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In the latest issue of the GIA Reader, Alison B. Hirsch writes on The Collective Creativity of Anna and Lawrence Halprin. The article explores the couple’s innovative artistic experiments that combined Anna’s dance choreography with Lawrence’s background in landscape architecture.
A new grant program of Theatre Communications Group assembles teams of three or more nonprofit organizations to design and implement audience engagement and community development strategies. Funded by the Doris Duke Chariatable Foundation, the inaugural Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants have been awarded to 9 projects representing 32 partnering organizations for a total of over $1.18 million. TCG will also provide additional general operating support equivalent to 30 percent of each award.
By Janet Brown, from her blog Better Together
In 1980, when I was living in New York City, I had a conversation with a man who at one time was general manager of Lincoln Center. We debated, rather heatedly, his premise that the National Endowment for the Arts should give money only to states that produce “good” art — in other words, New York. (He wasn’t sure other states should get any funding at all.) He believed the federal government should give funds to South Dakota, my home state, for what it does well — grow corn and beef. He believed the government should fund only what someone would decide was “good” art, and obviously, no “good” art came out of South Dakota. I was offended by that, and I can pinpoint that day as the beginning of my somewhat outspoken beliefs that all art has an element of excellence as long as it is authentic to a people and place. I delight in the fact that there are no rules of geography and environment in art making.
The Joyce Foundation has announced that Tracie D. Hall, currently deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, has been appointed director of the foundation’s culture program. She will join Joyce in mid-November after readying Chicago’s Public Art Plan and Year of Public Art initiative for launch late this year and in early 2017.
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) announced that executive director Alan W. Cooper will retire effective May 2017. As executive director of the foundation since 1994, Cooper has been responsible for all aspects of leadership and oversight leading to substantial growth in programs and services that have had extensive impact for both audiences and artists in the mid-Atlantic region and beyond.
In the latest issue of the GIA Reader, Maryo Gard Ewell daughter of Robert Gard, a pioneer in rural arts development describes how her father developed his influential work and publication, The Arts in the Small Community: A National Plan.
From Gintautas Dumcius at MassLive.com:
A bevy of philanthropic leaders from over 30 organizations signed a letter, published in the New York Times and The Washington Post on Sunday, about the hope for dignity, equity and justice for all people. The ad launched the #ReasonsForHope campaign on social media.
The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis/Community Arts Training (CAT) Institute and the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture will host a national convening of artists, activists, policy-makers, and community organizers on November 17–19 in St. Louis, Missouri. The CULTURE/SHIFT 2016 convening aims to generate and amplify creative strategies for social change.
From National Endowment for the Arts:
During Hodsoll’s tenure, the NEA launched important new initiatives such as the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships (known then as the American Jazz Master Fellowship), an annual honorific recognizing distinguished jazz artists, and the National Medal of Arts, a White House initiative, managed by the NEA, that each year recognizes a group of the nation’s great artists. Hodsoll’s chairmanship also featured a focus on building infrastructures and support networks for the arts, cultivating new audiences, and fostering sustainability among arts organizations.