Dance projects granted $812,000
A Pew program gave money to work old and new, solo efforts, and collaborations.
A dozen dance projects will receive a total of $812,000 in grants from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Pew officials announced Friday.
The grants, made annually as part of the Pew's Dance Advance program, will support new and old work, solo efforts, and collaborations.
The grants include $50,000 for Jumatatu Poe's Private Places, a work based in JSette movement, an underground, primarily African American dance form. Private Places will premiere at the 2012 Live Arts Festival.
Pennsylvania Ballet was awarded $150,000 to present choreographer William Forsythe's Artifact Suite in 2013.
Other grants include $50,000 to Merián Soto to assist in completion of her Branch Dance series with We Are, an outdoor, site-specific performance; $113,000 to Bryn Mawr College's Performing Arts Series to present Susan Rethorst's Inquiring Mind / Choreographic Mind; and $138,000 to Group Motion Multi Media Dance Theater, to commission Rethorst to create a new work for presentation in 2014 at the Arts Bank in Philadelphia.
Also receiving grants: choreographer Germaine Ingram, $25,000, for a collaboration with improvisational dancer and choreographer Leah Stein; Kùlú Mèlé African Dance & Drum Ensemble, $61,000, to support residency of Ronald K. Brown's Evidence dance company; Taras Lewyckyj, artistic director of Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, $50,000, for restaging lost works of Ukrainian dance artist Anatoly Kryvochyzha; Painted Bride Art Center, $100,000, to present seminal duets of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, performed by dancers from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; Viji Rao, $25,000, to develop solo works rooted in South Indian dance; Kate Watson-Wallace, $25,000, for a performance project based on movement found in YouTube clips and music videos; and Raphael Xavier, $25,000, for presentation of The Unofficial Guide to Audience Watching Performance.