Marcus Performing Arts Center To Receive $30,000 NEA Grant To Advance REDI Action Plan

Marcus Performing Arts Center has been approved for a $30,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support its MPAC Presents programming. Specific funding from the NEA will help support the Marcus Performing Arts Center's new arts and culture series of Dance, Jazz, Student Matinee, and special music performances this season. Marcus Performing Arts Center's project is among 1,248 projects across America totaling $28,840,000 that were selected to receive this first round of fiscal year 2022 funding in the Grants for Arts Projects category.

"The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects like this one from Marcus Performing Arts Center that help support the community's creative economy," said NEA Acting Chair Ann Eilers. "Marcus Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee is among the arts organizations nationwide that are using the arts as a source of strength, a path to well-being, and providing access and opportunity for people to connect and find joy through the arts."

"As a performing arts center in a vibrant major city, it is our mission to bring the best of the performing arts to Milwaukee. It also remains critically important to us that our programming represents the racial and ethnic diversity of Milwaukee County," said Marcus Performing Arts Center President and CEO Kendra Whitlock Ingram. "MPAC's expanded arts and culture programming does just that with a mix of artists and art forms from across the country and beyond."

These new series are part of a new strategic effort for the Marcus Performing Arts Center to diversify the disciplines presented by the Center and offer audiences opportunities to see artists and artforms that are underrepresented in the region. Through this program, the Center will deepen its commitment to serve as the anchor for arts and culture in our region, presenting celebrated performing artists from around the world to Milwaukee. The grant also helps to advance the Marcus Performing Arts Center's REDI Action Plan that was launched to the public during April, 2021. One of the three pillars of this commitment is Representation and the Marcus Center committed to investing in BIPOC artists by ensuring a minimum of 30% of its annual performing arts performances and programming are presented by BIPOC artists telling BIPOC stories. The Marcus Center has announced that it has exceeded this goal and 63% of artists featured on this funded project are BIPOC artists.

Upcoming Performances funded by the NEA include:

• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
• David Sanborn
• Black Violin
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Complete 2021-22 season programming information is available at MarcusCenter.org.

For more information on other projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

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