TN Receives $1,101,900 From NEA
By Suzanne Lynch, Director of Marketing and Development –
As the only funder in the country to support arts activities in all 50 states and five U.S. jurisdictions, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced its second round of funding for FY 2017. This funding round includes partnerships with state, jurisdictional, and regional arts agencies. The NEA will award 1,195 grants totaling $82.06 million to support organizations that employ artists and cultural workers to provide programs for thousands of people around the country. Tennessee will receive 16 grants for a total of $1,101,900, which includes a $781,900 partnership support grant to the Tennessee Arts Commission for further subgranting.
“The American people are recognized for their innovative spirit and these grants represent the vision, energy, and talent of America’s artists and arts organizations,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “I am proud of the role the National Endowment for the Arts plays in helping advance the creative capacity of the United States.”
NEA-funded arts activities are as diverse as the places that foster them. For this round, funds were distributed to four categories: Art Works; Research: Art Works; Our Town; and State and Regional Partnerships.
“Thank you to the NEA for this continued support. This federal funding will greatly benefit Tennessee schools and communities through the arts,” says Anne B. Pope, Executive Director of the Tennessee Arts Commission. “Schools, nonprofit organizations and local governments receiving these federal investments will be able to continue providing diverse, exceptional arts and cultural programming to Tennesseans and visitors to Tennessee.”
The following TN Organizations have received awards:
Ballet Memphis Corporation (aka Ballet Memphis)
$10,000 Cordova, TN
Art Works – Dance
To support a program of three works. The company will perform work by George Balanchine, Trey McIntyre, and Julia Adam. These pieces will be performed over two weekends, including six performances, and one pay-what-you-can opportunity.
Big Ears Festival
$15,000 Knoxville, TN
Art Works – Music
To support the Big Ears Festival. Held in various venues throughout downtown Knoxville, the weekend-long festival will feature musical performances combined with discussions, interactive workshops, installations, and film screenings. Since its founding in 2009, the festival has hosted a range of classical, rock, and experimental artists.
Dogwood Arts Festival, Inc. (aka Dogwood Arts)
$15,000 Knoxville, TN
Art Works – Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support a month-long festival celebrating East Tennessee’s varied art, culture, and natural beauty. With as many as four distinct events throughout the month of April, When Knoxville Blooms will be a diverse art and culture project providing audiences access to the arts regardless of age, race, income, or ability. Local and regional artists will present demonstrations, performances, and exhibitions.
Knox County, Tennessee
$10,000 Knoxville, TN
Art Works – Literature
To support the annual Children’s Festival of Reading. Presented in the World’s Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, the festival features children’s authors, illustrators, and musicians. Curated by children’s literature specialists at the Knox County Public Library, the festival offers children the opportunity to participate in ways that best suit their individual learning styles. The festival is designed to boost excitement about books and reading, and inspire children to keep reading throughout the summer months when they are not in school.
Creative Aging Memphis (aka Creative Aging)
$15,000 Memphis, TN
Art Works – Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support the Senior Arts Series. The series will comprise professionally produced performance events accessible to seniors and their guests. Each performance will pair a Creative Aging artist or group of artists with artist(s) from the community. The artists’ disciplines will include dance, music, and spoken-word. Tickets prices will be kept low and free tickets will be distributed to those in need.
Crosstown Arts
$20,000 Memphis, TN
Art Works – Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works
To support a tour of “Mellotronica” and related activities. This multidisciplinary performance will present new and original compositions for the Mellotron (an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard) featuring collaborations of artists and musicians working in a wide range of musical and performative styles and visual mediums.
New Ballet Ensemble (aka New Ballet or NBE)
$20,000 Memphis, TN
Art Works – Arts Education
To support year-round dance instruction, residencies, mentoring and tutoring, and a Family Resource Center. Elementary students in the Orange Mound community will receive tuition-free, after-school classes in ballet, hip-hop, flamenco, Chinese dance, and African dance in their school’s dance studio that was built by New Ballet Ensemble. Students completing the dance residency will be invited to attend a summer intensive at the New Ballet studios and may choose to continue with free multi-genre dance classes by enrolling in the studio program on scholarship. Students train in a multi-cultural environment led by expert teaching artists and perform in annual main stage productions. Through the Mentoring Program, students will receive assistance with transportation, dancewear, nutrition, tutoring, college prep, and other family services as needed.
Country Music Foundation, Inc. (aka Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)
$25,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Arts Education
To support Words & Music. Museum educators and professional songwriters provide year-long professional developmment for teachers in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools to incorporate into class curriculum the Words & Music Teacher’s Guide and sequential lesson plans to teach students about the art of songs and the aesthetic techniques of creating lyrics. In the classroom, teachers will lead their students in creating and revising their lyrics through a process of experimentation with traditional song structures and components of effective lyrics. Folk and country music songwriting is based in oral traditions and passed along from mentors to apprentices through co-writing and creative problem solving. Students will gain access to these traditions by working with professional songwriters from the Nashville music industry, who will guide the students to set their lyrics to music. In alignment with the school district’s Music Makes Us initiative, teachers receive training to link Words & Music to English Langauge Arts curricula, including composition and revision, vocabulary, themes, messages, titles, and rhyme.
Frist Center for the Visual Arts Inc. (aka The Frist Center)
$20,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Museum
To support the presentation of “Nick Cave: Feat.” The work will comprise a 6,000-square-foot survey exhibition and a free public performance by Cave.The Frist Center also will present a companion outreach exhibition off-site at the museum’s community gallery. The survey exhibition will include a selection of Cave’s (b. 1959) signature “soundsuits,” video projections, a multimedia installation, and wall-mounted sculptures. Additionally, the project will include the production of a publication, free illustrated gallery guide, guided tours, and gallery talks.
Humanities Tennessee
$10,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Literature
To support literary programs including the Southern Festival of Books. The three-day festival features free readings and discussions with more than 250 authors. Other programs include Student Reader Days, through which authors visit classrooms across Tennessee; the Tennessee Young Writers’ Workshop and Appalachian Young Writers’ Workshop, week-long residential programs that provide students with the opportunity to develop writing skills while working with accomplished authors; and author events in Nashville. In addition, the organization also will maintain chapter16.org, a website devoted to books, writers, and literary events in Tennessee.
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (aka MNPS)
$100,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Arts Education
To support Music Makes Us: Next Generation II, a collective impact project in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. The Advisory Council of Music Makes Us will deepen engagement of new community stakeholders and continue to build upon relationships cultivated across multiple sectors (chamber of commerce, technology industry, music business and municipal government) during Music Makes Us: Next Generation I. A new administrative leadership cadre of principals will be formed to foster greater understanding of the benefits of music and the arts among the principals and assistant principals districtwide. Additionally, the project will provide a series of residencies and professional learning opportunities for music educators, including workshops, symposia, and coaching with a new emphasis on arts integration with non-arts classroom teachers. Key partners include the Mayor of Nashville; Music Makes Us Advisory Council, whose members are jointly appointed by the mayor and director of schools and represent a broad cross-section of music industry; K-12, higher education, philanthropic, and community leaders; Tennessee Performing Arts Center; and the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission.
Nashville Repertory Theatre, Inc. (aka Nashville Rep)
$10,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Theater & Musical Theater
To support the Ingram New Works Project. The program will support the creation of new plays by participating playwrights from initial inception to drafts for staged readings. The program will support work on a new play by a playwright of national prominence, a season-long lab with resident and emerging playwrights, and a festival of staged readings that showcases new work. The program will provide playwrights with dramaturgical support, access to professional actors, directors, and designers, housing while in Nashville, and a stipend.
New Dialect
$10,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Dance
To support Dance Dialectics, a contemporary dance education project. Designed to create professional development and community engagement opportunities for children and adults at varying dance levels, the year-long project will include technique training classes, master classes, community workshops, youth dance camps, and educational programming for high school students. In addition there will be creative residencies for visiting choreographers, open rehearsals, informal showings, and question-and-answer sessions. Activities will take place at various studios in Nashville, including at the Metro Parks Centennial Performing Arts Studios.
Southern Word, Inc.
$15,000 Nashville, TN
Art Works – Arts Education
To support the expansion of spoken-word school-based residencies and a statewide poetry slam. Teams of professional writer-mentors will lead residencies in English language arts and theater classrooms for rural and urban high school youth. Students will learn to use literary devices such as imagery, narrative, concrete detail, personification, metaphor, simile, and musicality. As students develop their writing and performance skills, they are encouraged to share their work with peers for critique. Each school will host an open mic or poetry slam as a culminating event, and youth may participate in regional and statewide slams.
Tennessee Arts Commission
$781,900 Nashville, TN
Partnerships (State & Regional)
To support Partnership Agreement activities associated with carrying out NEA-approved State strategic plan.
Tanasi Arts and Heritage Center of Northeast Tennessee, Inc. (aka Tanasi)
$25,000 Unicoi, TN
Our Town – Design
To support Functional Artways of Appalachia. The Tanasi Arts and Heritage Center of Northeast Tennessee, in partnership with the Town of Unicoi, will produce a series of monthly events showcasing regional art- and craft-making traditions and talent in Erwin and Unicoi, Tennessee. Programs will include artists in residence who will stage live demonstrations of their craft, such as pottery, wood-carving, textile arts, and landscape photography, and will provide hands on opportunities for residents to experience diverse forms of making. The project is expected to provide opportunities for residents to connect with local cultural assets, strengthen a unique sense of place, boost tourism, and provide an economic outlet for local artisans.
