Fall 2014 Grants from National Endowment for the Arts

Austin Film Society

$34,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Media Arts

To support the presentation of several curated film and video series. The year-round exhibition program will include contemporary and classic narrative, documentary, and experimental films from the U.S. and around the world. More than 200 films are expected to be shown at the Marchesa Hall and Theatre.

Austin Independent School District

$80,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Arts Education

To support Creative Learning Initiative. The initiative is a collective impact project in Austin that networks education, government, arts, business, and philanthropy to provide what every child should learn in arts-rich schools. Leaders from education, government, arts, business, and philanthropy collectively have developed a methodical, districtwide ten-year plan, the Creative Learning Initiative (CLI), to transform the community through arts education. During this project period, schools will assume more independent leadership in the implementation of creative learning. Schools will be supported with training to deliver arts-based instruction, design and implement individualized learning plans, map the gaps, and activate solutions in neighborhoods to address equity and access to arts education.

Austin Lyric Opera

$20,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Opera

To support performances of composer Carlisle Floyd's "Of Mice and Men." This will mark the company's first American work since 2007. Educational activities will include free pre-performance lectures, a dress rehearsal performance for students, parents, and teachers, and educational packets providing cultural and historical context across subjects including music, history, and art. The artistic team may include artists such as conductor Richard Buckley, tenor Corey Bix, and bass-baritones Matthew Burns and Thomas Hammons. Performances will occur in Dell Hall in January 2016 and will reach additional audiences through local radio broadcast and live-streaming.

Center for Women & Their Work

$20,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Visual Arts

To support a series of solo exhibitions for emerging women artists of Texas. Artists under consideration include Olivia Moore, Alyssa Taylor Wendt, Susi Brister, Hollis Hammonds, Sara Franz, Abhidnya Ghuge, and Sally Weber. The artists will develop a new body of work for an exhibition in consultation with a curatorial advisor. The exhibitions will be accompanied by catalogues, educational programs, and outreach activities including podcasts of exhibiting artists' talks, performances, and panel discussions.

Cine Las Americas

$10,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America

To support the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival featuring narrative and documentary features, short films, and youth cinema, with related costs. Featured works will be made by or about Latinos and indigenous peoples of the Americas, Spain, and Portugal. A call for entries for the festival will be issued in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, inviting directors, producers, distributors, and actors to present their work to Austin audiences.

Contemporary Austin Museum Inc.

$35,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Visual Arts

To support an exhibition of experiential art. The exhibition will provide a survey of both new and existing works of multisensory art, artwork that is immersive and participatory in nature. The project will place artists who were early pioneers in the field such as Lygia Clark, Nancy Holt, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, and Paul Sharits, in dialogue with contemporary practitioners such as Charles Atlas, Trisha Baga, Ayse Erkmen, Roger Hiorns, and the artist collective Lakes Were Rivers. The exhibition will take place at three different sites - the Jones Center in downtown Austin, Laguna Gloria, located on 12 acres on the shores of Lake Austin, and the Visual Arts Center on the campus of the University of Texas.

Fuse Box Austin

$25,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works

To support the presentation of selected works at the Fusebox Festival. In "The Bridge Over Mud" from Norwegian performing arts collective Verdensteatret, the stage will be transformed into a complex, multichannel electro-acoustic space and visual instrument, played and manipulated by a team of artists, software developers, and musicians. "Headspace," a live performance installation by composer/lyricist Corey Dargel and designer Doug Fitch will explore the impossibility of experiencing someone else's consciousness. Finally, "Stripe Tease," an interdisciplinary dance-theater work from choreographer Chris Schlichting will combine movement, music, and the visual arts.

Great Promise for American Indians

$10,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America

To support the Texas American Indian Heritage Festival and Austin Powwow. The event will feature American Indian music, dance, drumming, visual and fine arts, and storytelling.

Mexic-Arte

$25,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Museum

To support the Emerging Artists Exhibition Program. Exhibitions will be guest-curated, featuring current work by emerging Texas artists of Latino descent. In addition to presentation in the gallery, artists also can choose to present their work using a "changarrito," or mobile vending cart which allows for unique public engagement, taking the art out of the museum and into Austin neighborhoods.

Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance, Inc.

$25,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Folk & Traditional Arts

To support Jibaro Mountain Traditions for All. Master artists Christian and Monika Nieves and Ricky Villanueva will conduct workshops and performances of traditional music, dance, and "decima" (improvisational poetry duels) that are native to the mountains of Puerto Rico. Additionally, the master artists will perform with Austin's Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance Troupe.

Sax, Sam

$25,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry

Somers-Willett, Susan B. A.

5,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry

Visions In Rhythm

$10,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Dance

To support the 15th annual Soul to Sole Tap Festival. A national performance forum for the art of tap dance, the festival hosts a wide range of dancers from around the U.S. and abroad. Participants may attend master classes, workshops, lecture-demonstrations, an artist/faculty concert, a participant showcase, video screenings, and tap improvisational jams. Artists may include Brenda Bufalino, Arthur Duncan, Rusty Frank, Michelle Dorrance, Jason Samuels-Smith, and Acia Gray, among others.

Young, Laura Saurborn

$25,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry

Zachary Scott Theater Center

$40,000 Austin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater & Musical Theater

To support the world premiere production of "On Grace," written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith. The play explores the idea of grace and empathy. The work will be performed by Smith in collaboration with cellist Joshua Roman, and director Leonard Foglia. Using her signature brand of theater using verbatim interview excerpts, Smith will enact conversations she conducted with renowned scholars, theologians, and politicians on the resilience of the spirit. Engagement activities will include outreach to communities whose voices will be represented in the work, as well as panel discussions and talk-backs designed to illuminate the play's development process.

Musical Bridges Around the World Inc

$10,000 San Antonio, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America

To support traditional folk music and dance performances in schools. The Austin Troubadours and Metropolitan Klezmer will each provide free performances at multiple underserved and low-income schools.

Youth Orchestras of San Antonio

$10,000 San Antonio, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America

To support the production of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and associated outreach activities. Soloists Ava Pine, Ryland Angel, and Jose Adan Perez will rehearse and perform with the YOSA Philharmonic, the San Antonio Choral Society, and the Children's Chorus of San Antonio.

Texas State University - San Marcos

$10,000 San Marcos, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater & Musical Theater

To support the Black and Latino Playwrights Conference. The conference will bring university theater students and guest professionals together for the development of new plays by African-American and Latino playwrights. Week-long script development workshops will culminate in public readings for audiences from the university campus and south Central Texas communities. The conference also will feature panel discussions and symposia on the craft of playwriting, as well as an annual tribute to a pioneer organization from the Black and Latino theater fields.

Mid Texas Symphony Society, Inc.

$10,000 Seguin, TX

FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America

To support a concert and associated outreach activities. The symphony will perform with violinist Nancy Zhou and students from the Lindenbaum Strings Outreach Program, which offers free string lessons to underserved children.