This week, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) made their second major grant announcement of fiscal year 2015. Among the Art Works grants announced on May 6th, 15 were awarded to Arizona arts and culture organizations, representing a total investment of $435,000. For a complete list of Arizona grantees, project descriptions and award amounts, see the posted list, below.
The Art Works category supports the creation and public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. These awards are for projects in 13 arts disciplines and fields ranging from arts education to visual arts. The NEA received 1,731 eligible Art Works applications, requesting more than $86.3 million for FY 2015 support. With available appropriated funds, the NEA is recommending 960 projects for funding for a total investment of $25,599,000.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects represents a significant investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”
The Arizona Commission on the Arts congratulates these 15 worthy recipients:
Flagstaff Arts Council (previously known as Flagstaff Cultural Partners)
$30,000 Flagstaff, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Local Arts Agencies
To support the ArtBox Institute. A professional development and business training program for artists and arts administrators in Northern Arizona, the ArtBox Institute (ABI) is designed to provide tools and resources for succeeding in the contemporary arts marketplace. The ABI uses hands-on interactive learning and a curriculum that covers marketing, communication, planning, financial literacy, and fundraising. ABI instructors include artists, consultants, and staff from arts organizations and agencies around the country.
City of Mesa, Arizona (aka Mesa Arts Center)
$50,000 Mesa, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Arts Education
To support Jazz from A to Z. Mesa Art Center’s comprehensive jazz education project fosters an appreciation of jazz music, its history, and its importance as one of America’s greatest cultural resources. The project will include professional development workshops in which teachers will learn how to analyze and interpret jazz music and use it as a resource to teach history. Middle and high school students will participate in jazz clinics presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center musicians such as Wynton Marsalis. The project also will include a Band Director’s Academy taught by professional jazz musicians, a regional “Essentially Ellington” student band competition, and Young People’s concerts.
Nogales Unified School District #1
$35,000 Nogales, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk & Traditional Arts
To support mariachi education for youth. Students will learn the traditional mariachi instruments of vihuela, guitarron, violin, trumpet, harp, and flute as well as vocal training. Elementary and middle school teachers also will participate in the program so that they may improve their educational techniques. Additionally, students will travel to several mariachi conferences, providing them with the opportunity to improve their musical skill and broaden their cultural horizons.
Ballet Arizona
$35,000 Phoenix, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Dance
To support Ballet Under the Stars, a free outdoor performance series in local parks throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. The company will perform classical and contemporary ballet works at each performance. In addition, children from local elementary schools who have worked with Ballet Arizona dancers through the Class Act program will showcase a short dance piece during each intermission. The intention behind the program is to make ballet accessible to individuals from underserved communities who may not be able to attend live ballet performances.
City of Phoenix, Arizona (aka Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture)
$30,000 Phoenix, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Local Arts Agencies
To support the development and implementation of ArtsBuild. The program is the STEAM-based arts learning component of the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Program. Through a series of community workshops, ArtsBuild will engage Phoenix residents of all ages in the creative and collaborative process of designing and building a modern city. Each workshop will focus on one of the five areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), using teaching artists and public art design team members to instruct and lead activities to deepen participant knowledge of art, architecture, landscape design, construction, engineering, and other career fields.
Release the Fear, Inc.
$10,000 Phoenix, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support Bridging Possibilities workshops. Incarcerated and recently released youth will participate in arts workshops as a way to teach skills that will assist with their transition back into their communities. Visual art, music, and storytelling exercises will provide youth ways to explore issues of peer pressure, gangs, bullying, conflict, and anger.
Arizona State University
$15,000 Tempe, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Research
To support an evaluation of a “theater-making” program’s ability to promote healthy eating behaviors in elementary school students. Grounded in social cognitive theory and theory of planned behavior, the study will examine how the program, when integrated with cooking classes, contributes to a range of healthy lifestyle behaviors and attitudes among participants. In addition to surveying students on these factors, researchers will conduct qualitative assessments using teacher-artist journals, student journals, and observations.
Arizona State University (On behalf of ASU Gammage)
$45,000 Tempe, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support ASU Gammage’s Beyond series. Artists such as Vijay Iyer, Mike Ladd, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, and Meredith Monk will participate in residencies and related activities. Additional project activities will include question-and-answer sessions and panel discussions with the performers. ASU hopes to bring together a diverse group of artists with diverse audiences through this project.
Sonoran Art Foundation, Inc. (aka Sonoran Glass School)
$25,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Arts Education
To support the Youth Glass Arts Education Program. Students will receive instruction from fine glass artists and learn glass blowing techniques, flameworking, stained glass, and mosaics. Classes will be held at the Sonoran Glass School site, where students will have access to professional equipment and studios to create their own glass works. They will learn proper safety and use of the equipment. Participating students also will learn to apply color using various application methods.
Southwest Folklife Alliance, Inc. (aka Tucson Meet Yourself (TMY))
$35,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk & Traditional Arts
To support the Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival. The event will showcase music, dance, crafts, and foodways of cultural and ethnic groups from the Southwest. The event also will feature exhibits and presentations celebrating the centennial of the University of Arizona’s School of Anthropology, which played a major role in the development of the disciplines of anthropology and folklore. Special exhibits, talks, and interactive activities will increase the public’s awareness of anthropology’s contributions to cultural studies and its connection to the twin discipline of folklore.
Southwest Folklife Alliance, Inc. (aka Tucson Meet Yourself (TMY))
$40,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk & Traditional Arts
To support the launch of the Southwest Folklife Alliance. The groundwork of the Southwest Folklife Alliance will include a folk arts apprenticeship program and the continued expansion of an online archive of documented folk artists and regional folklife practices. Additionally, producing the e-journal “BorderLore” and providing training in folklife documentation to community members interested in ethnography in both urban and rural areas will increase public awareness of the state’s diverse cultural communities and traditional arts activities.
Tucson Chamber Artists, Inc. (aka TCA)
$40,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Music
To support a performance project in New York City. The ensemble will perform works by American composer Stephen Paulus at Carnegie Hall coinciding with the release of its CD recording of previously unrecorded works by the late composer. Repertoire will include Paulus’s oratorio “Prayers and Remembrances,” which was commissioned for the ensemble for the tenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001, and premiered in Tucson, as well as other works from the forthcoming album. In addition, the ensemble will present open rehearsals and educational outreach activities in local New York schools.
Tucson Museum of Art (aka Tucson Museum of Art, or TMA)
$15,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Museum
To support an exhibition exploring the art of the American West in popular and mass media. Western Heroes of Pulp Fiction Art and its catalogue will present works of art and visual communications from the late-19th through early-21st centuries, such as dime and pulp novel illustrations, comic book art, and cinema, alongside traditional modern and contemporary art. The exhibition will feature works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Jackson Pollock and will explore how people, places, and historic events of the West have been fictionalized and sensationalized and how popular art influences cultural and artistic discourse.
University of Arizona
$10,000 Tucson, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Literature
To support the Poetry Center’s 53rd Annual Reading and Lecture Series, the Matinee Series, and Voca, an online audiovisual library featuring recordings from events. The reading series will host diverse poets at the university and at the Phoenix Art Museum. The Matinee Series will bring as many as five visiting poets to local high schools for readings and lectures. Readings will be recorded and added to Voca, which already includes footage from events since 1962.
Wickenburg Foundation for the Performing Arts (aka Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts)
$20,000 Wickenburg, AZ
FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Dance
To support the creation of a new dance by the RIOULT Dance NY company. The work will be a part of the Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts Made in Wickenburg artist residency program. The Webb Center will host Artistic Director and choreographer Pascal Rioult, composer Richard Danielpour, dancers, actors, production staff members, and a documentarian for a two-week work session. Rioult will invite the Wickenburg community to participate in open rehearsals and conversations. The residency will culminate in a public performance.
Photo by Nick Letson, Sonoran Glass School (c) 2014
