2008 Grantees

Cultural Community Partnership

Cultural Community Partnership grants are designed to enhance the careers of individual artists of color. Artists can apply for grants to help support a collaborative project with another Minnesota artist of color or a Minnesota nonprofit organization.

Number of recommended applications: 19
Dollars awarded: $95,000

Fadumo Ali, Minneapolis
$5,000 – to each Somali cultural dance to school-age children, to pass on the heritage to future generations

Minonagamowag, Minneapolis
$5,000 - to compose and teach new traditional-style songs to youth and adult singers at Anishinabe Drum and Dance Group

Franconia Sculpture Park, Franconia
$5,000 - Peter Morales will create sculpture out of metal and stone, participate in a public symposium at Franconia Sculpture Park, and work with Franconia's at-risk youth program

Dee Henry Williams, Saint Paul
$5,000 – to create twelve large masks on canvas, install a Web site art exhibition in collaboration with KFAI community radio, provide an open house event with actual art for viewing, and teach a workshop

Peter J. Jadoonath, Saint Paul
$5,000 - to create a ceramic network that develops community awareness in downtown Minneapolis in collaboration with the Inspire Arts Program at the Hennepin County
Medical Center and the students of the InterDistrict Downtown School

Ed Bok Lee, Minneapolis
$5,000 - to write a three-act play to be directed by Randy Reyes and performed on
June 12, 2008, at the SASE Writers of Color Reading Series with special invitations given to local theater producers

Jimmy R. Longoria, Hopkins
$5,000 - to propose and create five gang graffiti-deterring murals, and train ten apprentices in the Chicano style of Muralismo

Annelize A. Machado, Minneapolis
$5,000 - to develop her Bharataratyam technique through mentorship with Pramila Vasudevan; the artists will collaborate to create an audience interactive performance piece for public viewing

New York Mills Arts Retreat, New York Mills
$5,000 - Duane Goodwin will make a Kasota limestone sculpture for the New York Mills community and mount a gallery show of his work in the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center

Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, Minneapolis
$5,000 - Zaraawar Mistry will collaborate with Ragamala to create and present, Sthree (Women), a contemporary interpretation of the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, conceived and choreographed by Ranee Ramaswamy

Marcie R. Rendon, Minneapolis
$5,000 - to write text for a play that will be shaped and formed by the artistic vision of
Jennifer Isle and Paul Herwig of Off-Leash Area, to be produced in the first half of 2008

Samuel G. Roberson, Jr., Minneapolis
$5,000 - to create a play, depicting the flaws in the American education system through the eyes of the students who are directly affected by it, in collaboration with James Williams and students at Central High School in Saint Paul

Rudy, Duluth
$5,000 - to record, String Theory, the artist’s first jazz violin album of instrumentation: violin, harp, bass, and singer, at Sacred Heart Music Center

The Southern Theater, Minneapolis
$5,000 - Ananya Chatterjea will collaborate with the Southern Theater to make Daak, which examines the impact of environmental degradation on native women and the land in India, Mexico, and Minnesota

Stages Theatre Company, Inc., Hopkins
$5,000 - Kathryn Leo-Keast will adapt Ken Mochizuki's book titled Baseball Saved Us and, as part of this process, will visit the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles

Teatro del Pueblo, Saint Paul
$5,000 - to collaborate with Rhiana J. Yazzie to write unique, interactive theatrical pieces, some of which will be in conjunction with Teatro's Political Theatre Festival and
spring show, Real Women Have Curves

Kao Lee Thao, Savage
$5,000 - to create up to twenty gouache paintings depicting Hmong folk tales, to be displayed in the Pioneer Press Gallery in collaboration with the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent

Thao X. Vang, Saint Paul
$5,000 - illustrator Thao Vang and writer Tou SaiKo Lee will fuse their talents to create a culturally influenced graphic novel to be displayed at the seventh annual Center for Hmong Arts and Talent Art Festival

Velvet Tones, Rosemount
$5,000 - Percy Hughes will develop a jazz performance in collaboration with a 60-person amateur chorus of seniors for presentation at the Minnesota History Center