Miami, FL, June 25, 2008 - Miami Light Project and the Ford Foundation Future Aesthetics Cohort are proud to announce the awarding of over $50,000 to 20 independent artists across the United States and Puerto Rico . The Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant Program (FAAR), is a first of its kind initiative designed to give direct monetary support to emerging Future Aesthetics Artists – a new generation of artists working along the fringes, pushing the boundaries artistically, socially, and politically in literature, dance, music, theater and media arts. FAAR is funded by the Ford Foundation.
Six years ago, the Ford Foundation brought together the Future Aesthetics Cohort, six arts organizations across the United States, Hip-Hop Theater Festival (Brooklyn, NY), Rennie Harris Puremovement (Philadelphia, PA), Global Action Project (NY, NY), Miami Light Project (Miami, FL), La Pena Cultural Center (Berkley, CA) and Youth Speaks (San Francisco, CA) who were committed to blurring the border between art and culture, creating innovative programs and performances that were broadly inclusive of new generations and diverse artists and audience members.
Roberta Uno, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, coined the term "Future Aesthetics" several years ago at New WORLD Theater to serve as an expression for a new and potent art form. "Future Aesthetics describes the kind of art produced in this age of urbanization, technology and communications innovations, globalization, and new networks of community organizing and resistance. One vivid example of this art form is Hip-Hop."
A common goal of the Future Aesthetics Cohort is to continually open the doors for other geographically, economically and ethnically diverse emerging artists. The FAAR program is a seminal initiative focused specifically on this goal.
Artists from around the United States and Puerto Rico applied for this highly competitive grant, and a diverse panel of artists, producers and arts managers selected 20 artists to receive non-project specific grants.
Hip-Hop Theater Festival Executive Director Clyde Valentin iterated the importance of these grants being unrestricted, as artists have an infinite range of needs at different points in their artistic career. The Future Aesthetics cohort determined that the best way to support these artists is to allow them to use the funds in a way that can really make a difference for them as they balance their jobs, life and artistic goals. "Artists can use the grant for what they really need, and that can be different for all them," said Valentin. "The award can be used for anything from research sabbaticals to health insurance, a new website to production costs, rehearsal space to diapers."
The 2008 FAAR Grantees are:
kahlil almustafa ( NEW YORK , NY ) is a performer, educator, and writer, known as the People's Poet. He is the 2002 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and the author of two collections of poetry: Grandma's Soup and I'm Crying Everyone's Tears which has sold or distributed more than 5,000 copies. almustafa recently released his highly-anticipated debut CD CounterIntelligence and a collection of 15 years of poetry entitled Growing Up Hip-Hop. He is currently on the "Hip-Hop 4 President Tour." Re-energized from performing at the first solar-powered Hip-Hop concert, almustafa is ready to infuse the world with hope and insight through his poetry.
Writer and performer Holly Bass ( WASHINGTON , D.C) has presented her work at respected regional theaters and performance spaces such as the Kennedy Center (DC), the Whitney Museum (NY) and the Experience Music Project (Seattle). She is a Cave Canem fellow and her poems have appeared in Callalou, nocturnes (re)view, Role Call and The Ringing Ear. She curated the NYC Hip-Hop Theater Festival from 2001-2003 and was the first journalist to put the term "Hip-Hop theater" into print. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning a Master's in Journalism from Columbia University .
Naomi Bragin's ( OAKLAND , CA ) choreography integrates Hip-Hop, House, African and Latin rhythm and form. She has researched dance in New York , Cuba , Brazil and the Philippines . In 2002 she founded Oakland , California based DREAM Dance Company to research, promote and illuminate Afro-diasporic connection. Her 2007 Izzie-nominated Full Circle returned Hip-Hop via Cuban Rumba to its African roots, creating new meaning from traditional form. Naomi received her BA in Dance from Wesleyan University and support from Creative Work Fund, Zellerbach, East Bay Community Foundation, and California Arts Council. She pursues her Masters in Folklore at UC Berkeley, working to redefine folklore, dance anthropology and performance.
Regie Cabico's ( WASHINGTON , D.C) most recent solo play, Unbuckled, premiered at the Asian Arts Initiative and will be presented at Youth Speaks Living Word Festival in the fall of 2008. He is the artistic director of Sol y Soul and has directed The Other Side and Elegies in the Key Of Funk for the 07-08 DC Hip-Hop Theater Festival. He is the recipient of the 2008 1st Prize Larry Neal Award for Poetry, New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry and Performance Art Fellowships, and New York Innovative Theater Awards. He received the Barnes & Noble's Writers for Writers Award for his work with at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital- sponsored by Poets & Writers.
Kristoffer Diaz ( NEW YORK , NY ) is a playwright and educator. His full-length plays (Welcome to Arroyo's, Guernica, and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity) have been developed and performed at the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Lark, The Summer Play Festival, The Donmar Warehouse, South Coast Repertory, New York Stage and Film, The Tank, New York University, The Knitting Factory, and New Dramatists. Kristoffer is a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship and a member of The Dramatists Guild. He holds an MFA from New York University 's Department of Dramatic Writing and is currently an MFA candidate at Brooklyn College 's Performing Arts Management program.
Rudi Goblen ( MIAMI , FL ) has performed along the side of artists such as The Roots, Mos Def, and De La Soul. Besides his musical pursuits, he is an acclaimed B-Boy. His crew "Flipside Kings" has traveled to places such as France , South America, Holland , and Asia . Rudi is a member of "D-Projects," a cross-section of conservatory and street trained artist creating contemporary performance. Commissioned by Miami Light Project and the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, he premiered his one-man show Insanity Isn't at the Here & Now Festival in 2006. Rudi has spent the last 4 years fueling his passion for theater/performance and new creative expressions, while working to bring it to a broader audience.
Idris Goodwin ( ALBUQUERQUE , NM ) is an award winning Hip-Hop playwright, break beat poet, recording artist and teacher committed to making work that incites, inspires, and engages. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Idris a Playwright-in-Residence grant to explore Hip-Hop aesthetics in theater. Idris' break beat poetry has featured on season six of Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry as well as in the Spoken Word Revolution Redux Anthology. Idris frequently teaches and lectures at institutions across the country on themes of arts, culture and activism. He currently resides in Santa Fe , NM with his fiancé.
Baba Israel ( NEW YORK , NY ) has toured across Europe, South America, South Pacific, and Asia . He is an emcee, producer, theater artist, and beatboxer. He is co-founder of the Playback NYC Theater Company. His new solo piece Boom Bap Meditations will be presented by Hip-Hop Theater Festival and is touring the U.K. in 08. His latest record with Yako 440 is called "Beatbox Dub Poetics" and they were named in URB magazines prestigious NEXT 1000. He was selected as part of Lincoln Center 's Rhythm Road , touring South East Asia with Dana Leong. Baba holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts. For info: openthoughtmusic.com
Jóvenes del 98's (SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO) theater group was formed in April 1998 with 16 young people between 13 to 21 years of age, to create a play about the historic date of 1898 in Puerto Rico. Since then, the group has continued working, and performing in Puerto Rico and at International Street-Theater Festivals in communities, schools, streets, plazas, and theaters. They have created 22 plays about violence, drugs, war, disinformation, homophobia, xenophobia, government corruption, colonialism, pollution, etc. Thier plays are created collectively -- directed by Maritza Pérez Otero -- based mainly on Augusto Boal's theater techniques, the critical analysis of historic and literature essays, books and life experiences.
Native of Lafayette Louisiana , Millicent Johnnie ( ATLANTA , GA) received both her BFA and MFA in Dance at the Florida State University . Ms. Johnnie served on the Tulane University and Dillard University Dance Faculty located in New Orleans , Louisiana after touring as resident choreographer and rehearsal director of the Urban Bush Women in New York City . Johnnie moved to New York City after teaching Hip-Hop and Jazz movement as a staff member of the Universal Dance Association based in Memphis , Tennessee . Millicent co-founded the Phlava Hip Hop and Jazz Dance Company based in Tallahassee , Florida receiving a Prague International Dance Festival "Best Choreography" award and "First Place International Dance Title" for Hip- Hop Choreography entitled Wrath.
Of Jacob "Kujo" Lyons ( BURBANK , CA ), former LA Times critic Lewis Segal says, "there is no more-talented choreographer in Los Angeles ." After 16 years in the B-Boy world, Kujo was recently featured as one of the Times' 2008 Faces to Watch, and he now directs and choreographs a small, award-winning dance company called Lux Aeterna that is making major waves in the LA-area dance scene. Kujo's eclectic, hybrid choreography has been called "drop-dead awesome" by the LA Times, and draws from his vast experience in breaking, as well as his more recent training in ballet, modern dance, and body-to-body work.
Michelle "Mush" Lee (HERCULES, CA) is no stranger to the mic, having rocked a myriad of platforms including the latest season of Russell Simmon's HBO Def Poetry Jam and the National Collegiate Slam Championships. Mush's current work involves developing her first one-woman play, Regarding Women, with the Living Word Project based in San Francisco , CA . In 2006, Regarding Women was chosen to be presented as part of the first National Asian American Theater Festival in New York City , and in 2007 at the Grounded: New Words Theater Festival at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco , CA . In 2008, she will be conducting panels at the NAAT Conference and at Intersections at New World Theater.
Adam Mansbach's ( BERKELEY , CA ) latest novel, The End of the Jews (Spiegel & Grau/Doubleday), was published in March. His previous novel, Angry Black White Boy (Crown) was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005 and is taught at more than forty universities. His other books include the novel Shackling Water (Doubleday, 2002), the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights (Subway & Elevated, 2002). The founding editor of the hip hop journal Elementary, Mansbach teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Robert Martin ( BROOKLYN , NY ) identifies as a cultural organizer, producer, teaching artist, and non-traditional storyteller who uses diverse forms of media to share stories, bridge divides, and bring people together. Now forging a hybrid lifestyle between Brooklyn (NY) and Berea (KY), "Bobbyb" is passionate about building and reconnecting the threads between urban and rural communities through producing and facilitating transformative events, experiences and gatherings that celebrate our humanity and connect us through community.
Jamie Merwin ( PHILADELPHIA , PA ) is the Founding Artistic Director of Philadelphia-based Olive Dance Theatre and the artist-driven management cooperative Seed Management. She is equally committed to the tradition of Breakin' and the creation of contemporary American theatre. Ms. Merwin has worked with multiple Philadelphia organizations in many capacities from actor and director to stage manager and administrator, including: Rennie Harris Puremovement, Painted Bride Art Center , Philadelphia Young Playwright's Festival, CEC, Actin' Up!, Eastern State Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Her current projects include two new evening length works - "Brotherly Love" and "Conversations." Jamie serves on the Executive Committee for Alternate ROOTS as well as The Network of Ensemble Theaters' (NET) Board of Directors.
Christine M. Peng ( BROOKLYN , NY ) is a multimedia artist/ educator who works towards personal and social transformation through the arts. For the past seven years she has been working on documentaries and with youth on issues of gender, education, police brutality and community space issues in New York City . Recently she co-produced Songs & Ciphers: Brothers & Sisters in the Struggle, a short documentary on grassroots community organizing in Venezuela , and NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification, a community collaboration with Movement for Justice in El Barrio. She is currently working on a film project about the history of racial violence in New York City .
The artistic vision of Omar G. Ramirez (LOS ANGELES, CA) stems from his deep appreciation of shared spaces and a fascination with public art. Born to Mexican immigrants and raised in East Los Angeles , his work evolved as a vehicle for relevant social analysis it celebrates culture as a means of empowerment and functions as a catalyst for self-awareness. His spirituality charged art is functional, sustaining an evolving dialogue and social commentary about the human experience, struggle and beauty. Omar's art is part of the permanent collection of the Museo Cuevas in Mexico City ; his murals can be found throughout the United States . www.omartista.com
David Szlasa ( OAKLAND , CA ) is a new media + performance artist. Original works include Dissection (1997), Light (2000), and GADGET (2006). Szlasa's next piece, My HOT Lobotomy, will premier at CounterPULSE Theater in San Francisco 10/08. He has collaborated with Bill "Crutchmaster" Shannon, Rennie Harris, Synaesthetic Theatre, Sara Shelton Mann, Guillermo Gomez Peña, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph in such venues as the Walker Arts Center , The Kitchen (NYC), Humana Festival, Yerba Buena, the Sydney Opera House and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe . Szlasa's video installations have been exhibited at the Oakland Art Gallery , Thatcher Gallery at USF, and the Center for Advanced Technology at NYU.
Nicolas R. Valdez ( SAN ANTONIO , TX ) is an actor, writer, musician, performance artist, and proud father. His work as a Cultural Activist has given him the opportunity to perform and organize in diverse communities across the country, specifically as a facilitator of Popular Education workshops with immigrant youth. His unique prose style and original music is reminiscent of the Border Experience; at once Latino in form and language but evolving and limitless. He is honored to receive the support of the HHTF and hopes to build new working relationships with the other FAAR grant recipients. Que viva este movimiento de arte, cultura, y conciencia!
Adia Tamar Whitaker ( BROOKLYN , NY ), artistic director of Ase Dance Theatre Collective, graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in Dance. Adia completed the Professional Division U.S. Independent Studies Program at the Ailey School (2001), was Choreoquest Resident Artist at Restoration Dance Theater (2004), a Ford Foundation Special Initiative for Africa Grant Recipient (2004), an Urban Bush Women Apprentice (2005), and a Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at FSU Creative Entry Point Choreographic Fellow (2006), a touring cast member of Scourge (2005-2007), and a BAC Re-Grant Recipient (2007). Most recently, Adia is a grantee of The Puffin Foundation.
ABOUT THE FORD FOUNDATION
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York , the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia .
For more information about the Future Aesthetic Artist Regrant Program, or the six organizations that make up the Ford Foundation's Future Aesthetic Cohort, please visit the following websites:
The Ford Foundation http://www.fordfoundation.org
Hip-Hop Theater Festival http://www.hhtf.org
Rennie Harris Puremovement http://www.rhpm.org
Miami Light Project http://www.miamilightproject.com
Global Action Project http://www.global-action.org
La Pena Cultural Center http://www.lapena.org
Youth Speaks http://www.youthspeaks.org
Contacts:
Elz Cuya Rebekah Lengel
Hip-Hop Theater Festival Miami Light Project
(718) 497-4282 (305) 576-4350 ext. 22
elz@hhtf.org rlengel@miamilightproject.com