Northrop at University of Minnesota and Emily Johnson Receive Funds to Support SHORE and More

Northrop at the University of Minnesota and Emily Johnson received a $30,000 MAP Fund grant to support the incubation and development of Emily Johnson's SHORE, set to premiere at Northrop in June of 2014 and a $155,000 Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts to support a partnership between Northrop and Johnson designed to create greater demand for contemporary dance throughout the region, particularly in Native American communities. Johnson will work in residence at the University of Minnesota's Institute for Advanced Study during 2013-14.

Johnson is collaborating with Northrop to present SHORE, the third in a series of Johnson's work. This multi-day event equally integrates dance, storytelling, volunteerism, and a shared feast. The work is timed to coincide with the Dance/USA conference and the grand reopening of the University's state-of-the-art preeminent academic, cultural, and performing arts center in June 2014.

Northrop is also copresenting Niicugni, the second piece in this trilogy by Emily Johnson/Catalyst on April 21, 2013 at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University as part of the Women of Substance dance series.

Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Program Director for the Arts says of the grants, "The MAP Fund grant is designed to support the production of Emily Johnson's workSHORE, while the Doris Duke ResidenCy Grant, designed to build audience demand, will support efforts to increase Northrop's reach to the Native American community. While these grants are decided independently, we are delighted to support efforts on both the supply and demand sides of the equation and look forward to new opportunities for both the artist and the audience."

The MAP Fund will support Emily Johnson's The Gathering, a long-term engagement residency and performance event, serving as an incubator for the development of her newest workSHORE, and the generation of new processes for Johnson's engagement theories and practices.

The MAP Fund announced its 2013 grants to 41 groundbreaking projects involving 70 generative artists. For this, its 24th year, the MAP Fund will provide direct project funding ranging from $15,000 to $40,000, plus an additional $200,000 total in general operating grants to all applicant organizations and artists. Since its founding in 1988, the MAP Fund has provided more than $24 million in project funding to nearly one thousand works across all performing arts disciplines, $1 million in general operating funds since 2009, and $600,000 in research and development grants since 2010.

The MAP Fund is founded on the principle that experimentation drives human progress, no less in art than in science or medicine. MAP supports artists, ensembles, producers, and presenters whose work in the disciplines of contemporary performance embodies this spirit of exploration and deep inquiry. MAP is particularly interested in supporting work that examines notions of cultural difference or "the other," be that in class, gender, generation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other aspects of diversity.

This year, the MAP Fund received a total of 813 submissions from artists in 42 states, reviewed in three stages by 58 arts professionals and artists from across the country serving as readers, evaluators, and panelists.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation support the MAP Fund. The program, which was established by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1988, has supported innovation and cross-cultural exploration in theater, dance, and music for more than two decades. Among the longest-lived programs in arts philanthropy, MAP has disbursed over $24 million dollars to more than one thousand projects. Creative Capital has administered the program since 2001.

Creative Capital supports innovative and adventurous artists across the country through funding, counsel, and career development services. Their pioneering approach-inspired by venture-capital principles-helps artists working in all creative disciplines realize their visions and build sustainable practices. Since 1999, Creative Capital has committed $29 million in financial and advisory support to 418 projects representing 529 artists, and our Professional Development Program has reached 5,500 artists in more than 150 communities.

Using a "socially-based participatory engagement model," Northrop and Emily Johnson will challenge traditional ideas of participation and performance to create greater demand for contemporary dance in the region with a particular focus on working with local Native communities and organizations.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) announced that 10 teams of U.S. performing arts organizations and artists would receive a combined total of $1.475 million in grants for joint efforts to develop public demand for jazz, theatre, and/or contemporary dance. Unlike most residency programs, which focus on the creation of new work and creative time for artists, the Doris Duke Artist Residencies to Build Demand for the Arts instead support partnerships between artists and organizations collaborating in inventive ways to create and pilot methods for reaching the public and developing their interest in and access to the performing arts.

These partnerships also promote deeper, longer relationships as well as new kinds of conversation and cooperation between organizations and artists. At the same time, the grants provide substantial resources to artists and afford organizations the opportunity to embark on new kinds of behavior.

"Nothing concerns artists and arts organizations today more than nurturing and developing public demand for the performing arts," says Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Arts Program Director for the Arts. "This program deliberately departs from conventional notions about artist residencies to encourage organizations and artists to work in new, imaginative ways to meet this challenge. We are excited by this first class of grantees, and eagerly look forward to watching their partnerships unfold."

DDCF is awarding these grants as part of a larger $50 million, ten-year commitment over and above its existing funding for the performing arts.

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child abuse, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties. The Arts Program focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz and theatre artists, and the organizations that nurture, present, and produce them. The Foundation awarded its first grants in 1997. To date, the Foundation has awarded grants totaling more than $1.1 billion.

Northrop, the University of Minnesota's arts presenter, is dedicated to advancing the University's mission of education, research, and public engagement through the pursuit of excellence and innovation in the performing arts, community engagement, and creative exchange. For more than 80 years, Northrop has been committed to presenting world-class artists in music, dance, and theater in ways that engage audiences and support exceptional teaching within the University and throughout the community.