The Arts Council is pleased to announce grants awarded through the Louisiana Decentralized Arts Funding Program. A total of $508,406 has been awarded to 97 recipients in Orleans, Jefferson, and Plaquemines Parishes. Decentralized funding supports arts and cultural activities through Operating Support, Project Assistance, and Technical Assistance grants. Grant-sponsored activities will take place October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009. Decentralized grants are made possible with state funding through the Louisiana Division of the Arts, under the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.
Decentralized awards in Orleans Parish include 40 Project Assistance grants to organizations and individuals doing community arts projects and nine Technical Assistance grants that enable organizations to hire professional consultants or partake of arts program-related educational or professional opportunities. Also included in this grant cycle is the second year renewal of 16 two-year Operating Support grants to Orleans-based arts and cultural organizations.
Notable first-time project grant recipients in Orleans Parish include: Children's Hospital - for a music education and performance series for patients and their families featuring performances of Delfeayo Marsalis's "Swinging with the Cool School" and performances by other local musicians; CubaNOLA Arts Collective - for the Vecinos Series of concerts and gatherings at neighborhood venues to bring together new Latin American residents and established New Orleanians for music by international and local musicians and for food and dancing; Rashida Ferdinand - for a ceramics guild program for young people in the Lower Ninth Ward including intensive instruction and opportunities for participants to sell their creations in the community; Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans - for a 7th Ward digital storytelling project that includes training for neighborhood participants and a new media festival which will present and archive the stories of 7th Ward residents; New Orleans Fringe, Inc. - for the first New Orleans Fringe Festival featuring comedy, dance, drama, performance art, puppetry, and spoken word performed at an array of venues in Bywater; St. Louis Cathedral - for a series of concerts presenting internationally-acclaimed organists performing a range of pipe organ music; and Jan Villarrubia - for the production of Whispering Bones, a community-based, collaborative performance piece examining racism and the role of black domestics in white households.
Decentralized awards in Jefferson Parish include 22 Project Assistance grants and one Technical Assistance grant. Five two-year Operating Support grants to Jefferson-based arts and cultural organizations were renewed.
Notable project grant recipients in Jefferson Parish include: Grand Isle Community Development Team - for the 7th annual regional juried art exhibition established to raise awareness of coastal erosion of Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island and the surrounding wetlands; Anita Kulkarni - for workshops in classical Indian music and classical Indian dance and a concert featuring both; Moscow Nights - for An Evening with Anton Chekov, a theater production featuring three Chekov plays; St. Jerome Church - for an after-school dance and drumming program for a mostly Latino student population; and the West Bank Art Guild - for a series of hands-on visual arts workshops for area adults, children and seniors. Eleven school-based projects in Jefferson Parish received funding for arts-in-education activities.
In Plaquemines Parish, four Decentralized Project Assistance grants were awarded. Belle Chasse Academy, Belle Chasse Primary School, and Boothville-Venice Elementary School received funding for arts-in-education activities. Plaquemines Parish Library was awarded a grant to present a series of guest artists as part of its Summer Reading Program.
The Arts Council of New Orleans is one of nine regional agencies in the state that administers the Decentralized Arts Funding Program. Funding is allocated to each parish in the state on a per capita basis, giving each parish the opportunity to develop arts and cultural programming that meets local needs. The Arts Council of New Orleans uses a community-based panel review process involving over 35 volunteers. Panels of community representatives who have arts expertise and diverse community knowledge recommend grant awards. A narrative list of all Decentralized (DAF) grant recipients in this cycle is attached to this email as is a WORD document of this press release.
About the Arts Council of New Orleans:
The Arts Council of New Orleans is a private, non-profit organization designated by the City of New Orleans as its official arts agency. Now in its 33rd year, the Arts Council works in partnership with the City of New Orleans, community groups, local, state, and national governmental agencies, and other nonprofit arts organizations to meet the arts and cultural needs of the New Orleans community through a diversity of initiatives and services. The Arts Council also administers the Community Arts Grants and the Percent For Art program for the City of New Orleans.
Friday, October 17, 2008
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