2011 Grant Awards: Access to Artistic Excellence

[ March 11, 2010 deadline ]

Artists Communities | Dance | Design | Folk & Traditional Arts | Literature
Local Arts Agencies | Media Arts | Museums | 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 14th Annual Florida African Dance Festival. The event will include workshops in dance and drum taught by African immigrant artists as well as a final performance concert.

Arts Center of Cannon County (Consortium)
Woodbury, TN
$25,000
To support Mississippi John Hurt: Avalon is My Home, an exhibition examining the historical and social context of the life of country blues guitarist John Hurt. In collaboration with the Delta Blues Museum, the project will produce a double CD of Hurt's recordings as well as a traveling exhibition that will examine his impact on blues, country, bluegrass, and contemporary rock and roll music; popular culture; and the folk revival.

Association for Cultural Equity
New York, NY
$50,000
To support the restoration and dissemination of footage from Alan Lomax's American Patchwork. Selected performances and interviews from the documentary will be deposited in libraries in the regions where the documented artists resided, and be made available through the Association for Cultural Equity's website.

Bangor Folk Festival (aka American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront)
Bangor, ME
$30,000
To support the 2011 Bangor Folk Festival (aka American Folk Festival). Successor to the National Folk Festival, the event will feature performances, workshops, and demonstrations presented by more than 150 musicians, dancers, and craftspeople presenting blues, gospel, jazz, polka, cowboy, bluegrass, Native American, Klezmer, Cajun, mariachi, western swing music. Events also will  include demonstrations and workshops in such practices as basketweaving, musical instrument making, and boatbuilding.

Blue Ridge Traditional Arts, Inc.
Galax, VA
$30,000
To support traditional music programming at the Blue Ridge Music Center (BRMC). In collaboration with the City of Galax, Virginia, BRMC will celebrate and showcase the historical music and dance traditions of the Appalachian Mountains.

California Indian Basketweavers Association
Woodland, CA
$20,000
To support the 21st Annual California Indian Basketweavers Gathering. The California Indian Basketweavers Association will organize and present workshops, discussions, and public exhibitions that encourage and support Native American basketry.

Celtic Arts Foundation
Mount Vernon, WA
$20,000
To support the Mastery of Scottish Arts Concert and Celtic Arts Winter School. The program will bring recognized Scottish pipers, drummers, and fiddlers from the United Kingdom and Canada to Washington State for an instructional school for aspiring artists and a virtuoso concert.

Centrum Foundation
Port Townsend, WA
$35,000
To support the Master Hands Project at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. The project will present the artistry of seven NEA National Heritage Fellows -- Liz Carroll, Kevin Burke, Paul Dahlin, Michael Doucet, Wayne Henderson, Eddie Pennington, and Marc Savoy -- in concerts and workshops.

Chhandam Chitresh Das Dance Company (aka Chitresh Das Dance Company & Chhandam School)
San Francisco, CA
$20,000
To support performances of traditional solo Kathak dance and an ensemble dance drama. NEA National Heritage Fellow Pandit Chitresh Das will present solo dance recitals and his dance company will perform Sita Haran, a drama choreographed by Chitresh Das.

Chippewa Valley Museum
Eau Claire, WI
$20,000
To support Wisconsin Teachers of Local Cultures Here at Home: The Third Coast. Qualified folk arts specialists will conduct fieldwork along the Wisconsin shores of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in preparation for two five-day tours that will introduce educators to local traditional artists and demonstrate how to integrate local culture into existing classroom curricula.

Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts
New Bedford, MA
$50,000
To support the 2010 Working Waterfront Festival. The event will celebrate the occupational culture and artistic traditions of New England's commercial fishing community, and other maritime professions such as boatbuilders, marine engineers, fishermen, and ships' cooks.

Craft in America, Inc.
Los Angeles, CA
$50,000
To support production of an episode of Craft in America. The episode will explore the origins and techniques of five artists from strong folk and traditional arts backgrounds, including NEA National Heritage Fellow Charles Carrillo.

Cultural Resources, Inc.
Rockport, ME
$20,000
To support Artists-of-the-Forest, a touring exhibition and catalog presenting traditional artists of the Northern Forest region of Maine, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. The exhibition will present the lives and work of up to 30 traditional artists, including canoe makers, quilters, furniture makers, and native American basket makers.

Documentary Arts, Inc. (Consortium)
Dallas, TX
$30,000
To support Traditional Art and Immigration: Chinese Opera in New York, a touring exhibition. In collaboration with Beloit College, the project will use artifacts, photographs, and video to tell the story of NEA National Heritage Fellow Qi Shu Fang and her troupe of Peking Opera performers, who practice a traditional 18th-century art form that has established vital roots in America.

Eldridge Street Project, Inc. (aka Museum at Eldridge Street)
New York, NY
$10,000
To support the 12th Annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Festival. The event celebrates traditions and art forms from the Chinese and Eastern European Jewish communities that have lived side-by-side on the Lower East Side for generations.

Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc.
Waltham, MA
$25,000
To support Travels With Mike, a film documenting the life and work of NEA National Heritage Fellow Mike Seeger. The film follows the scholar and old-time musician on his last journeys to record and play with traditional southern mountain banjo players, tracing his life's work as an advocate for traditional music of the South.

First Peoples Fund
Rapid City, SD
$25,000
To support Empowering Native Artists; Strengthening Native Communities. The project will provide American Indian artists with programs that provide artistic, professional, and business development, thus strengthening the tradition.

Folklore Village Farm, Inc.
Dodgeville, WI
$25,000
To support the preparation, presentation, and documentation of the 2011 Midwest Folklife Festival. The festival will feature approximately 60 folk and ethnic artists presenting traditions from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa, in two days of concerts, demonstrations, discussions, and educational activities.

Gamelan Sekar Jaya
Oakland, CA
$25,000
To support residencies in the San Francisco Bay area of master artists from Bali, Indonesia. As many as four master artists will create new work; conduct classes, workshops, presentations; and lead Gamelan Sekar Jaya's musical ensembles and dance troupe in a series of public performances.

Greater Lowell Regatta Festival Charitable Foundation (aka Lowell Festival Foundation)
Lowell, MA
$30,000
To support traditional crafts and performing artists fees for the 25th annual Lowell Folk Festival. Firmly established as the nation's largest free traditional music festival, the event features Irish, Greek, Asian, Canadian, Brazilian, and African performers as well as a variety of traditional visual arts and food.

Houston Institute for Culture
Houston, TX
$20,000
To support Houston: Social Intersections, a series of concerts and related events that will present the traditional music and arts of various ethnic populations now living in Houston. The programs will include concerts and accompanying discussions, workshops, and demonstrations.

International Accordion Festival
San Antonio, TX
$30,000
To support the 11th annual International Accordion Festival. The festival is designed to celebrate the instrument's local identity and global reach, and present accordion traditions of ethnic, regional, and national cultures.

Jubilee Community Arts, Inc. (aka The Laurel Theater)
Knoxville, TN
$25,000
To support traditional music programming at the Laurel Theater as well as recording artists (both in concert and in the field) for local radio broadcast. Featuring music of the southern Appalachians, the weekly programming has previously presented NEA National Heritage Fellows Clyde Davenport, Ralph Stanley, and Kevin Burke.

Korean American Resource and Cultural Center (aka Spirits of Poongmul)
Chicago, IL
$20,000
To support a capacity building project to recruit and train new Korean percussion performers for the organization. A three-fold strategy will attract new members through targeted performances that can attract younger audience members, interactive media and social networking strategies to promote Korean cultural programming, and an artist residency for Korean percussionist Mr. Muyang Lee.

La Frontera Mariachi Conference, Inc. (aka Tucson International Mariachi Conference)
Tucson, AZ
$15,000
To support the Tucson International Mariachi Conference. The conference will employ experienced instructors to educate students about the traditions of Hispanic culture, mariachi music, and traditional dance. The conference will conclude with an all-day festival including two performance stages, music, dance, and food.

Lensic Performing Arts Center Corporation
Santa Fe, NM
$10,000
To support the 11th annual Nuestra Música festival. The project will feature a series of performances by some of New Mexico's most accomplished traditional musicians, who possess a unique musical tradition grounded in Spanish, Mexican, and Native American culture.

Louisiana Folk Roots, Inc.
Lafayette, LA
$35,000
To support the 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week. The project will feature a comprehensive cultural immersion program that teaches, interprets, and celebrates Cajun and Creole cultural heritage, including music, dance, foodways, native crafts, and storytelling.

Mexican Heritage Corporation (aka Mexican Heritage Plaza)
San Jose, CA
$30,000
To support the 20th Annual San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival. The largest of its kind in the U.S. and the only festival of its kind in California, the event is a week-long celebration of Mexican music, art, food, and culture and features concerts, workshops, film screenings, and visual arts.

Michigan State University (Consortium)
East Lansing, MI
$40,000
To support the 2011 Great Lakes Folk Festival. In collaboration with the City of East Lansing, the festival will showcase the traditional music, dance, foodways, and other cultural expressions of the nation's Upper Midwest.

Moanalua Gardens Foundation, Inc.
Honolulu, HI
$25,000
To support the Prince Lot Hula Festival. The oldest and largest non-competitive hula event in Hawaii, the festival presents both ancient and modern performances of traditional dance performed by hula schools from Oahu and offers educational displays, craft demonstrations, and musical performances.

National Council for the Traditional Arts
Silver Spring, MD
$50,000
To support the 73rd National Folk Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. The festival is a showcase of the nation's finest traditional artists and will present a wide array of traditional music and dance performances, workshops, storytelling, material culture, and regional and ethnic foods prepared by community members.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Inc.
New Orleans, LA
$25,000
To support the 6th annual Crescent City Blues and BBQ Festival. Staged in the heart of downtown New Orleans, the project will feature the blues music of Louisiana and the Delta South as well as local crafts and foodways; additionally, a narrative stage is scheduled where blues artists will be interviewed by scholars.

Northwest Folklife (aka Northwest Folklife Festival)
Seattle, WA
$25,000
To support a special Bulgarian program for the 2011 Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. The Bulgarian program will include an exhibit of historic Bulgarian photographs, a 1979 film documenting traditional Bulgarian dance, a special concert by renowned traditional Bulgarian performers, workshops, panel discussions, lectures, and a community parade.

Northwest Heritage Resources
Lake Forest Park, WA
$25,000
To support the second phase of Native American Stories, a project created to record Native American elders' stories. The second phase will make the elders' repertories available to a larger audience on tribal websites, as well as on CDs with liner notes to set the stories in context.

Northwest Indian College
Bellingham, WA
$25,000
To support the maintenance and expansion of the Traditional Art of Coast Salish Basketry program. A series of conferences and workshops for students and experienced basketweavers will offer instruction about the art of Coast Salish basketweaving, preserving this important component of Native American cultural heritage.

Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association
Seattle, WA
$25,000
To support the 2011 Annual Gathering of Basketweavers. The gathering will honor traditional Native American basketmakers and offer an opportunity for indigenous weavers to showcase their work, share techniques with one another and the public, and teach young Native Americans about the cultural and artistic significance of basketry.

Ohlone Community College District (aka Smith Center for the Fine & Performing Arts)
Fremont, CA
$10,000
To support the presentation of traditional Indian and Chinese music and dance at the Smith Center for the Fine & Performing Arts. An Asian Indian ensemble led by virtuoso Zakir Hussain and artists from the Zhejiang Arts Academy in China will perform traditional Katha dance and Chinese opera in separate programs augmented by education outreach to public schools.

Philadelphia Folklore Project (Consortium)
Philadelphia, PA
$30,000
To support Art Happens Here, a series of residencies, performances, and workshops featuring folk artists living in Philadelphia. In partnership with Calvary Center for Culture and Community, the project will allow the public to witness the evolution of new works in studios and view the completed works in public performances.

Qi Shu Fang's Peking Opera Association, Inc.
Woodhaven, NY
$20,000
To support the 2011 annual Peking Opera Festival. The project will feature selections of Peking Opera, along with a lectures, workshops, and English and Mandarin Chinese supertitles.

Radio Bilingüe, Inc.
Fresno, CA
$30,000
To support the 2011 ¡Viva el Mariachi! festival and musicians' Workshops. The festival will feature outstanding local, national, and international mariachi bands and folkloric dance ensembles, and provide workshops for youth and community members to study with mariachi masters such as NEA National Heritage Fellow Natividad Cano.

Salt Lake Arts Council Foundation (aka Salt Lake City Arts Council)
Salt Lake City, UT
$25,000
To support the Living Traditions Festival, a three-day celebration of the cultural traditions of Salt Lake's native and immigrant communities. The event recognizes cultural diversity through the professional presentation of the crafts, dance, music, and foods of the ethnic groups of Salt Lake, including Native Americans, Mexican Americans, European Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

Society of Kunqu Arts, Inc.
Silver Spring, MD
$10,000
To support a full-scale performance of the Chinese opera The Peony Pavilion. The classic Kunqu opera will be presented with live orchestra, preceded by a lecture and demonstration to explain the function and aesthetics of Kunqu, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera.

Special School District #1 (aka KBEM-FM)
Minneapolis, MN
$20,000
To support the Bluegrass Review, a weekly, one-hour radio show that presents bluegrass music in multiple contexts. The program, available nationally through Internet download, provides in-depth commentary on the history, evolution, and aesthetic of bluegrass music as well as biographical information on major bluegrass artists.

Stecoah Valley Arts, Crafts & Educational Center, Inc. (aka Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center)
Robbinsville, NC
$10,000
To support the 2011 concert series An Appalachian Evening. The project will offer a series of concerts featuring traditional Appalachian music and entertainment such as old-time, bluegrass, Celtic music, dancing, and storytelling.

Tong Xiao Ling Chinese Opera Ensemble
New York, NY
$10,000
To support production of the entire Chinese opera The Emperor Wu Ze Tian and an excerpt of Xi Xiang Ji. The complete opera will involve 28 professional actors, elaborate costumes, and a full Chinese orchestra, while the excerpt will be performed by community actors, allowing them to apply the instruction received from Tong Xiao Ling Chinese Opera Ensemble.

Washington Chu Shan Chinese Opera Institute, Inc.
Silver Spring, MD
$20,000
To support a comparative program representing the historical and geographical variation and diversity of Chinese opera. The project will present excerpts of traditional opera from different regions of China, showing differences in instrumentation, singing style, and performance style stemming from regional cultures, customs, and dialects. The program will conclude with a presentation of traditional opera using contemporary dress and Western symphonic instrumentation.

Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission
Olympia, WA
$30,000
To support Celebrating Cultures: Multicultural Celebrations & Concerts Series in Washington State Parks. The project will present a series of concerts and festival celebrations in state parks close to urban centers as well as rural enclaves with specific ethnic populations.

Western Folklife Center
Elko, NV
$50,000
To support the production of the semi-permanent exhibition Ranchlines: Verses and Visions of the Rural West. The exhibition will use audio and video media, visual art, hands-on interactive elements, and the display of contemporary handmade horse gear and other crafts to emphasize creativity, ingenuity, and a poetic approach to life and work in the rural ranching West.

Wisdom of the Elders, Inc.
Portland, OR
$20,000
To support Discovering Our Story Apprenticeship Project. Emerging tribal storytellers will participate in apprenticeships that will culminate in a public presentation of their tribe's traditional stories at the Northwest Indian Storytelling Festival.

World Arts West
San Francisco, CA
$25,000
To support the 33rd annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. The project will present a series of performances of culturally specific dance traditions sustained by the diverse communities of Northern California. It will provide the artists with experience in a professional setting and introduce the general public to the traditional dances of the region.

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