2009 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ August 11, 2008 deadline ]

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

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

Presenting

Alaska Junior Theater, Inc.
Anchorage, AK
$10,000
To support performing arts presentations for children and families, with accompanying educational activities. Ragamala Music and Dance Theater and Japan's Wadaiko Ensemble Tokara will perform Sva (Vital Force) and children's theater group Visible Fictions (Scotland) will perform Jason and the Argonauts in schools and at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.

Alliance of Artists Communities
Providence, RI
$50,000
To support Artists Communities in Context, a series of convenings for the artist communities professionals. The project will include the annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in November 2009 and the Leadership Institute at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, in May 2010.

Alternate ROOTS, Inc. (Consortium)
Atlanta, GA
$20,000
To support the Presenter Cohort Project. In partnership with the Southern Arts Federation, the multi-state project will provide professional development opportunities for geographically isolated presenters, including a retreat and a planning meeting.

Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (on behalf of New Village Press)
Oakland, CA
$20,000
To support the Beginner's Guide Service to Community Based Artists and Arts Organizations Project. New Village Press will produce and disseminate a package of professional development resources, including online lesson plans and activities and in-person residencies.

Art in the Public Interest
Saxapahaw, NC
$10,000
To support writing and editing fees for the Web-based Community Arts Network. Through continued expansion and maintenance of the network, the organization will broaden its online resources for and about community-based art and artists.

Artist Trust: A Resource for Washington
Seattle, WA
$20,000
To support Information Services, a series of professional development resources for Washington state artists along with online resources for artists nationwide. Information will be shared through comprehensive training sessions, print publications, Web sites, bi-weekly e-mail bulletins, a toll-free phone line, and community workshops.

Arts & Business Council, Inc.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support professional development services for arts and cultural organizations in New York City and throughout the state. Services will include workshops in arts marketing and management, cultural tourism, and business volunteer matching services as well as board recruitment, training, and placement programs.

Arts Boston, Inc.
Boston, MA
$10,000
To support Arts Boston Summer Sizzle, an initiative to promote a new comprehensive online arts calendar. Targeted to residents, tourists, and tourism professionals, the service will provide the public with greater access to information about arts activities in the region at affordable ticket prices.

Arts for LA
Los Angeles, CA
$25,000
To support the Grasstop Leadership Initiative. The project will provide resources and infrastructure to help unify arts and culture administrators in the region through a series of annual networking events.

Arts Northwest
Port Angeles, WA
$15,000
To support professional development services. Activities will include seminars, workshops, roundtable discussions, forums, peer networking, mentoring, and job-alike sessions targeted to arts administrators.

Asian American Arts Alliance, Inc. (aka A4)
New York, NY
$15,000
To support A4's Professional Development Series. Artists and arts groups will participate in panel discussions, technical assistance sessions, and seminars with potential funders.

Asian Arts Initiative
Philadelphia, PA
$10,000
To support the Artists Exchange Program, including performances, panel presentations, and audience discussions. Asian American performing artists will be presented individually as well as collaboratively in a newly created ensemble work to premiere at the Festival of Solo Performers.

Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Inc. (aka Arts Presenters)
Washington, DC
$75,000
To support Arts Presenters Professional Development Initiative. The series of rregional institutes will target underserved constituents and emerging leaders.

Ballroom Cultural Arts Foundation (aka Ballroom Marfa) (Consortium)
Marfa, TX
$10,000
To support Ballroom Marfa's Education and Outreach Program. In partnership with the Marfa Independent School District, K-12 students will attend in-school and off-campus performances and lectures by visual, music, and media artists; create work and participate in an annual exhibition; and attend a series of film screenings and concerts.

Big Thought (Consortium)
Dallas, TX
$15,000
To support the Family Access to Artistic Excellence program. In partnership with the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, the inter-generational project will provide excursions to arts centers, museums, and cultural organizations for economically disadvantaged community members.

Brolly Arts
Salt Lake City, UT
$10,000
To support the H20 Project, a series of multidisciplinary arts events. Held during Utah State Water Week, presentations in music, dance, poetry, visual arts, and film will help raise public awareness of water issues such as drought, flooding, and pollution.

Brownsville Society for the Performing Arts
Brownsville, TX
$10,000
To support the Brownsville Latin Jazz Festival. Activities will include a free outdoor concert, a Latin Dance night, a visual arts exhibition, Capitol Theater street party, and community activities, such as music and dance clinics, master classes, school presentations, and artist talks for high school and college music students.

California Lawyers for the Arts, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
$25,000
To support the expansion of property sites for community-based art spaces and artist studios as part of the ArtHouse project. Plans for the Hunter's Point Shipyard area will include a multimedia center for mentoring youth in the digital arts, an outdoor theater, artist studios, and multi-tenant spaces for arts organizations.

California Presenters
Sacramento, CA
$10,000
To support the 26th annual Artist Information Exchange. Designed for performing arts presenters, the program comprises discipline-specific panel discussions and a juried performing arts showcase intended to familiarize presenters with available touring artists suitable for venues and programming budgets of all sizes.

Cedar Cultural Center, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$25,000
To support the Global Roots Festival. Cross-cultural performances will be complemented by workshops, meet-and-greet artist sessions, educational components for teens, and complimentary tickets.

Center for Contemporary Arts of Santa Fe, Inc.
Santa Fe, NM
$10,000
To support digital media education and presentation programs. Classes and performances by artists experimenting with digital technologies will offered to community teens and adults.

Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas (aka CD Forum)
Seattle, WA
$20,000
To support CD Forum's 10th anniversary series of multidisciplinary performances by African American artists, with accompanying educational activities. Project components will include music and dance performances, Black to the Future II: Black Sci-Fi Revisited, the Creation Project Showcase, community workshops, and artist talks.

Centro Cultural Aztlan, Inc.
San Antonio, TX
$15,000
To support a series of community arts projects involving Chicano/Latino artists. Activities will include exhibitions, workshops, literary events, and performances that preserve cultural traditions and support new and evolving art forms.

Chashama, Inc.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support the Residency Program, which provides free facility space and stipends for theater groups and visual artists. Venues will include a black-box theater, galleries, and window stages.

Chicago Cultural Center Foundation (Consortium)
Chicago, IL
$35,000
To support the Midwest World Music Consortium. In partnership with the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation in Bloomington, Indiana, the project will involve the presentation of contemporary and traditional international music ensembles that will highlight diverse world cultures to underserved Midwest audiences.

Cloud Foundation (aka Cloud Place) (Consortium)
Boston, MA
$10,000
To support a series of free workshops for teens at Cloud Place. In partnership with UrbanArts, Inc. and other community partner organizations, workshops in a variety of genres also will include performances and exhibitions by the teaching artists.

COSACOSA art at large, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$10,000
To support the Civic Exchange/Creating Change initiative, a series of multilingual community arts workshops. Professional artists will teach community members artistic techniques, resulting in the design and creation of permanent public art projects for public and neighborhood spaces.

Crucible
Oakland, CA
$13,000
To support the Community Partnership Initiative. Activities will include workshops, residencies, public art projects, training for teens, facility access for the community, and the presentation of the annual, open-air Fire Arts Festival.

Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington
Washington, DC
$15,000
To support CultureCapital.com, an online regional arts calendar. The resource will provide cost-effective marketing for arts organizations throughout the Washington, DC metropolitan region.

Cultural Development Corporation of the District of Columbia
Washington, DC
$10,000
To support the Business Centers at Flashpoint and at Source Theatre. Each center's network of management tools and capacity-building services for artists and arts organizations will provide residency and technical assistance programs, as well as opportunities for affordable exhibition, performance, and office spaces in conjunction with other business amenities.

East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
Richmond, CA
$20,000
To support the Call and Response program. Community-requested performances will be presented at city festivals, cultural fairs, community centers, local companies, parks, and schools throughout Contra Costa County.

EastSide Arts Alliance
Oakland, CA
$20,000
To support a series of free community arts programs. Programming will include Holla Back, a weekly poetry and spoken word open mic program; Final Friday's Microcinema, a monthly film and video screening series; and Bop Gun, a weekly jazz and hip-hop jam session.

Esopus Foundation, Ltd.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support the production and distribution of Esopus magazine. The publication will feature the work of contemporary visual artists; critical writing, fiction, poetry, and visual essays by emerging authors; interviews and archival material; and a themed compact disc of commissioned music from both established and emerging artists.

Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
San Antonio, TX
$30,000
To support the Arte es Vida Westside Cultural Grounding Project. The project will aim to revitalize San Antonio's Westside community life by organizing and presenting public events, concerts, dance performances, and workshops that will engage community members in cultural activities stemming from that neighborhood's historical highlights.

FirstWorks
Providence, RI
$15,000
To support the production of FirstWorksProv Festival 2009. The program of performing arts premieres will be accompanied by community and outreach activities, such as forums, workshops, master classes, school programs, and discounted admissions.

Ford Theatre Foundation (Consortium)
Hollywood, CA
$10,000
To support the Community Bridges Program. In partnership with Community Partners FBO J.U.I.C.E., the project will develop programming, marketing, and audience development strategies for facilitating the participation of local Latino and Asian American communities in the theater's classes, workshops, and performances.

Fractured Atlas Productions, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the expansion of Open Arts Network, a national collective of arts service organizations. The program will add career development training and health insurance services targeted for emerging artists in various urban cities outside New York City.

Fund for Women Artists, Inc.
San Francisco, CA
$15,000
To support SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now Day), a national celebration of women artists. A project coordinator and online event management software will enable the organization to further develop the Web site as a repository and marketing tool associated with SWAN Day events and national and international programming.

Georgia State University Research Foundation (on behalf of Rialto Center for the Arts)
Atlanta, GA
$10,000
To support the Rialto International Series and related educational programs at the Rialto Center for the Arts. World music and dance artists will perform and participate in pre-concert lectures, narrative programming, Q&A sessions, master classes, demonstrations, and audience discussions.

Haleakala, Inc. (aka The Kitchen)
New York, NY
$30,000
To support The Kitchen's Archive Project. Activities will include cataloguing of video, audio, and paper archives and re-mastering video and audio tapes to preserve and make accessible the works created and presented during the organization's 30-year history.

Harvestworks, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support The Artists' Practical Guide to Useful Technology. In collaboration with the UB Art Gallery of Buffalo, the project will provide artists in the tri-state area (Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York), Pennsylvania, and Ohio with access to information on new technologies for the creation, performance, and distribution of work.

Helena Presents (aka Myrna Loy Center)
Helena, MT
$35,000
To support a series of commissioning, presenting, and residency projects at the Myrna Loy Center. Guest artists will create new works in collaboration with local and regional artists.

Hip Hop Theater Festival
Brooklyn, NY
$15,000
To support hip-hop dance festivals in New York City and Washington, DC. The festivals will feature works based in dance, musical theater, theater, and staged readings of works-in-progress.

Hospital Audiences, Inc. (aka HAI)
New York, NY
$16,000
To support the HAI Art Studio and Gallery. Classes in visual arts, digital photography, and videography as well as exhibition opportunities will be offered to individuals with mental illnesses.

HUC Skirball Cultural Center
Los Angeles, CA
$35,000
To support Viva! Celebrating the Americas, with accompanying educational activities for adults and youth.  Performances, film screenings, readings, exhibitions, and lectures will highlight the intersection of Jewish and Latin American cultures.

Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion (aka IBA) (on behalf of Casa de la Cultura/Center for Latino Arts)
Boston, MA
$20,000
To support the Center for Latino Arts' Café Teatro Latino Performance Series. Activities will include public performances, school matinees, symposia, jam sessions with students and faculty, workshops, and master classes.

Institute on Aging
San Francisco, CA
$10,000
To support the Center for Elders and Youth in the Arts program, a series of intergenerational arts classes. Artists will provide instruction in painting, poetry, acting, movement, music composition, textiles, and oral history creation.

Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts
Minneapolis, MN
$20,000
To support the production of Northern Lights/Southern Cross: Tales from the Other Side of the World. The work will be presented at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and performed by an international ensemble of artists with disabilities, Aboriginal and Native American artists, a gospel choir, actors, dancers, and musicians.

Intermedia Arts of Minnesota, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$10,000
To support the B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop Summit. Activities will include an exhibition, performances, workshops, youth events, panel discussions, and community events.

International Association of Performing Arts for Young People, Inc. (aka IPAY)
Philadelphia, PA
$10,000
To support the IPAY Showcase 2010: Highlighting Critical Discourse, including performances, an exhibition, panel discussions, and networking opportunities. The networking and artistic activities of the showcase will target art presenters, artists, and managers working in the field of youth and family programming.

Kahilu Theatre Foundation
Kamuela, HI
$10,000
To support a series of performances and outreach activities. The presentations will include artists performing Western classical, Hawaiian and world music, ethnic and classical dance, and theater.

La Peña Cultural Center, Inc.
Berkeley, CA
$20,000
To support the creation and presentation of La Peña--Ayer, Hoy, y P'Alante (Yesterday, Today, and Onwards). The work will chronicle the organization's history through music, spoken word, images, and audio excerpts collected from its archival materials.

La Peña Cultural Center, Inc. (Consortium)
Berkeley, CA
$20,000
To support Enlaces: Connections that Bind Us, a series of music and dance performances, with accompanying youth outreach activities. In partnership with the Community Music Center in San Francisco, the project will trace the Spanish, African, Arabic, and indigenous influences on Latin America.

Lake Eden Arts Festival (aka LEAF)
Black Mountain, NC
$10,000
To support LEAF's Expressiones Latinas Project, a series of performances, residencies, master classes, and workshops by Latino music and dance artists. Activities will take place at Camp Rockmont, as well as in schools and community centers in Asheville, North Carolina.

Legion Arts, Inc.
Iowa City, IA
$15,000
To support the Cedar Rapids Rising Project, a series of artist residency activities. Artists from New Orleans, other U.S. cities, and abroad will engage local artists and communities affected by the 2008 floods through workshops and performances.

Leveraging Investments in Creativity (aka LINC)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support LINC's National Artist Health Insurance Initiative. The program will improve access to affordable, quality healthcare for artists of all arts disciplines through targeted information and programs.

Maui Arts & Cultural Center
Kahului, HI
$40,000
To support a series of performances and related residency programs. Project components will include professional development workshops for teachers; student performances, workshops, and exhibitions; and performances by artists to whom the Maui community otherwise would not have access.

Miami Dade College
Miami, FL
$45,000
To support the Cultura del Lobo performance series, with accompanying educational activities such as workshops, in-school performances, and master classes. The project will focus on contemporary performing arts work that explores world cultures.

National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (aka NALAC)
San Antonio, TX
$40,000
To support NALAC's Leadership Institute and the Seventh National Conference, which will offer Latino cultural organizations opportunities for organizational and professional development.

National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Inc. (aka youngARTS)
Miami, FL
$25,000
To support the youngARTS Program. High school artists in the performing, visual, and literary arts are chosen each year through a juried competition to participate in professional development activities during a week in Miami.

National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, Inc.
New York, NY
$35,000
To support professional development programs for leaders in the arts education field. Programs will include the National Conference for Community Arts Education and regional events and training sessions in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New York, and Boston.

National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation
Albuquerque, NM
$10,000
To support a series of multi-genre visual, literary and performing arts events, and statewide touring to underserved communities. The presentations will be complemented by a seminar for teachers on Hispanic arts and outreach activities by artists.

National Performance Network, Inc. (Consortium)
New Orleans, LA
$40,000
To support the 25th National Performance Network Annual Meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee. Presented in partnership with the Carpetbag Theatre, the national forum for artists and presenters will feature performance showcases, professional development workshops, and plenary sessions.

New Art Publications, Inc. (aka BOMB Magazine)
New York, NY
$10,000
To support BOMB Magazine's annual issue of AMERICAS. The publication will feature original translations of poetry and fiction, and will include interviews with Latin American writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, dancers, critics, and architects.

New York Foundation for the Arts, Inc. (aka NYFA)
New York, NY
$10,000
To support NYFA Source, a comprehensive online repository of information for artists. The project will involve outreach to arts organizations and artists and will provide enhancements for users to access the information free-of-charge.

New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (on behalf of New York Public LIbrary for the Performing Arts)
New York, NY
$45,000
To support the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' documentation and preservation of significant dance and theater performances and oral histories by notable performing artists. Performances and oral histories by living artists will be recorded, and deteriorating oral history material will be conserved.

NewTown Pasadena Foundation
Altadena, CA
$10,000
To support Convergences, a series of multidisciplinary arts events. The project will meld media arts with workcreated by local artists in disciplines such as music and sonic art, spoken word, dance, performance art, and visual arts.

One Reel (aka Bumbershoot)
Seattle, WA
$15,000
To support AfroFuturism, a component of the Bumbershoot Festival. A series of literary programs, exhibitions, film screenings, and music, dance, and multimedia performances will be presented.

Queens Theatre in the Park, Inc.
Flushing, NY
$40,000
To support the Latino Cultural Festival and the Latino Cultural Series. The programs will feature music, dance, theater, film, visual art exhibitions, and residency activities, such as master classes and panel discussions.

Regents of the University of California at Santa Barbara (on behalf of Arts & Lectures)
Santa Barbara, CA
$20,000
To support Viva el Arte de Santa Barbara! a project focusing on Mexican arts and artists presented by Arts & Lectures. Activities will include artist residencies and free performances for low-income communities and schools.

ReStart, Inc. (Consortium)
Kansas City, MO
$10,000
To support Arts at reStart for Adults. In partnership with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the project is designed to provide homeless adults with three levels of weekly art presentations and instruction and subsequent opportunities to exhibit or perform their work.

Rhizome Communications, Inc.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support an upgrade of ArtBase, a comprehensive online archive of new media art. The project will elevate the current Web-based archive of Internet and new media art with advanced cataloguing techniques and an improved user interface.

Seattle International Children's Festival
Seattle, WA
$20,000
To support the Seattle International Children's Festival and Festival in Tacoma, with related education and outreach activities. The combined festivals will feature an array of world cultures and disciplines, including traditional and contemporary music, dance, theater, puppetry, circus arts, and storytelling.

Seattle Theatre Group
Seattle, WA
$25,000
To support Art in the Community. Artists will participate in performances, workshops, master classes, lectures, discussions, radio interviews, and school residencies.

Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc. (aka John Michael Kohler Arts Center)
Sheboygan, WI
$30,000
To support the John Michael Kohler Arts Center's Connecting Communities program and related commissioning of new works. Artists will collaborate with area cultural minorities, at-risk youth, unions, industrial workers, seniors, post-operative patients, and domestic abuse shelters to develop residency projects and community-based commissions.

Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Washington, DC
$15,000
To support the Online Artists in Healthcare Registry and Showcase. An interactive Web-based program will be created to support a national network of artists, art consumers, and curators through the documentation and showcasing of the best of arts in healthcare.

Taller Puertorriqueño, Inc.
Philadelphia, PA
$10,000
To support Graphic Arts: Roots, Reconstruction, and Revolutions. The series will celebrate the organization's 35th anniversary and will include exhibitions, artist residencies, festivals, workshops, performances, and a symposium.

Teatro Vision
San Jose, CA
$10,000
To support the production of Ghosts of the River, a bilingual work that explores U.S.-Mexican border immigration issues using shadow puppetry, epic and mythic writing, visual art, and norteño music, a mix of Mexican son and German and Czech rhythms.. The production will feature outreach activities, including panel discussions, public forums, and artist demonstrations.

Town Hall Association
Seattle, WA
$15,000
To support the Global Rhythms series. Traditional and international artists will perform in concerts and participate in lecture-demonstrations, classes at local high schools, panel discussions, and mini-performances at community centers.

Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
$15,000
To support the By Local Series presented by the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Local performing artists and arts organizations will create new work as well as receive technical, marketing, and production assistance.

Western Alliance of Arts Administrators Foundations (aka Western Arts Alliance)
Portland, OR
$25,000
To support Encuentro Mexico. The project will present a series of workshops, panels, and performances in order to enhance the capabilities of presenters in booking artists and building audiences for the Mexican and Mexican-American performing arts throughout the United States.

World Arts West
San Francisco, CA
$15,000
To support the educational program People Like Me. Designed for kindergarten through sixth-grade students, the performances will be presented at California theaters in a one-hour session featuring traditional world dance and music genres in an interactive theatrical format.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (aka YBCA) (Consortium)
San Francisco, CA
$40,000
To support the African Consortium. In partnership with Mapp International Productions in New York City, the international exchange initiative is designed to create a new level of artistic collaboration between artists and arts organizations and develop cultural dialogue between the United States and African countries through activities such as panels, seminars, workshops, performances, residencies, interview, and a Web site.

Youth in Arts
San Rafael, CA
$10,000
To support Arts Unite Us: Youth in Arts Presents. The program comprises four components: performances by artists with disabilities, pre-performance workshops for teachers; ASL interpretations for all presentations; and a holiday sing-along concert for students and their families.

Youth Speaks, Inc. (Consortium)
San Francisco, CA
$40,000
To support the 12th annual Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival in Chicago. In partnership with Young Chicago Authors,  festival programming will include performances, workshops, training for artists and educators, and community programs.

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

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