Grantmakers in the Arts

Ellen Stewart, the founder, artistic director and de facto producer of La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, a multicultural hive of avant-garde drama and performance art in New York for almost half a century, died Thursday in Manhattan. She was 91.

(1-13-2011) La Mama Experimental Theater Company founder Ellen Stewart passed away today at age 91. Brava Ellen!

Read more about Ellen here, here, and here.

(1-13-2011) Susan Josephs for the Los Angeles Times:

Since launching the controversial yet successful dance event in 2005, Israeli-born choreographer [Neta Pulvermacher] has watched her brainchild grow from a New York City happening into a national franchise produced by the Joyce Theater Foundation with support from The Boeing Company.

(1-12-2011) The National Endowment for the Arts announced today 15 not-for-profit organizations will receive grants totaling $250,000 to bring outstanding jazz musicians, writers, producers, and scholars to communities across the nation through NEA Jazz Masters Live. In cooperation with Arts Midwest, these NEA Jazz Masters Live grants support performance and educational activities featuring NEA Jazz Masters, recipients of the nation’s highest honor in jazz.

(1-11-2011) András Szántó identifies artist-endowed foundations as the "sleeping giant of philanthropy" in an Art Newspaper article inspired by the findings of The Aspen Institute's recent two-volume report The Artist as Philanthropist: Strengthening the Next Generation of Artist-Endowed Foundations.

(1-10-2011) A program of the Jerome Robbins Foundation, New Essential Works was created in fall of 2009 as a response to the financial crisis and the prospect of "a lost period of choreography." Frequently partnering with performance centers, the Foundation awards grants from $10,000 to $35,000 to choreographers. There are no grant applications and specific works-in-progress are not required. Instead, foundation staff, sometimes in collaboration with the partner organizations, select individuals according to artistic merit and relevance.

(1-10-2011) A member emailed me recently and asked, “What do you know about state arts agencies privatizing? Our governor might eliminate our state agency and…”

(1-7-2011) On The Guardian theater blog, Andrew Haydon outlines recent government actions against productions and organizations in Hungary, Belarus, and Iraq, positing that the severity of the measures indicate that theater may, in fact, have world-changing capabilities.