The New England Foundation for the Arts Awards $404K for Dance Touring & Production Residencies

The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) has awarded $404,000 through the National Dance Project (NDP) to support production residencies and touring by contemporary dance companies in 2015-16. NEFA's National Dance Project fuels the creation of new dance works and brings the work of the most compelling dance artists of our time to audiences across the nation.

Seven dance companies have received NDP Touring Awards of up to $35,000 each that will support U.S. tours of the awarded projects during the newly-extended 18-month tour period of June 1, 2015-November 30, 2016. These projects were selected from a highly competitive pool of 67 U.S. and international applicants and are now available to tour with NDP support. They join the previously awarded Production Grant recipients, who also received up to $35,000 in touring support, as projects that U.S. nonprofit organizations may present with NDP subsidy. A publication of the seven Touring Award projects will be available in January, 2015, and will include tour coordinator information for presenters; a publication of the 24 Production Grant recipients with video work samples is currently available on NEFA's website. Organizations interested in presenting any of these projects should contact the tour coordinators listed in the publications prior to March 9, 2015, in order to be considered for funding through NDP Presentation Grants.

2014 Touring Award Recipients

Chris Schlichting (Minneapolis, MN) for "Stripe Tease"
Dada Masilo (Johannesburg, South Africa) for "Swan Lake"
Kate Weare Company (Brooklyn, NY) for "Unstruck Sound"
Limón Dance Company (New York, NY) for "70th Anniversary Tour"
Okwui Okpokwasili (Brooklyn, NY) for "Bronx Gothic"
Sankai Juku (Tokyo, Japan) for "Umusuna: Memories Before History"
Social Tango (Buenos Aires, Argentina) for "Social Tango"

In addition to these Touring Awards, eight 2014 NDP Production Grant recipients were awarded grants ranging from $17,000 to $21,000 each to support a production residency for their NDP-supported project in preparation for touring. Production Residencies for Dance (PRD) grants support residencies that are planned in collaboration with a U.S.-based residency partner organization that can provide the artist with access to technical facilities and staff as well as significant artistic, directorial, and/or dramaturgical input at either the end-stage of development or after a work has premiered and before it goes on tour. Now in its fifth year, PRD residencies continue to amplify the premiere and tour-readiness of these selected projects, thanks to funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. To date, 37 projects have received PRD residency grants since the beginning of the program.

"The NDP-funded Production Residency allowed Lucky Plush and our partners at the Flynn to invest in a phase of development that is rarely supported: a post-premiere process in which revisions are in direct relationship to discoveries made with audiences, " said Julia Rhoads, Producing Artistic Director of Lucky Plush Productions, who's NDP-supported work, The Queue, is currently on tour.

"PRD residencies are a critical component of the support the National Dance Project provides to dance artists making new work," said NDP program manager Sara C. Nash. "Together with funding for creation, general operating support, and touring, we see increasingly that production residencies are a vital part of the creative process for new dance works to be successful."

2014 Production Residency for Dance Recipients
AXIS Dance Company (Oakland, CA) Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater (San Francisco, CA)
Christopher K. Morgan & Artists (North Bethesda, MD) Maui Arts & Cultural Center (Kahului, HI)
CONTRA-TIEMPO (Culver City, CA) Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA (Los Angeles, CA)
David Neumann (Thornwood, NY) Henry Street Settlement - Abrons Art Center (New York, NY)
Faye Driscoll (Brooklyn, NY) The Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA)
John Jasperse Projects (New York, NY) The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (Troy, NY)
Karen Sherman (Minneapolis, MN) Performance Space 122 (New York, NY)
Miguel Gutierrez (Brooklyn, NY) Bard College, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)

About NDP
NEFA launched the National Dance Project in 1996 to encourage the creation of new work in dance and the sharing of that work with audiences in communities throughout the United States. Since then, the program has distributed more than $27 million in grants and remains the only national program dedicated to supporting individual dance artists and companies in a broad range of genres, whether established or emerging. NEFA's National Dance Project is supported with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the MetLife Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and funding for special initiatives from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French American Cultural Exchange. Visit http://www.nefa.org or call 617.951.0010 x521 for more information.

About NEFA
NEFA builds connections among artists, arts organizations, and funders, powering the arts to energize communities in New England, the nation, and the world. NEFA is a nonprofit that operates in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England state arts agencies, with additional funding from foundations, corporations, individuals and other government agencies.

NEFA's work is accomplished through grantmaking, services, and initiatives which strengthen and advance the national arts infrastructure. For more information, please visit http://www.nefa.org or call 617.951.0010.

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