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National Endowment for the Arts Awards
More Than $66 Million in Spring Grants
May 13, 2003
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Contact:
Ann Puderbaugh
202-682-5570
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Washington, D.C. -- The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
announced today that it will award more than $66 million through 902 grants in
the second round of Fiscal Year 2003 grants. The Arts Endowment will distribute
$66,027,860 to nonprofit national, regional, state, and local organizations
across the country, funding 838 projects in the Access, Arts Learning,
Heritage/Preservation and Leadership Initiative categories, as well as 64
partnership agreements with state and regional arts councils.
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A 2003 Access grant will support 3D Chicago's sixth annual Pier Walk, the biggest
exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculpture in the world, which is attended annually by
9.5 million people. (Photo courtesy Pier Walk)
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"I have a simple philosophy for the National Endowment for the Arts," said
Dana Gioia, Chairman of the Arts Endowment. "A great nation deserves great art.
From providing preschool children with arts instruction, to encouraging a
higher level of arts criticism, to funding a new public television show that
will teach viewers about classical music, these projects will further the NEA's
mission to bring the best possible art to the greatest number of Americans."
Access, the category designed to fund a broad range of
projects that make the arts more widely available, includes 315 grants for a
total of $8.36 million. Access projects often seek to reach underserved
populations or citizens whose opportunities to participate in the arts may be
limited by age, disability, language or economic constraints.
Examples of projects supported by Access grants include:
National Poetry Month, coordinated by the Academy of American
Poets, is a project that brings poetry to schools, libraries, bookstores,
cultural organizations, and communities across the country in new and
imaginative ways.
Pier Walk, the annual Chicago International Sculpture Exhibition, is the
biggest display of large-scale outdoor sculpture in the world, featuring work by
approximately 40 sculptors.
The Louisiana ArtWorks ArtsReach Project, designed to provide audiences
access to the creative process of visual arts by attracting artists of diverse
backgrounds to conduct residencies in the New Orleans arts facility. The
project also includes a traveling, interactive exhibit based on the 2002
residency of master artist John Scott.
The Louisiana ArtWorks ArtsReach Project, with support from a 2003 Access grant, will produce a traveling, interactive
exhibit based on the residency of master artist John Scott.
(Photo courtesy of the Arts Council of New Orleans)
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In the Arts Learning category, 258 projects are being funded for a total of
$8,842,000. These grants assist projects that help children and youth to
acquire knowledge, skills and understanding of the arts. In addition, projects
are funded that extend the arts to underserved adult populations--those whose
opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity,
economics or disability.
Examples of projects supported by Arts Learning grants include:
The stART smart program, created by the Vienna, Va.-based Wolf Trap
Foundation for the Performing Arts, is designed to integrate the performing arts
into lessons for preschool children using children's books as the springboard
for developmentally appropriate arts activities.
The Sloss Furnace Association's Summer Youth Apprenticeship program
gives high school students from the Birmingham, Ala. area the opportunity to
work with professional artists to create cast-metal sculptures.
Classics for Kids, an innovative program produced by Cincinnati
Classical Public Radio, will include radio broadcasts, a multimedia Web site,
lesson plan materials for teachers and CD recordings.
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Birmingham, AL high school students will apprentice with professional artists to learn a
variety of cast-metal skills in the Sloss Furnace Association's Summer Youth Apprenticeship program, supported with a 2003 Arts Learning grant.
(Photo courtesy of Sloss Furnace Association)
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Heritage/Preservation grants preserve those forms of artistic expression and
practice that reflect our nation's many cultural traditions. Funding in this
category is being awarded to 172 projects for a total of $4.02 million.
Examples of projects supported by Heritage/Preservation grants include:
The American Dance Festival's Dance Critics Workshop--a three-week
event in Durham, N.C. for journalists--will focus on the history of dance and
dance criticism, as well as the function and responsibility of dance critics
today.
Philadelphia's Sedgwick Cultural Center will produce a touring
exhibition of the Germantown Eyedazzler style of Navajo weaving, documenting the
evolution, adaptation and preservation of three interwoven traditions during
more than two centuries of social change.
Valor, Agravio, y Mujer, a 17th century feminist version of the Don Juan
tale, will be staged by Washington D.C.'s Grupo de Artistas Latinamericanos.
The project will include bilingual educational materials including information
about the play's author, Ana Caro, one of the few women playwrights of Spain's
Golden Age.
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Works by third generation Spider Rock Artists, shown here overlooking the sacred Spider Rock,
will be included in the touring exhibition of the Germantown Eyedazzler style of Navajo weaving,
produced by the Philadelphia-based Sedgwick Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of Bruce Hucko)
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Through its Leadership Initiatives, the Arts
Endowment takes an active role in developing and implementing hallmark projects
of national significance in the arts. This category includes $3.85 million to
fund 50 Arts on Radio and TV projects, as well as 43 grants totaling $1.24
million to support Folk Arts Infrastructure initiatives.
Leadership Initiatives in the area of Arts on Radio and TV include:
A public television series, The Music Show, featuring Michael
Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, is designed to help a national
audience appreciate the power and relevance of classical music in contemporary
life.
The production of Turtle Island Storytellers, a series of traditional
storytelling segments will be featured weekly on the Portland, Ore.-based Native
American radio program, Wisdom of the Elders.
Piano in the Background: The Story of Billy Strayhorn and Duke
Ellington, a documentary produced by Robert Levi Films in conjunction with the
New York Foundation on the Arts, will chronicle Strayhorn's career as composer
and arranger for the Ellington Orchestra as well as his relationship with the
maestro.
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Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony will produce a new public television series
designed to help a national audience appreciate the power and relevance of classical music,
with support from a 2003 Arts on Radio and Television grant. (Photo courtesy of
Terrence McCarthy/San Francisco
Symphony)
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Leadership Initiatives in the area of Folk Arts
Infrastructure include support for:
The creation of Arizona
Commission on the Arts' statewide Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship
Program providing four apprenticeship teams, a time-honored way for master
artists to pass their skills on to apprentices within their community.
The creation of Washington State Arts Commission's statewide Latino
Infrastructure Initiative to include fieldwork and community meetings around the
state, identification of artists and the establishment of support networks.
State Partnership Agreements provide support for state arts agencies' basic
state plan to address local priorities, as well as funds earmarked for arts
education, fostering the arts in underserved communities and local Challenge
America initiatives. Regional Partnership Agreements provide basic support for
regional arts organizations' regional plans, in addition to regional touring
initiatives. In this round, 57 state partnerships will receive $33.34 million
and seven regional partnerships will be funded for a total of $6.4 million.
This round of grantmaking, the second of Fiscal Year 2003, awards 67.83% of
the year's funding. About four percent remains to be allocated by the
conclusion of FY 2003 on September 30. President George W. Bush has requested
Congress grant the National Endowment for the Arts $117.48 million for FY 2004,
an increase of $1.749 million.
Grants listings noted in this announcement:
Access
Arts Learning
Arts on Radio and Television
Folk Arts Infrastructure
Heritage/Preservation
State and Regional Partnership Agreements
Please see the Fiscal Year 2003 Overview Fact Sheet
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National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506
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