Project grants to help arts organizations identify underserved groups or communities, identify the barriers that keep them from engaging in the arts, and develop and implement strategies to reduce or eliminate the barriers.
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
20% Theatre Company, Minneapolis | $ 33,450 | | 20% Theatre Company will work to center LGBTQ person of color (POC) artists by increasing access to theatrical jobs and paid production opportunities, as well as establishing an advisory committee to help the organization better serve POC artists. |
Alive and Kickin, Minneapolis | $ 26,855 | | Alive and Kickin will serve a broader senior audience by developing two collaborative singing and performing groups under the guidance of a community outreach advisory council in order to better serve diverse senior communities. |
APIA MN Film Collective, Savage | $ 11,375 | | The APIA Minnesota Film Collective will provide on set and on the job training to emerging APIA filmmakers to produce an original short film written by Naomi K. |
ArtiCulture, Minneapolis | $ 27,704 | | ArtiCulture will collaborate with Opportunity Partners to provide a series of twelve, five-week visual arts classes for adults with disabilities from a seven-county Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. |
Artistry, Bloomington | $ 19,169 | | Artistry will collaborate with Penelope 35, a federally subsidized housing complex, to produce PenARTS, a program to increase arts access and engagement among 90 low-income seniors. |
ArtReach St. Croix, Stillwater | $ 18,690 | | ArtReach Saint Croix will collaborate with area state park naturalists to take the show on the road through a mobile art gallery and pop-up performance venue, inviting the region's most rural residents to experience art in the landscape. |
Black Storytellers Alliance, Minneapolis | $ 17,725 | | Black Storytellers Alliance will reach women in the Minnesota correctional facilitiy in Shakopee with an electrifying, multifaceted journey through the African American cultural experience with African drums, storytelling, and two nationally acclaimed vocalists. |
Cantus, Minneapolis | $ 28,372 | | Cantus will work with Voices of Hope, comprising incarcerated women, to program, rehearse, and perform a concert at Shakopee's correctional facility and will stream the final concert. |
The Cedar, Minneapolis | $ 97,475 | | The Cedar will create an artist collective comprised of local Somali artists and Cedar Commissions alumni, as paid curatorial artists and cultural liaisons who advise efforts to expand access and diversify our programming. |
Chamber Music Live, Houston | $ 11,000 | | Chamber Music Live, in collaboration with community members, will present chamber music of the highest quality through the Apollo Music Festival, bringing world-class musicians to the heart of southeastern Minnesota's bluff country. |
CLIMB Theatre, Inver Grove Heights | $ 29,573 | | CLIMB Theatre will develop authentic connections between twenty teens and elders at four metro area memory care centers over twelve weeks of theatrical workshops led by trained CLIMB actor educators. |
Copper Street Brass, Minneapolis | $ 22,799 | | Copper Street Brass will use music and social interaction to enrich the lives of seniors in care facilities in nine small communities in greater Minnesota with a focus on those facing dementia through our creative aging program, Soundtracks. |
Curio Dance, Mahtomedi | $ 5,000 | | Curio Dance will expand its dance company by creating a performing arts dance troupe for adults with intellectual disabilities, connecting the performer with the audiences to impact social perceptions. |
The DIAL GROUP, Minneapolis | $ 11,500 | | The DIAL GROUP will provide creative and professional development opportunities for emerging artists of color to learn, mature, and become more proficient in their craft by working with professional media artists of color on a professional media arts project. |
Duluth Art Institute, Duluth | $ 32,319 | | The Duluth Art Institute will enrich and strengthen the lives of youth facing barriers and honor their unique perspectives and experiences through youth and community informed issue based art creation, discussion, and community programming. |
Duluth Playhouse, Duluth | $ 34,936 | | The Duluth Playhouse and Scottish Rite Clinic will conduct three, ten-week sessions of Stage Play: Theatre for Children with Autism, designed to serve youth with a variety of autism spectrum and related disorders. |
East Side Arts Council, Saint Paul | $ 16,750 | | East Side Arts Council will collaborate with professional artists to provide accessible and inclusive arts programs for seniors at four neighborhood sites in Saint Paul's East Side neighborhood. |
Hopewell Music Cooperative North, Minneapolis | $ 16,500 | | Hopewell Music will work collaboratively to create a choir program specifically designed for the diverse youth in our north Minneapolis community. |
Huge Improv Theater, Minneapolis | $ 24,340 | | HUGE Improv Theater will expand access to the art form of improv, reaching Minneapolis' Latinx community in the Lyndale neighborhood. |
Illusion Theater, Minneapolis | $ 63,425 | | Illusion theater will work with ASL signers, artists, and audiences and community members who are deaf or hearing impaired, to identify and address participation barriers, and create, develop, and produce an original production with deaf and hearing impaired populations. |
In Progress, Saint Paul | $ 49,500 | | Fresh Voices is a digital arts project dedicated to the creation of photographs, videos, and writing pieces that publicly acknowledge and celebrate the voices of Latinos living in the rural community of Crookston, Minnesota. |
Interact, Saint Paul | $ 40,196 | | Interact presents Dis/Cover the Arts which provides access for people with disabilities to both artwork that is created by artists with disabilities, and engagement with artists with disabilities. |
International Friendship Through the Performing Arts, Eagan | $ 23,865 | | "International Friendship Through the Performing Arts will hire top ethnic and jazz musicians to perform concerts and participate in outreach activities in eight Minnesota retirement communities.
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Jungle Theater, Minneapolis | $ 48,700 | | The Jungle Theater will engage underserved youth in collaboration with Project SUCCESS and Project DIVA through its production of Jocelyn Bioh's play School Girls. |
KAIROS ALIVE!, Minneapolis | $ 44,910 | | Kairos Alive! New Veterans Performance Project provides accessible dance, story, song, and theater performance opportunities to veterans of all ages and their families and expanded community, to enhance the well-being of all participants and respect for veterans. |
Kulture Klub Collaborative, Minneapolis | $ 51,972 | | Kulture Klub Collaborative will increase access to our recording studio program and performance opportunities for youth experiencing homelessness through strategic collaborations with the Minneapolis Central Library. |
MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis | $ 41,417 | | MacPhail Center for Music's MacPhail Northside Youth Orchestra and MacPhail Community Youth Choir will diversify participants and audiences by conducting outreach, building awareness, and enriching the student experience. |
MacRostie Art Center, Grand Rapids | $ 21,941 | | MacRostie Art Center will partner with Itasca Life Options to build capacity in its multidisciplinary art program for adults with developmental disabilities. |
Minnesota Fringe, Minneapolis | $ 15,790 | | Minnesota Fringe will enhance access services for deaf/hard of hearing audience members by offering open captioning for the first time, increasing ASL interpreted performances, and outreach for both activities. |
Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona | $ 99,248 | | The Minnesota Marine Art Museum will collaborate with its local community to cocreate eleven accessible art program days called Second Saturdays. |
Minnesota Museum of American Art, Saint Paul | $ 60,210 | | The Minnesota Museum of American Art will collaborate with three community groups to dismantle barriers to art through relationship building with specific communities, social interaction, creativity, and engagement with culturally relevant artists. |
Minnesota Orchestral Association, Minneapolis | $ 70,000 | | The Minnesota Orchestra will collaborate with north Minneapolis artists and community members to create a special week of accessible and collaborative musical activities in a wide range of spaces throughout that community. |
Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Minneapolis | $ 60,288 | | Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop will convene advisory councils of experienced students at seven prisons to help identify barriers to participation and work collaboratively with the councils to design and carry out twenty workshop offerings that will overcome those barriers and appeal to new writers. |
Minnesota Sinfonia, Minneapolis | $ 16,198 | | The Minnesota Sinfonia will work collaboratively with staff at senior residence homes to design programs that will engage their residents in experiencing and appreciating classical music by performing meaningful and relevant concerts. |
Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Minneapolis | $ 77,750 | | Mixed Blood Theatre will increase opportunities for people with disabilities by developing, expanding, and increasing programming to disparate disability communities to ensure that they are welcomed, accommodated, and affirmed. |
Northern Lights.mn, Minneapolis | $ 100,000 | | Northern Lights will work with community partners in Rondo, the American Indian Cultural Corridor, and independent artists to build long term relationships using Northern Spark to engage residents as planners, attendees, and artists. |
Northern Starz Children's Theatre, Ramsey | $ 27,426 | | Northern Starz will carry out The Penguin Project, a national theater program for students with disabilities, enabling students with disabilities to participate meaningfully in the theatrical arts. |
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, Saint Paul | $ 64,410 | | The Ordway will expand accessibility services, specifically in our new Family Series, which we anticipate will engage 7,500 children and their caregivers in the wonder of the performing arts. |
Pangea World Theater, Minneapolis | $ 58,450 | | Pangea World Theater presents the Lake Street Story Circles project, bringing Indigenous, Latino/a, and East African artists together with the diverse communities along East Lake Street to create collaborative short plays about daily life on Lake Street. |
Paradise Center for the Arts, Faribault | $ 28,487 | | The Paradise Center for the Arts is committed to providing authentic and meaningful arts experiences for children and youth, including those with special abilities, that empowers them to be creative, artistic, and inclusive partners in building stronger communities. |
Park Square Theatre, Saint Paul | $ 88,400 | | Park Square will select eight early career artists from a statewide, open application process for artistic fellowships that elevate diverse artistic voices on stage and connect underserved audiences to theater that is relevant and exciting to them. |
The Rose Ensemble, Saint Paul | $ 42,670 | | The Rose Ensemble will engage older adults who live in residential facilities, located in communities with populations of less than 20,000, in an interactive program of early American music. |
Saint Cloud Symphony Orchestra, St Cloud | $ 24,665 | | Saint Cloud Symphony Orchestra musicians will expand access to high quality live music for seniors with limited mobility through performances at seventeen senior residences in Central Minnesota and two concerts for seniors at the Paramount Theater during 2019. |
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Saint Paul | $ 100,000 | | The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will engage with members of Saint Paul's West Side community to create access to transformational performances through a three concert series, education and outreach activities, and collaborative programming. |
Sounds of Hope, Ltd., West St Paul | $ 24,010 | | Sounds of Hope will collaborate with community partners in four northeast Minnesota cities, to meaningfully engage communities in global music performed by youth and adults from countries around the world. |
Southern Theater, Minneapolis | $ 25,817 | | The Southern Theater will present Amplify, a performance series giving artistic voice and platform to underrepresented stories, including student matinees and panel discussions on challenges in presenting this work. |
Springboard for the Arts, Saint Paul | $ 30,000 | | Springboard for the Arts will collaborate with the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council to produce the 2019 Rural Arts and Culture Summit in Grand Rapids. |
StoryArk, Stillwater | $ 15,000 | | StoryArk will engage four student podcast teams, comprised of underserved communities, in development of fifteen to twenty minute original episodes to be uploaded onto the StoryArk Network podcast feed, app, and web page, engaging an intergenerational audience in narratives otherwise not heard. |
Ten Thousand Things Theater, Minneapolis | $ 47,586 | | Ten Thousand Things will work with three community partners to deepen relationships and reduce barriers to arts participation through creative engagements connected to the themes of eight shows in 2019. |
Theater Mu, Saint Paul | $ 24,502 | | Theater Mu will increase its understanding of, and program offerings to, Asian American children and families who will in turn benefit from seeing their own faces and stories reflected onstage and in workshops and classes. |
Threads, Golden Valley | $ 17,582 | | Threads Dance Project will engage with youth in afterschool dance programming to increase comfort and appreciation for dance. |
Twin Cities Ballet of Minnesota, Lakeville | $ 75,078 | | Twin Cities Ballet will work with a Latino musicologist, Dr. Ahmed Anzaldúa, and predominantly Latino audiences, to create a Latino ballet composition through a collaborative community process. |
Upstream Arts, Inc., Minneapolis | $ 70,273 | | Upstream Arts will offer The Art of Voice and Choice, multidisciplinary arts experiences for 180 adults with disabilities at a time of major transition in the disability community, while expanding its relationship with six disability organizations. |
Wonderlust Productions, Saint Paul | $ 22,977 | | Wonderlust Productions will collaborate with a diverse collection of people affected by Minnesota's incarceration system to create an epic new playscript that transforms how people across the state understand this system and the community. |
Zeitgeist Center for Arts and Community, Duluth | $ 27,997 | | The Zeitgeist Center for Arts and Community will collaborate with people and organizations led by people of color, to increase engagement in a newly developed readers theater program, new improv classes, and Renegade Theater performances. |
