Hoosier Arts Efforts Receive NEA Support
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowEight organizations and individuals in Indiana are sharing a total of $150,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The funding will support efforts in cities including Bloomington, Indianapolis and New Albany. The NEA says: Some details of the projects listed are subject to change, contingent upon prior Arts Endowment approval.
Indiana University (on behalf of Traditional Arts Indiana) – $20,000 – Bloomington, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Folk & Traditional Arts
To support a traveling folk arts exhibit celebrating Indiana's bicentennial. The exhibit “Indiana Folk Arts: 200 Years of Tradition and Innovation” will feature folk artists from different cultural communities across the state, such as African-American quilting, Italian stonecarving, and Native America bead work, to mention but a few.
Performances and demonstrations will supplement the exhibitions at selected locations.
Lotus Education and Arts Foundation, Inc. – $30,000 – Bloomington, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival. The festival will feature free and ticketed concerts, festival processions, exhibitions, installations, and performances. Engagement activities will include demonstrations, collaborative art-making activities, and educational workshops.
Gelston, Sara – $25,000 – Indianapolis, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry
Heartland Truly Moving Pictures, Inc. – $20,000 – Indianapolis, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Media Arts
To support the 24th Heartland Film Festival and related activities. Films will include narrative features, documentaries, and short films that meet the organization's mission to “inspire filmmakers and audiences through the transformative power of film.” In addition, the festival will host in formal filmmakers' gatherings, panel discussions, and educational activities.
Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra – $10,000 – Indianapolis, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Challenge America
To support free classical music performances intended to serve low-income residents and ethnic minorities.
Violinist Bella Hristova will engage in a series of outreach concerts, including a free, in-school performance at Emmerich Manual High School and a concert held on the grounds of the Indiana Women's Prison.
Phoenix Theatre, Inc. – $10,000 – Indianapolis, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Theater & Musical Theater
To support “Heritage,” a series of plays by artists of color exploring the history, mythology, and cultural inheritance of people of different races and cultural backgrounds. The series will include “River City” by Diana Grisanti, a play which explores the struggles and legacy of the civil rights movement in Louisville, Kentucky. The series also will feature “Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea,” a play in verse about a young black man's search for connection to his ancestors, as well as a new play with music by Caridad Svich based on a Mexican folk tale. The series is designed to develop and produce work that reflects Indianapolis's increasingly diverse population, to expand audience engagement with culturally diverse work, and to increase performing opportunities for artists of color.
Neely, Mark – $25,000 – Muncie, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry
Carnegie Center for Art & History, Inc. – $10,000 – New Albany, IN
FIELD/DISCIPLINE:
Challenge America
To support a series of temporary, site-specific public art installations with associated programming.
A call to artists will be reviewed by an established jury to select artworks that will focus on the theme of sustainability. The Carnegie Center will collaborate with Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest to interpret and present public programs about sustainability for installation in the downtown of New Albany.
December 2, 2014
News Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – From partnerships to develop a districtwide arts education plan in North Carolina to poetry from a combat engineer to a folk arts festival in rural Wyoming, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) continues to support the arts and creativity to improve lives and communities in the United States. In its first fiscal year 2015 announcement, the NEA will award $29.1 million in 1,116 grants in three categories: Art Works, Challenge America, and NEA Literature Fellowships in Creative Writing.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “Since coming to the NEA, I have met with many NEA grantees and have seen first-hand the positive impact they have on their communities. These new projects will continue to demonstrate the power the arts have to deepen value, build connections, and foster an atmosphere of creativity and innovation both at the community level and with individuals throughout the nation.”
ANNOUNCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
First round of NEA's major funding category, Art Works, includes more than $26.57 million in awards
These Art Works grants focus on the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields. The NEA will award 917 awarded totaling $26,571,000.
New arts education funding opportunity yields seven collective impact projects
The NEA affirms its commitment to providing arts education experiences for all students by developing a new funding priority within the Art Works arts education portfolio. Called collective impact, these projects focus on collaborative, systematic approaches that encompass entire schools, school districts, and/or states, in communities of all sizes.
In this initial round of funding – and together with 66 other arts education grants – the NEA is supporting seven collective impact projects totaling $495,000. Together, these seven projects will have a positive effect on an estimated 750,000 students. For example:
Ingenuity Incorporated Chicago received a $100,000 award to partner with Chicago Public Schools Department of Arts Education, teachers, Chicago's arts, cultural, and philanthropy communities, as well as parents and students in a large-scale data collection effort. After gathering and analyzing information such as instruction, budgeting, and planning in as many as 600 schools, Ingenuity Institutes will help arts organizations use data to partner more effectively with schools. Coordinated efforts will continue to foster the re-integration of the arts into classrooms to help ensure that all Chicago children have access to quality arts education.
Innovative projects that integrate the arts, science, and technology receive funding
Since 2010, NEA has encouraged and invested in work at the intersection of art, science and technology. Through funding, publications and content development, and collaborations with federal agencies and departments, the NEA has sought to catalyze and support work in this realm of innovation.
There is no designated funding category for arts, science, and technology projects, so grant awards appear in several NEA's disciplines. The following example demonstrates the unique, border-crossing nature of these projects.
A $40,000 grant to the Pasadena Arts Council in California will support design and implementation of AxS Incubator. The initiative is a pilot residency program that will nurture projects that intersect art and science. Project activity will include the creation of an artist resource program offering cross-sector assistance, which may include access to local artists, scientists, and curators at Art Center College of Design, the California Institute of Technology, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In its 47th year of supporting individual writers, NEA receives record number of applications.
Thirty-six poets have been selected to receive an NEA Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing. This $25,000, non-matching fellowship allows