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- National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellowship Recipients
- Dance Heritage Coalition Announces New Publication
- Dancers' Group Announces Lighting Artists in Dance Award 2009/10
- Cloud Gate's Lin accepts Movimentos dance award
- Tight Times Loosen Creativity
- In New York, Mrs. Obama Praises Arts as Vital to U.S.
- Activists Ask White House for Role in Recovery
National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellowship Recipients
Award is nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts
Congratulations to Dance/USA member Chitresh Das!
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced the 2009 recipients of the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts, the NEA National Heritage Fellowships. Eleven fellowships, which include a one-time award of $25,000 each, are presented to honorees from eight states and Puerto Rico. The NEA National Heritage Fellowships public programs are made possible through the support of the Darden Restaurants Foundation and its family of Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52 restaurants.
The 2009 awardees were chosen for their artistic excellence and contributions to their respective artistic traditions. They represent a cross-section of ethnic cultures including Cambodian, North Indian, and West African, and promote such diverse traditional art forms as accordion-driven zydeco, willow basketry, and Yoruba sacred song and drumming.
Dance Heritage Coalition Announces New Publication
Dance Heritage Coalition announces The Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use of Dance-related Materials: Recommendations for Librarians, Archivists, Curators, and Other Collections Staff is now available for download from their website.
Tying directly into the Dance/USA Annual Conference session on Copyright and Fair Use: Next Steps – Engaging Future Audiences by Creating Strategic Partnerships for Sustainability, the booklet addresses how librarians, archivists, and curators, as well as those whose materials they safeguard, can understand the reasonable application of fair use in mission-critical circumstances. Dance companies and choreographers who want to save their dance legacy will benefit from understanding how archival collections are used to promote the whole dance field – and they will also better understand what they need to do to preserve their own legacy.
The newest publication is available online and in hard copy. Go to www.danceheritage.org/fairuse to download a copy, or contact LSmigel@danceheritage.org for a complimentary hard copy.
For help with documenting your dance legacy, check out the DHC earlier publication titled “Documenting Dance: A Practical Guide” at www.danceheritage.org/publications/DocumentingDance.pdf
Hard copies are available on request.
Dancers' Group Announces Lighting Artists in Dance Award 2009/10
Dancers' Group, San Francisco’s leading dance advocacy organization, announces their second annual grant awards to support lighting designers working in the field of dance. The Lighting Artists in Dance (LAD) Award is the first program of its kind in the Bay Area and provides choreographers, dance companies and lighting designers access to funds that will help support their collaborations, which will culminate in the creation of public dance performances taking place in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties.
“This annual program was developed to engage and support emerging, mid-career and established Bay Area lighting designers,” says Executive Director Wayne Hazzard. “Our hope is that these grants will allow each project an opportunity to deepen their creative partnership. We anticipate that an additional impact from these awards will be to benefit the audience as they experience performances that have grown in some way.”
Cloud Gate's Lin accepts Movimentos dance award
May 14, 2009
Taiwan News
Renowned choreographer Lin Hwai-min accepted a lifetime achievement award from the International Movimentos Dance Awards in Wolfsburg, Germany, Tuesday.
Lin is only the second choreographer to receive the award, after France's Maurice Bejart in 2004. The founder of the Cloud Gate Dance Theater attended the ceremony at the Volkswagen Autostadt in the German city, home to an annual dance festival. Lin liberated Taiwanese dance arts from Chinese traditions without breaking those traditions, and succeeded in linking a rich cultural heritage with the modern world of dance, a statement from the jury said. It also praised Lin for his broad knowledge of both Asian and European culture and of trends in contemporary arts.
by Robin Pogrebin
May 19, 2009
The New York Times
Even in the best of times Sony Holland had to hustle.
Living in San Francisco, she got singing gigs wherever she could find them: concerts, corporate conventions, wine country gatherings, weddings, hotels or on the city streets. Now because of the economic downturn the company bookings have dried up, along with some of her regular bar engagements.
But Ms. Holland, 45, said she feels liberated, able to focus on the kind of music that she loves. Rather than serving up the usual Gershwin and Porter tunes typically requested at corporate events, she can sing Wainwright and Dylan.
In New York, Mrs. Obama Praises Arts as Vital to U.S.
by Rachel L. Swarns
May 18, 2009
The New York Times
The first lady, Michelle Obama, visited New York City on Monday to promote the arts, celebrating opening night at the American Ballet Theater and the reopening of part of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mrs. Obama described the nation’s creative spirit as critical to its ideals and its identity, and said the arts needed to be nurtured even during difficult economic times. She noted that her husband had included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts.
“The arts are not just a nice thing to have,” she said, adding that the arts “define who we are as a people.”
Activists Ask White House for Role in Recovery
by Jacqueline Trescott
May 13, 2009
The Washington Post
A group of grass-roots activists representing arts, environmental and social justice organizations met yesterday with White House officials to discuss how they could collaborate with the administration on its economic recovery and general policy plans.
They wanted assurances of the Obama administration's commitment to the arts, and to offer their creative involvement when wider government initiatives intersect with their fields. The attendees met with seven administration officials during a two-hour briefing at the Executive Office Building.
Afterward the activists retreated to Busboys and Poets on 14th Street NW to develop strategies for their future involvement. Ideas included a follow-up conference, a partnership with the Labor Department and a Top 10 list of why the arts are important as talking points for the president.
