REDCAT just announced its seventh annual New Original Works Festival, July 22 through August 7, 2010. Each year, REDCAT serves as a vibrant performance laboratory where Los Angeles artists gather to push the boundaries of creative expression in new dance, theater, music and multimedia performance works. This year’s NOW Festival artists include Maureen Huskey, Killsonic, Christine Marie & Ensemble, Rae Shao-Lan Blum & Tashi Wada, Raphael Xavier, Alexandro Segade, Hana van der Kolk and Miwa Matreyek.

“In order to create this year’s festival, REDCAT surveyed more than 160 proposed projects. It’s an inspiring process that speaks to the vitality of the city’s experimental performance scene.” says George Lugg, the NOW Festival’s Director and Associate Director of REDCAT. “The eight new projects that audiences will experience are fueled by the creative force of more than 83 artist and performers, as they reinvent theatrical forms, assimilate new technologies and pose essential questions about how we live the political and social realities of now.”

Described as “on the pulse of cutting-edge contemporary performance” by the Los Angeles Times, this annual festival, now in its seventh year, often launches productions that live on long after their presentations at REDCAT, receiving national and international grants and often expanding into full-length works. REDCAT is thrilled to fulfill its interdisciplinary mission and give artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature.

This year’s eight NOW productions will share the REDCAT stage for three daring and distinctive programs over three consecutive weeks:

Week One | July 22-24

MAUREEN HUSKEY: THE EXILE OF PETIE DELARGE

KILLSONIC: TONGUES BLOODY TONGUES

More info

Week Two | July 29-31

CHRISTINE MARIE & ENSEMBLE: GROUND TO CLOUD

RAE SHAO-LAN BLUM & TASHI WADA: SYSTEMS OF US

RAPHAEL XAVIER: BLACK CANVAS

More info

Week Three | August 5-7

ALEXANDRO SEGADE: REPLICANT VS SEPARATIST

HANA VAN DER KOLK: ONCE MORE, AGAIN, ONE (SOLO)

MIWA MATREYEK: MYTH AND INFRASTRUCTURE

More info

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Sam Miller has been appointed President of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). A devoted advocate for the arts, Miller brings a nationally recognized profile to the organization having spent five years as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), the ten-year national initiative with the mission to improve the conditions for artists working in all disciplines.

Sam Miller brings years of artistic leadership to LMCC. Recently, during his term as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, Miller developed efforts centered on increasing direct support for artists, enhancing artist/public interaction and improving the policy environment for creative work. He will continue to serve as President of the Board of LINC. Prior to his work at LINC, Miller was Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) for ten years where he spearheaded important new projects and pioneered a number of nationally significant programs, including the National Dance Project, the Creative Economy Initiative, and the Favorite Poem Project (with Robert Pinsky).

Prior to NEFA, Miller was at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival where he served as Managing Director (working in partnership with Liz Thompson, formerly Executive Director of LMCC) and subsequently as Executive Director and President. During his tenure, he oversaw the significant expansion of the Pillow, transforming it from a summer dance festival and school to a year-round dance center serving dance artists from around the world. Miller also designed and directed a number of major projects including the Cambodian Artists Project, the Triangle Artists Project (in partnership with the Asian Cultural Council), and played a catalytic role in the development of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA).

In 2009, Sam Miller founded OAM Company, an arts consulting and producing organization. As President of OAM, Miller worked with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on dance and theater program strategies. He currently is developing a new graduate program, the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP), in partnership with Wesleyan University and is producing a retrospective of the work of Eiko and Koma, who were previously artists in LMCC’s highly competitive Workspace Program. He sits on the Advisory Board of ODC/San Francisco, one of the most active centers for dance on the West Coast, and on the Board of Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh, an international performing arts production company.

Miller, who will join LMCC in early July, said, “I look forward to working with the staff and board of LMCC on advancing the essential work they have been doing for almost four decades in Lower Manhattan. Throughout my career I have been a firm believer in the power of artists to transform and inspire changing communities. The work of LMCC is emblematic of that power.”

For 37 years, LMCC has been the leading voice for arts and culture in downtown New York City, producing cultural events and promoting the arts through grants, services, advocacy, and cultural development programs. LMCC offers a range of funding opportunities and support services for artists working in all artistic disciplines across Manhattan, and a broad range of free programs in the visual, performing and media arts that help cultivate new arts audiences and improve the quality of urban life. LMCC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by a range of foundations, corporations, individuals and government entities.

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On JULY 7th and 8th at 5:30PM and 7:30PM, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Sitelines 2010 will present the world premiere of A-C-E ONE by Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks at LMCC’s LentSpace, a free, outdoor, contemporary art space located at Canal and Varick Street in Hudson Square.

A-C-E ONE is a multidisciplinary site-specific spectacle that takes full advantage of the unique architectural features of LentSpace. Dancers and musicians are positioned strategically throughout the space, a limousine moves at a glacial pace through a horticultural installation as performers move in and around a sea of shredded paper. Expect to be surprised.

Featuring a score by composer John King performed by the all-female French horn ensemble Genghis Barbie, A-C-E ONE will be performed by Yoshiko Chuma and her frequent collaborators Ursula Eagly, Aaron Mattocks, Yuko Mitsuishi and Ryuji Yamaguchi.

LENTSPACE IS LOCATED ON THE CITY BLOCK AT CANAL, GRAND, VARICK AND AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS Admission is FREE.

A-C-E ONE

YOSHIKO CHUMA & THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

Yoshiko Chuma, Conception, direction, choreography
John King, composition
Gabriel Berry, costumes
Nick Vaughan, space consultant

Producer: Bonnie Sue Stein/GOH Productions NYC

Dancers
Yoshiko Chuma
Ursula Eagly
Aaron Mattocks
Yuko Mitsuishi
Ryuji Yamaguchi

Musicians
Genghis Barbie (4 French horn players from Mars)
Rachel Drehmann
Danielle Kuhlmann
Jacquelyn Adams
Ann Ellsworth

Percussion, Eric John Eignar

Onstage backstage performers: Melissa West, Kaya Nakamura

About the Artists
Under the artistic direction of Yoshiko Chuma, THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS is a New York-based collective of choreographers, dancers, actors, singers, musicians, designers, and visual artists. Since premiering at the 1980 Venice Biennale, this award-winning company has created and performed over 60 original works in the United States, Asia, and Europe. The School of Hard Knocks takes its name from the American idiom meaning to learn things the hard way on the proverbial “street,” and was first used as the title of a performance at the 1980 Venice Biennale. Over the course of the company’s history, more than 1,500 people have performed to wide critical acclaim under Chuma’s direction in theatrical dance concerts, street performances, grand parades, large-scale spectacles and intimate living rooms. Since 2006 the company has been developing and presenting the ongoing dance/installation A Page Out of Order in countries including Albania, Macedonia, and the Manipur region of India. The most recent chapter, called POONARC (not about Romanian cinema), was presented by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in June of 2009, following a tour of Romania in May. (yoshikochuma.org)

YOSHIKO CHUMA (conceptual artist/choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand of New York’s downtown dance scene since arriving in 1978. She has created more than 60 full-length company works, commissions and site-specific events for venues in 35 countries, constantly challenging the notion of performing for both audience and participant. Her work has been presented in such diverse venues as Joyce Theater, the Eiffel Tower, Newcastle Swing Bridge, City Center, Lincoln Center, the former National Theater of Sarajevo, the perimeter of the Hong Kong harbor, and an ancient ruin in Macedonia, and in Jordan, among others. She has received fellowships and awards for choreography and career work from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, New York Foundation for Artists, Japan Foundation, Meet the Composer Choreographer/Composer Commission and Philip Morris New Works. Chuma has led workshops and master classes and been commissioned to create new work in East and West Europe, Asia, Russia and the U.S. She received a 1984 BESSIE award for choreography and four more Bessies were awarded to her productions in 1992 and 1998. In 2007 she received a Bessie for Sustained Achievement. Chuma was Artistic Director of the Daghdha Dance Company in Limerick, Ireland from 2000-03 and continues to work in Ireland as a guest teacher/choreographer in the Dance MA program of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.

URSULA EAGLY (performer) has been working with Yoshiko Chuma since 2006. She is a core performer in Yoshiko’s “A Page Out of Order” project, through which she has collaborated with awe-inspiring artists in Albania, Japan, Macedonia, and Romania. She creates her own work, and her most recent piece, Fields of Ida, premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in October 2009. Ursula is also currently dancing with Kathy Westwater and Christopher Williams. www.ursulaeagly.org.

AARON MATTOCKS, a Pennsylvania native and Sarah Lawrence College alumnus, studied dance with Viola Farber, Dan Hurlin, Sara Rudner and Mark Morris. He has performed in works by John Jasperse, Christopher Williams, Kathy Westwater, Ursula Eagly, The Little Lord Fauntleroys, and Opera Erratica. He assisted Mr. Morris on the staging of Stravinsky’s Renard for the Tanglewood Music Center. He is a member of OtherShore, performing in works by Annie-B Parson/Paul Lazar and Jodi Melnick. Upcoming: Judy Garland in Happy Days at the Dixon Place Hot Fest (July 22), and a new work by Big Dance Theater in 2011.

YUKO MITSUISHI (performer), from Japan, graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan in 2002 where she majored in drama. She has presented her works at Dance New Amsterdam, Jennifer Muller’s Studio and Movement Research at DTW . She has performed and collaborated with Alexandra Beller, Emily Berry, Catherine Galasso and Makiko Tamura. She enjoys working with Yoshiko Chuma/The School of Hard Knocks.

RYUJI YAMAGUCHI (performer) is a dancer and choreographer originally from Japan. Ryuji studied dance and Chinese at Harvard University and has been actively performing and choreographing in Japan, New York and Jordan for the last 6 years. He currently lives in Amman, Jordan where he teaches dance at the King’s Academy. And has worked with School of Hard Knocks for several years, in Yoshiko Chuma’s projects in Japan, Romania, Jordan and New York City.

MUSIC
JOHN KING, composer, guitarist and violist, has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet; Red {an orchestra}, Ethel; the Albany Symphony/”Dogs of Desire”, Bang On A Can All-Stars; Mannheim Ballet; New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo; as well as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. His string quartets have also been performed by the Eclipse Quartet (LA) and the Mondriaan Quartet (Amsterdam). His quartet Crucible has premiered many of his compositions at The Stone (June 2007) and The Kitchen (April 2009). He has written 3 operas: herzstück/heartpiece, based on the text of Heiner Müller, premiered at the 1999 Warsaw Autumn Festival and presented at the Kitchen NYC in 2000; la belle captive based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, premiered at Teatro Colon/CETC in Buenos Aires in 2003, and toured to London’s ICA (Fronteras Festival) in 2004 and The Kitchen in 2005; and also his most recent opera, Dice Thrown, based on the Stéphane Mallarmé poem, an excerpt of which was performed by New York City Opera as part of its VOX series in May 2008. He has 3 recent CD releases of music for string quartet; 10 Mysteries and AllSteel (Tzadik); and Ethel (Cantaloupe). He was Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1999-2003 and is currently a co-director of the Music Committee at MCDC. He is also the recipient of the 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music Composition.

GENGHIS BARBIE, the leading post post-feminist feminist all-female pop horn quartet is the most recognized chamber ensemble of its generation and beyond. With a combined 26 years of conservatory training, Genghis Barbie brings you a visceral and unadulterated musical adventure. Performing solely arrangements of pop music from the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s, 00′s and today, Genghis Barbie is the most versatile and expansive musical experience on NYC’s classical/pop/rock/jazz/indie/alternative/punk/electro-acoustic scene today. Genghis Barbie was incepted in a unique moment of ingenuity when Alana Gartrell, Jacquelyn Adams, Rachel Drehmann and Danielle Kuhlmann converged at Alana’s bachelorette party. Genghis Barbie hopes to appear on the Ellen Degeneres show within one calendar year.

RACHEL DREHMANN, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, is an innovative horn player with a passion for new music. She is an active component of the New York City music scene and has performed with renowned groups and artists such as Kanye West, the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, A Far Cry, Tilt Creative Brass Band, and Princeton Symphony. She appeared in the Music Festival of Santo Domingo, the American Opera Projects, the Tribeca Film Festival, and accompanied Shakira on her album, She Wolf. With the indie band A Whisper in the Noise, Rachel released three albums and toured internationally. A Whisper in the Noise was also featured on the soundtrack of M. Night Shyamalan’s film, Lady in the Water. Rachel is a well-known musician in the theater world, performing in the orchestras for The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, South Pacific, West Side Story, Ragtime, Happiness and the Public Theater’s production of Euripides’ The Bacchae, scored by Philip Glass. In 2008, Rachel was awarded a grant from the International Horn Society’s Meir Rimon Fund and commissioned John Clark’s “Fakes and Snakes.” The Sabine Players, co-founded by Rachel, premiered this work as part of the Chelsea Art Museum’s “Performing Arts at CAM” series.

DANIELLE KUHLMANN, horn, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, has traveled the world, performing in symphony orchestras and chamber music concerts throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. After growing up in Seattle, Washington, she completed her undergraduate studies with Jerome Ashby at the Juilliard School. She has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Brooklyn, Long Island and Westchester Philharmonics, American Ballet Theater and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and new music focused groups: American Composers Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). She has been a featured soloist with the Seattle and Manila Symphony Orchestras and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. In addition to classical performances, Ms. Kuhlmann can be heard playing various Broadway shows in New York, and television, video game and major motion picture soundtracks. Ms. Kuhlmann is devoted to philanthropic work and has spent the last three summers in the Philippines volunteering for the group Cultures in Harmony, a New York based NGO that promotes cultural diplomacy through music. The group works with both professional and student-level musicians as well as indigenous tribal youth to build bridges of understanding between worlds. (CulturesinHarmony.org). In her spare time, Ms. Kuhlmann runs an online handmade jewelry shop, D’kuhl Jewelry, and sings and plays guitar in the rock band Tatters & Rags in Brooklyn.

JACQUELYN ADAMS, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, began the Suzuki method at the age of three in her hometown of Forth Worth, Texas. At five, she discovered a love for the piano and her natural ability to perform was quickly recognized at the National Guild of Piano Teachers where she was one of the youngest performers ever to memorize and perform 15 two-part Bach Inventions. She showcased as the second place winner of a national “String without Bow” competition in 1997. Jacquelyn performed a Bach Sonata for String Bass on electric bass guitar. Since then she has earned horn performance degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale University and is currently a Doctoral of Musical Arts candidate at SUNY Stony Brook. Ms. Adams resides in New York City and has performed with a variety of ensembles such as the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Fort Worth Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Metropolitan Ballet Orchestra, Kanye West, Pavarotti, Il Divo, multiple Broadway pit orchestras, various NYC based jazz orchestras and she also records regularly for NFL Films. Ms. Adams is also on faculty at Lehman College where she is the newest member of the Lehman Woodwind Quintet. http://www.jacquelynadams.com.

ANN ELLSWORTH is the solo horn player with Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble, Manhattan Brass, Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble and the alternative horn group Confluence. The New York Times has called her playing, “…outrageous…splendidly projected.” She performs with such pop artists as Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Shakira,Tony Bennett, and can be heard on Chaka Khan’s album, “Classikhan” among others. In addition to recording for film and television, Ann also enjoys performing on early instruments and has performed a lecture recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, performing on the original instruments in their collection. She is also interested in interdisciplinary performance and as a visiting artist at the Lang College of the New School, led many ground-breaking events involving improvisation, dance, videography and landscape architecture. Ann is an active soloist and chamber musician, touring regularly in Europe and the United States with broadcasts on NPR and Public Radio International. She has recently recorded Eric Ewazen’s Horn Concerto with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra and is currently working on a recording of all new works for alphorn solo and small ensembles. Ann is a former member of the Phoenix Symphony and Danish Esbjerg Ensemble, studied at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools and is now on faculty at the Juilliard Pre-College, Stony Brook University, and New York University.

PRODUCTION
Gabriel Berry (Costume Design) has collaborated with Yoshiko Chuma for a long time. Recent work includes Zaide at Lincoln Center and the world premiere of John Adams A Flowering Tree at the New Crowned Hope festival in Vienna, both directed by Peter Sellars. Additional current works include Iphengie in Aulide at Julliard, Orpheus in the Underworld for Glimmerglass Opera and Sarah Ruyle’s Passion Play for the Goodman Theater recently was performed in NYC.

BONNIE SUE STEIN (manager) is the Executive Director and founder of GOH Productions, an arts services organization based in New York, focusing on the creation and development of global arts projects. Since 1988, she has produced dance, theatre and music projects in NYC, East/Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia. GOH has managed Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks since 1992. Currently projects include: East Village Dance Project, Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, Absolute Ensemble, Polli Talu Arts Residency Center (Estonia), Art In Odd Places and Trystette. www.gohproductions.org

The School of Hard Knocks is supported in part by New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts Japan program.

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Off the Wall

July 1 – September 19, 2010

Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY

The Whitney Museum of American Art presents Off the Wall, a two-part exhibition that brings together thirty performative actions by artists, in works made from 1946 to the present, and seven iconic works by Trisha Brown.

Part I: Thirty Performative Actions
On view from July 1 – September 19, Off the Wall: Thirty Performative Actions, focuses on actions using the body in live performance, in front of the camera, or in relation to a photograph or a drawing. Each action displaces the site of the artwork from an object to the body, acting in relation to, or directly onto, the physical space of the gallery. The wall and floor are often the stage for these actions: walking on the wall, slamming a door, gathering sawdust up from the studio floor, slapping hands against the wall, walking on a painting, striding and crawling, writing or drawing on the wall and the floor, or performing a striptease. The actions include re-performances of iconic early works by John Baldessari (I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, (1971) and Yoko Ono (Painting to be Stepped On, (1961), realized by Nate Lowman), as well as recent works by young artists including Dara Friedman and Trisha Donnelly, and David Hammons’ video installation Phat Feet, in which the sidewalk of the Bowery in downtown New York City becomes the stage.

Also included are works by Vito Acconci, Carl Andre, Jonathan Borofsky, John Coplans, David Hammons, Joan Jonas, Paul McCarthy, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, David Salle, Lucas Samaras, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol. The use of the performative action by women to challenge male definitions of the body can be seen in works by Jenny Holzer, Dara Birnbaum, Martha Rosler, Hannah Wilke, Francesca Woodman, Carrie Mae Weems and Carolee Schneemann. The unprecedented crossover between dance and performance that occurred in the 1970s can also be seen in works by Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, Maya Deren, Simone Forti, and Nauman.

The exhibition includes a number of works that reveal the underlying theatricality of the performative action, and the ways in which artists stage the self in images that question conventions of identity, gender, and perceptions of the body. In the work of artists including Laurie Simmons, Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, Tony Oursler and Sonic Youth, Francesca Woodman, Jimmy DeSana, David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar, Jack Pierson, Lyle Ashton Harris and Robert Mapplethorpe, the camera replaces the white cube of the gallery as the stage upon which action occurs.

Part 1 is curated by Chrissie Iles, the Whitney’s Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator.

Part 2: Seven Works by Trisha Brown
Part 2 features the Trisha Brown Dance Company, on the occasion of the company’s fortieth anniversary. Six dance works and a sound installation made in the late 1960s and early 1970s will be presented. The dance works will be performed daily from September 30 through October 3, 2010, in the Second Floor Galleries, the Sculpture Court, and outside the Whitney Museum of American Art on East 75th Street. Trisha Brown’s history with the Whitney began when the now-acclaimed choreographer first brought her work uptown, to the Whitney’s Breuer building, after having debuted much of her work in downtown Manhattan, in Soho and at the Judson Church, among other places. Some of Brown’s most important early works including Walking on the Wall (1970), Leaning Duets II (1971), Falling Duet I(1968), Falling Duet II (1971), and Skymap (1969), were performed at the Whitney on March 30 and 31, 1971, as part of an evening titled “Another Fearless Dance Concert.” They are all re-presented in this exhibition. When asked recently about her relationship to the Whitney, Brown commented, “The Whitney? I was born there!”

Part 2 is curated by Limor Tomer, the Whitney’s Adjunct Curator of Performing Arts.

Image Credit:

Jimmy DeSana (1949-1990), Marker Cones, 1982. Silver dye bleach print. Courtesy the Jimmy DeSana Trust

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The Segal Center will devote two days to Tap Dance, a complex American popular art with a rich and under-recognized history and a present that’s vibrant and international. Presented in partnership with the American Tap Dance Foundation, The World of Tap Dance will feature discussions with renowned tap artists across the generations, special screenings of classic and rare dance footage, and live performances by a curated lineup of dynamic tap artists. Day 1 will look back on the history of tap, with a special focus on the late and legendary Chuck Green, while Day 2 will survey the recent bloom in tap activity around the world, from Europe to Brazil to Japan.

All Day Tuesday + Wednesday, July 6 – 7, 2010
Screenings begin at 10:00 a.m.
Panels /performances at 6:30 p.m.
Elebash Hall at
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309

FREE!!!

Click here for complete line-up of events

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The Chocolate Factory announced there 2010-2011 season and it looks great! Line-up below. Complete information available at http://www.chocolatefactorytheater.org.

Brian Rogers / The Chocolate Factory Theater – Selective Memory
September 8-18, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

Neal Medlyn – Brave New Girl
September 29 – October 2, Weds-Sat @ 8pm
*added performance Friday 10/1 @ 10pm

Ivy Baldwin Dance – Here Rests Peggy
October 20-30, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

Pele Bauch Performance – H to Oh
November 3-6, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

Anneke Hansen – look at them long and long
November 17-20, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

Melanie Maar – Spaces and Bones
December 1-4, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

Tara O’Con – Underneath Where We Are
December 15-18, Weds-Sat @ 8pm

THROW
9/14, 11/9

And coming in Spring 2011 – K.J. Holmes, Target Margin Theater, Sarah Maxfield, Roseanne Spradlin, Beth Gill, Christine Elmo….and a few surprises!

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All year, HHTF will be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the New York City Festival coming in October 1 – 16, 2010. As a way to share the joy HHTF enlisted an eclectic mix of its favorite DJs to share original sounds and new favorites. Check ‘em out here. Listen online or download the MP3s.

And if you’re going to be in Washington, DC on July 6-10, don’t miss the 9th annual DC Hip Hop Theater Festival:

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Art Matters, the innovative nonprofit foundation, is pleased to announce 26 grants ranging in amounts of 3,000 USD to 10,000 USD to artists focusing on communication and collaboration across national borders:

Rheim Alkadhi
Support for travel to Syria and Jordan to conduct interviews with displaced Iraqis towards a series of experimental videos.

Yto Barrada
Support for the creation of MIA THE MECHANIC, a photo storybook for girls in Arabic, French and English in collaboration with artist Sean Gullette.

Janet Biggs
Support for travel to Spitsbergen in the Arctic to create a new video exploring gender roles in polar exploration.

Dave Bryant
Support for the artist’s trek through Annapuma Himal of central Nepal and the creation of a feature length narrative video travelogue.

Tiffany Chung
Support for a collaborative performance/video project with the Tokyo-based art collective Nibroll.

Ben Coonley
Support for travel to Hong Kong for the creation of a video docu-drama involving an x-phi study.

Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson
Support for travel to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Greenland and for a collaboration with artists from Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia.

Elsewhere Collective
Support for the development of a collaborative project in Spree Park, an abandoned amusement park in Berlin, Germany.

LaToya Ruby Frazier
Support for travel to and research in Edinburgh, Scotland towards the development of a protest computer video game with characters based on her Scottish ancestral lineage.

Chitra Ganesh
Support for travel to Tokyo and Kyoto to research graphic storytelling forms Kamishibai and Garo/Seijen.

Dee Dee Halleck
Support for the Waves of Change video series, a compendium of alternative/citizens/community media projects from around the world.

Kira Lynn Harris
Support for travel to France and Spain to complete a series of large-scale drawings and photographs of the Chapel Notre Dame du Haut, Sagrada Família in Barcelona and George Wyman’s Bradbury building in LA.

Donna Huanca
Support for the artist’s nomadic journey through Bolivia, creating ephemeral installations and photo-documentation with collaborator Roy Minten.

Lovett/Codagnone
Support for travel and research in Brest, France, location of Fassbinder’s film version of Jean Genet’s novel Querelle.

Mary Mattingly
Support for travel to Bangladesh for a photography project examining water issues and culture, travel and architecture.

Ryan McNamara
Support for travel to Buenos Aires to expand the artist’s dance practice that evinces failure.

Camilo Ontiveros
Support for El Pedon, a project in which the artist extracts a meter cube of soil from Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico and transports it, in tact, to an arts institution in the US.

Jose Perdices
Support for travel to the Museum Ahmed Zabana in Oran, Algeria, for a photo and video project Zabana Inshallah, documenting the dismantling of certain colonial collections.

Gilad Ratman
Support for a performance project with heavy metal bands to take place in a near Iasi, Romania, engaging questions of identity and territory within the region.

Lucy Raven
Support for research in India towards a video project involving Hollywood’s international outsourcing of 3D animation and visual effects for the creation of US landscapes.

Robbinschilds
Support for travel to Iceland to film the artists moving in extreme landscapes for a new video/performance piece involving the feminist reworking of the “man alone” trope.

Binod Shrestha
Support for travel to Nepal for interviews and video/photo documentation exploring body-politics, violence, memory and identity.

A.L. Steiner
Support for a video and photo project in Mongolia inspired by Ulrike Ottinger’s film Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia.

Javier Téllez
Support for a video installation in collaboration with patients at Miguel Bormbarda Psychiatric Hospital in Lisbon.

Julie Tolentino
Support for the project YOUR UNTITLED MARK (upon me), in which the artist and video collaborator Stosh Fila create live portraiture with five queer/trans artists in Manila, Philippines.

Judi Werthein
Support for a film project on Eva Peron working with the original French theater script “Eva Peron” by Copi to explore myth, identity and translation.

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The boys over at Contemporary Performance have started a ning network at http://contemporaryperformance.ning.com. Check  it out.

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Artsjournal linked to a great article in The Root on Black dance companies surviving in this economy. The opening paragraph says:

You can find thrilling black dance companies in every part of the country, a fantastic improvement over the situation 50 years ago when dancers of color could hardly find a professional troupe to join.

I recently had a discussion about the state of African-American arts organizations, particularly theaters, and it seems like the situation is pretty rough. There’s as much diversity within the African-American arts community as there is outside it – everything from multidisciplinary presenters like 651 Arts to more traditional theaters like New Federal Theater, not to mention ensembles as different as Universes and Urban Bush Women and much more. But while Broadway is courting African-American audiences (according to the NY TIMES) it seems like culturally-specific arts organizations are facing not only economic hardship but organizational and existential challenges.

Is the perception of mainstream success having an impact on culturally-specific arts organizations? Is it impeding their ability to fundraise? Is it making it harder for them to demonstrate impact and relevance? The ecology of the arts world requires breeding grounds for new voices and new forms – if these culturally-specific African-American arts orgs go away, what will the impact be?

We don’t yet live in a post-racial world, but the conversations around identity politics have continued to grow, change and evolve. Is this happening more in the mainstream than at the grassroots level?

Do you have thoughts? Opinions? Let us know in the comments section!!

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