Knight Arts Challenge Winners Announced; 35 Artists and Organizations Set to Recieve $2.76 Million in Funding

Last night, 35 individual artists and organizations were announced as winners of the 2012 Knight Arts Challenge at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. These 35 winning ideas are set to recieve $2.76 million as winners of the 2012 Knight Arts Challenge.

Now in it second year, the community-wide challenge funds the best ideas for engaging and enriching Philadelphia through the arts. Emerging from more than 1,260 submissions, the 2012 winners represent a wide range of Philadelphia’s creative thinkers, including artists Erica Hawthorne and Sean Stoops, small organizations like the Bearded Ladies Cabaret and the Little Berlin collective, and established institutions with innovative ideas.

This year’s winners will among other things, bring art into Philadelphia’s neighborhoods; transform communities through public art installations, and use the assets of larger organizations to benefit emerging artists.

There were several winners that were connected to the local theatre community. Each of these winning ideas expand opportunities for theatre audiences and artists. Those winners include:

· Arden Theatre Company
Arden Festival Fridays; To diversify artistic offerings by presenting multidisciplinary performances alongside gallery events during Old City’s monthly First Fridays

· Swim Pony Performing Arts
Outside The (Black) Box; To weave the arts into the community by presenting original, contemporary plays in nontraditional spaces, including Eastern State Penitentiary and the Academy of Natural Sciences

· The Wilma Theater
Creating a Common Artistic Voice; To enhance training for local actors by creating a series of master classes

· The Bearded Ladies
Bearded Ladies Cabaret Revolution; To attract new audiences to theater – using the medium to explore social issues with sparkle – through a series of original, late-night cabarets

· Partners for Sacred Places
Philadelphia Theatrical Design Center; To expand the capacity of the city’s theater community by providing a new space for theater designers and visual artists at a repurposed local church

· Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
Underground Residencies at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts; To engage new audiences in the performing arts by creating a residency program in the Kimmel Center’s black-box theater for innovative and emerging art groups

· Art Sanctuary
Hip H’Opera; To celebrate two art forms that use the human voice to tell profound stories by creating a “Hip H’Opera” using the stories of urban life. The five-year project, in partnership with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, included two years of collecting teens’ stories. Artists involved are Haitian composer Daniel Bernard Romain and lyricist and hip-hop choreographer Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The event will include education programs in arts careers, staging and set design to benefit hundreds of students.

· GoKash Productions
Philly Urban Theatre Festival; To promote original plays through a free theater festival dedicated to multicultural themes; an event largely focused on the contemporary African-American experience

· The Brothers Network
Henry “Box” Brown - The Escape Artist; To introduce diverse audiences to the performing arts by creating a multidisciplinary festival that features black men as thinkers, artists, choreographers, dancers, composers and more

Last year, the Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe won for the now successful Philadelphia Live Arts Scratch Night. Philadelphia Theatre Company won last year for their PTC@Play festival which just finished and Pig Iron Theatre Company was a winner for the new Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training, whose first class is nearing the end of their first year.

For more on Knight Foundation’s arts initiative and to view a full list of Knight Arts Challenge winners, visit www.KnightArts.org. Connect on the Knight Arts Challenge Facebook page here and via @KnightArts on Twitter

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