Santa Monica Funds 19 Arts Programs

By Lookout Staff

July 7, 2009 – Local arts and cultural organizations are busy launching 19 projects approved by the Santa Monica Arts Commission last month – including everything from Shakespeare to Afro-Funk.

The City’s Community Access and Participation (CAP) Grants Program provides funding to non-profit organizations that offer opportunities for Santa Monica residents and visitors to experience arts and cultural activities.

In order to serve a diverse population, the grant program is divided into three categories – general grants, grants targeting Santa Monica’s Latino population and grants aimed at exposing youth to the arts.

“To be awarded a grant, applicants must demonstrate that their agency is well managed and has a history of presenting art and cultural programs of outstanding caliber,” City officials said in a statement released this week.

The following projects received City grants:

The Virginia Avenue Project: This intergenerational writing program will team a videographer with a VAP youth participant, a senior citizen and a professional theatre director to create a theatrical, multimedia performance piece that will be presented at the Getty Center, and other local venues.
Santa Monica Museum of Art: A CAP grant will support the educational and public programming for the exhibition Allen Ruppersberg: You and Me and the Art of Give and Take. A component of the program will be a series of “noontime interactions” with the artist entitled Lunchtime Collaboration: Al Ruppersberg and You in which the public will recreate the works on display. In addition, the Museum will offer other educational workshops including Free Family Day and an Opening Night Workshop free to the public.
18th Street Arts Center: Two free Art Nights will spotlight Santa Monica artists and arts groups, including open studios, art exhibitions, workshops, and concerts. The first of these evenings is scheduled for August 1, and will feature the musical group Afro-Funk in addition to an exhibition Post-American LA and an installation project by artist Sandra de la Loza..
Jacaranda: Jacaranda is a series of concert adventures offering unforgettable new and modern music. This innovative agency will present seven concerts in 2009-10 and a season finale with professional string players seated side-by-side with college-age pre-professionals and promising high school students.
Highways: The 6th Annual Poetry Festival will feature a week of workshops and performances that celebrate the diverse spectrum of poetry in the Southern California region.. The festival will include a poetry slam, free writing and performing workshops and performances by emerging and established poets.
City Garage: This cutting edge theatre company will present a world premiere production of The Trojan Women: L.A. Dreamscape, an original theater work by Charles Duncombe and Frederick Michel. The production will re-imagine the ancient Greek Tragedy by Euripides in terms of contemporary issues of genocide and violence directed at women.
The Verdi Chorus: Continuing a 25-year tradition of bringing opera of high quality to Santa Monica residents at affordable prices, the Verdi Chorus has been selected by the LA Opera to help bring the Ring Festival LA to Santa Monica audiences in spring 2010. In collaboration with the Festival, the Chorus plans twin concerts featuring great choruses from operas by Richard Wagner. These concerts are scheduled for April 2010 at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica.
Santa Monica Playhouse: Santa Monica Playhouse will produce a week-long free theatre festival to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Hands Across the Sea relationship with Japan’s Model Language Studio (MLS). The festival will include community workshops, language arts and cultural exchange events, and will feature an original musical crafted by professional members of both organizations during the festival week.
Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company: The company will present Richard Il by William Shakespeare at the Miles Playhouse for five weeks from May 27 to June 27, 2010. The project will be directed by Timothy Douglas. Richard will be played by Lisa Wolpe, The show will feature an all-female, multi-cultural cast.
TeAda Productions: TeAda Productions will present a full length performance of Ode to the Polar Bear at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica in May 2010. This one-woman show created and performed by Inupiaq Eskimo Performance Artist Allison Warden and explores themes of global warming and the fate of Alaska's polar bear. Accompanying the performance will be a two week residency that will consist of two workshops with high school students and community artists as well as five interviews with community members that will be incorporated into the performance.
Donna Sternberg & Dancers: Donna Sternberg & Dancers will perform Singularity, a new dance based on contemporary physics at the Santa Monica Main Library in the winter of 2010. The project will include a panel discussion of scientists and artists on the themes of the dance and an educational performance for 3rd-5th grade students.
Santa Monica Conservancy: The Santa Monica Conservancy will offer a guided walking tour of Palisades Park including the historic structures along Ocean Avenue. Within the 26 acre park are monuments, public artworks, historic points of interest and numerous varieties of flora. Together these features provide layers of cultural history and meaningful stories, resulting in a unique venue for an educational and entertaining walking tour.
18th Street Arts Center: Artist James Rojas will engage teens at the Pico Youth and Family Center in a creative urban planning process exploring the diverse history of Santa Monica. The project will serve as a valuable tool to inform and educate youth about the value of their community through an interactive neighborhood model and a series of workshops.
Highways: Highways’ Latino New Works Festival is the first and only Westside festival dedicated to contemporary performance and visual art created by Latino artists. This unique event will bring together both emerging and experienced Latino performance, spoken word and visual artists to introduce it to new audiences. The festival will feature four nights of new works by some of the nation’s most accomplished Latino performance/spoken word artists.
TeAda: TeAda Productions will present La Quinceañera, by Anthony Aguilar, for a three week run at the Miles Playhouse directed by Alejandra Cisneros. The play is about Arturo Sanchez, a factory worker who, after an accident at work, believes he has been given superhuman powers and creates his alter-ego El Verde.
The Virginia Avenue Project: The Project will offer its One-on-One program to local underserved youth, focusing on writing, performing, and in-depth contact with professional artist/mentors. This program introduces kids to role-playing, improvisation, and characterization and teaches them how to communicate vocally, physically and emotionally while helping them to discover their own unique nature.
Santa Monica Museum of Art: The Museum will present Cause for Creativity: The Art Cycle, centering on a bicycle tour of various arts attractions in Santa Monica. Cyclists Inciting Change through Live Exchange (C.I.C.L.E.) will serve as the museum’s partner in this endeavor in which artists will guide participants in the creation of flags to fly from their bikes before taking a guided tour to visual and performing arts venues throughout the city.
Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company: The LA Women’s Shakespeare Company will offer a free, twelve-session Shakespeare workshop for girls 12 – 18 yrs. old, who commit to rehearsing and performing at Memorial Park and the Miles Playhouse. The kids will present their work in a free production called The Dangerous Dozen. Students will work on action-filled scenes from Shakespeare featuring villainous, dastardly deeds and bloody resolutions. Workshops will take place from May 27-June 27, 2010
Santa Monica Playhouse: Santa Monica Playhouse will provide interactive professional theatre field trips for all 3rd graders in the Santa Monica/Malibu Unified School District through its highly successful and dynamic Schools Theatre Excursion Project (STEP). The Playhouse provides the district’s one thousand third grade students the opportunity to participate in a pre-show introduction to theatre appreciation, see a professional production in which they directly affect the outcome of the show, and engage in post show talk-back with the artists, on-stage workshops and hands-on behind-the-scenes tours.