Queer|Art Announces Judges For 2nd Annual Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant For Queer Women(+) Dance Artists

Queer|Art, NYC's home for the creative and professional development of LGBTQ+ artists, is pleased to announce the judges for the second annual Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists: performance artist and writer Gabrielle Civil, performer and choreographer Jasmine Hearn, and time-based artist and choreographer Jane Jerardi.

The $10,000 grant will be awarded US-based artists for making cutting-edge dance and movement-based performance work. Queer|Art highly encourages self-identified women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary artists to apply for this grant. Named in honor of visionary dance curator, critic, and educator Eva Yaa Asantewaa, the grant is administered through Queer|Art by a panel of queer women and nonbinary judges and seeks to highlight the important contributions queer women and nonbinary artists have made to dance throughout history.

"Folks who care about the art of dance-an art of the moving body in time and space-try to preserve its wonders against disappearance," Yaa Asentewaa writes. "In a society ambivalent about, and sometimes hostile to, both the body and its artistry, lovers of dance honor the body in all of its variations, its rich stories, its wisdom and creative expression. With this award, we seek to record and honor the creative innovation and labor of queer women dance artists. To acknowledge them as full humans and artists informed and nourished by love, by experience, and by culture. To support and revere our artists for exactly and completely who they are; so they know a fierce community of peers, elders, and ancestors has got their back; and to make our world a safer, more empowering place for queer artists and, in truth, for all artists and for all people."

The grant is application-based and will be awarded to benefit specific projects. Funds can be requested to support work at any stage of development, from concept to presentation. Qualifying work may be dance and/or movement-based performance work of any format. Prospective applicants should review application requirements and apply directly through the Queer|Art website.

Applications for the second year of the Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists will be open September 10th - November 10th, 2019. The Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists is part of the organization's Queer|Art|Awards initiative, which includes grants, prizes, and awards that provide various kinds of direct support-monetary and otherwise-to LGBTQ+ artists. Other Awards include: The Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant and the Queer|Art|Prize for Sustained Achievement and Recent Work. Over time, Queer|Art|Awards seeks to include a spectrum of support that will benefit artists working in a variety of fields and mediums, as well as broader categories of support that will survey LGBTQ+ culture as a whole.