Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Announces 2010 Dance Advance Grant Recipients

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, through Dance Advance, announced $920,000 in grants to 16 artists, companies, and presenting organizations for the 2010-2011 performing season. Four grants out of 16 went to first-time grantees.

"Philadelphia's reputation as a dynamic environment for making and seeing dance keeps expanding. Many of these projects include master artists who are leaders in the field and familiar to audiences elsewhere, yet new to local viewers."

Projects funded by Dance Advance include local premieres of works by some of the world's leading choreographers. The Pennsylvania Ballet will restage Petit's Carmen, a powerful adaptation of Bizet's popular opera. Bryn Mawr College will present a new work by 2009 National Heritage Fellow Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, a leader in the preservation of endangered Cambodian dance traditions. The 2010 Live Arts Festival's centerpiece presentation of Lucinda Childs's 1979 Dance, a collaboration between Childs, visual artist Sol LeWitt and composer Philip Glass, will introduce local audiences to what is considered a masterwork of its era.

According to Bill Bissell, Director of Dance Advance, "Philadelphia's reputation as a dynamic environment for making and seeing dance keeps expanding. Many of these projects include master artists who are leaders in the field and familiar to audiences elsewhere, yet new to local viewers."

The program's panel of specialists in the field of dance reviewed 61 applications. This year's Dance Advance awards support both the creation and presentation of new works.

Please visit http://www.pcah.us/dance for more information.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is dedicated to stimulating a vibrant cultural community in the five-county, Southeastern Pennsylvania region. Established in 2005, the Center houses seven funding Initiatives of The Pew Charitable Trusts, and through them supports area artists and arts and heritage organizations whose work is distinguished by excellence, imagination, and courage. Each year, the Center's grants make possible more than 800 performances in dance, music, and theatre as well as history and visual arts exhibitions, and other public programs for audiences in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. For more information, visit www.pcah.us.