej, a ceremonial flute. The project is designed to create a living institute that encourages cross-cultural intergenerational understanding and appreciation for traditional Hmong arts in Fresno.

Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, Inc.
Canton, NY
$20,000
To support a series of radio documentaries based on the Register of Very Special Places (RSVP) project. The project will introduce radio audiences to local cultural landmarks in the northern Adirondacks, Lake Champlain Valley, and St. Lawrence Valley, and will invite community participation to identify and document additional sites.

Westchester Arts Council, Inc. (Consortium)
White Plains, NY
$15,000
A consortium project to support a regional folk arts performance and education program. In collaboration with Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, the project is designed to bring traditional, ethnic, and community-based artists to several regions of Westchester County in order to expand audiences for local traditional performing artists and to provide learning opportunities in educational settings.

Western Folklife Center
Elko, NV
$40,000
To support Making West Home: Stories from the Deep West, a series of storytelling and foodways residency programs in venues across the rural western United States. Each three-day residency includes one educational workshop for high school students, a day-long workshop about community stories and foodways, and a community-wide evening potluck and storytelling session.

Wisdom of the Elders, Incorporated
Portland, OR
$20,000
To support the First Annual Northwest Indian Storytelling Festival. The event will spotlight storytellers from Oregon and Washington tribes; feature the music, dance, crafts, and foods of Pacific Northwest Indian tribes; and include a Storytellers Apprenticeship Conference.

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506