A Great Nation Deserves Great Art.

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

www.arts.gov

Not for sale–Available for free at www.arts.gov
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public 

agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both

new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; 

and providing leadership in arts education. Established by

Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal

government, the Endowment is the nation’s largest annual

funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states,

including rural areas, inner cities and military bases.
Dear Mr. President:

It is my pleasure to submit the Annual Report of the National Endowment for the

Arts for Fiscal Year 2006. 

Since its establishment in 1965, the Arts Endowment has awarded more than 

$4 billion in grants to organizations and artists residing in all 50 states and the six

U.S. jurisdictions, in communities large and small. Throughout its history, the NEA

has played a transformative and sustaining role in the development of regional

theater, opera, dance, orchestras, museums, and other arts—both contemporary

and traditional—that Americans now enjoy.

The activities highlighted in this report illustrate the Arts Endowment’s continuing

commitment to a nation in which artistic excellence is celebrated, supported, and

available to all Americans. 

Sincerely,

Dana Gioia

Chairman

Table of Contents

Chairman’s Statement ...................................................................1

National Initiatives........................................................................7

State and Regional Partnerships ...................................................17

Lifetime Honors .........................................................................19

National Medal of Arts ....................................................................................19

NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship...........................................................................20

NEA National Heritage Fellowship ...................................................................22

Grant Highlights.........................................................................25

State-by-State listing

Literature Fellowships................................................................129

National Council on the Arts.......................................................139

Financial Summary....................................................................141

Appropriations History..............................................................143

Credits.....................................................................................144

Sunrise, Old Walpi Pueblo, Arizona, ca. 1942, by

Ansel Adams, one of the photographs being preserved

through a Save America’s Treasures grant. 

Photo courtesy of Collection Center for

Creative Photography, University of Arizona. © Trustees of the Ansel Adams

Publishing Rights Trust
Tatiana Jouravel in Milwaukee

Ballet Company’s production of

Lila York’s Coronach.

Photo by Rick Brodzeller
Chairman’s Statement

ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE 

In 2006, the NEA continued to support all the arts in

all the disciplines across all the states and jurisdictions.

More than $100 million was distributed in more than

2,200 grants. Hundreds of millions of Americans—

including millions of children and youth—have

benefited from Arts Endowment grants, broadcasts,

and National Initiatives. 

These grants included between 30,000 and 40,000

concerts, readings, and performances. Among them

were American Masterpieces: Choral Music concerts

involving eight choral festivals around the country,

including a free concert in our nation’s capital,

“America Sings!,” which showcased significant

American choral works performed by as many as 325

singers from a dozen American choruses. 

Support from the NEA has helped provide some 4,000

exhibitions, including visual and media arts, and more

than 10,000 artist residencies in schools and other

ANEW CONVERSATION, 

ANEW CONSENSUS

As the National Endowment for the Arts

(NEA) moves past the midpoint of the first

decade of the new century, we find

ourselves leading a compelling new conversation

about the role of government funding of the arts and

arts education—a new conversation that has led to a

new consensus of broad support for such funding.

The NEA has introduced into this conversation topics

such as “artistic excellence,” “arts presentation and

arts education,” “arts and civic engagement,” and

“democratic reach.” Discussion and exploration of

each of these ideas has led us, as an agency and as a

nation, out of the “us versus them” artistic arguments

of the last century and into the new consensus of the

new century: Government support of the arts and arts

education is an investment in our future.

2006 Annual Report 1

Chairman’s StatementPhoto by Vance Jacobs
Chairman’s Statement

locations. We have supported artistic excellence in

organizations as large as the Kennedy Center for the

Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and the

Metropolitan Opera in New York City to those as

small as Figures of Speech Theatre in Freeport, Maine,

and the Caribbean Dance Company in the American

Virgin Islands. From those as longstanding as the

MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire,

est. 1907, to those as new as Youth Speaks in San

Francisco, est. 1999.

Our efforts to promote artistic excellence reached

across our southern border in 2006 to the literary

achievements of Mexican and American poets. The

NEA published, with Sarabande Books, Connecting

Lines and Líneas Conectadas, a two-volume bilingual

anthology of work by poets from Mexico and the

United States. The anthology resulted from the

collaborative efforts of the National Endowment for

the Arts, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, and the

National Autonomous University of Mexico. Each

volume contains the work of 50 poets from the

postwar generation writing in diverse styles.

Sharing America’s artistic excellence and that of other

countries was expanded even further with the

announcement of the NEA’s International Literary

Exchanges. These will provide American readers access

to literary works by contemporary writers of other

countries and provide foreign readers access to the

work of acclaimed American writers, especially poets.

Projects will include either publication of dual

anthologies or specific translation projects. Projects are

currently in development with Pakistan, Russia,

Mexico, Greece, and Spain. In all instances, the NEA

will work with literary and governmental organizations

to complete the projects.

COMBINING ARTS

PRESENTATION WITH 

ARTS EDUCATION

The Arts Endowment’s commitment to arts education

has grown with each National Initiative as well as

within our Learning in the Arts direct grants. All of our

National Initiatives have education components and,

in some cases, are driven primarily by the desire to

educate young people to the power of art. 

The goal of Shakespeare for a New Generation is to

awaken America’s youth to the power of live theater.

Since 2003, more than 16 million middle and high

school students have benefited from the free teacher

resource kits that are available through that program.

Since 2005, more than six million students have

learned about the history of jazz through our NEA

Jazz in the Schools program. And tens of thousands

more Americans—young and old—have learned

about their own artistic and cultural heritage through

American Masterpieces presentations in dance, choral

music, visual arts, theater, and musical theater. 

2 National Endowment for the Arts

The two-volume bilingual poetry anthology,

Connecting Lines/Líneas Conectadas, features 

work from Mexican and United States poets. 
Chairman’s Statement

Atlanta, Georgia. We taught photography to students

in Pablo, Montana, and Chicago, Illinois. In short, we

introduced millions of students across the country to

the entire spectrum of the arts—and to their

transformative power.

ARTS AND CIVIC

ENGAGEMENT

During the past five years the 

NEA has rebuilt its Research

and Analysis department into 

a leader in national opinion,

giving arts organizations, arts

administrators, artists, opinion

makers, and legislators the hard data they need to

illustrate the role that the arts play in our nation, our

states, our communities, and our lives. In much the

same way that the FBI or the Labor or Education

Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth direct

grants continue to give students opportunities for

exposure to and instruction in dance, classical music,

folk and traditional arts, and visual arts—opportunities

that used to be as much a part of the school day as

math and reading, but which have become lost over

the years to budget cuts and redesigned curricula. 

If we don’t give our children access to the arts in their

schools, we don’t give them a chance to become fully

formed, well-rounded human beings. Arts education

is as necessary to a child reaching his or her full

potential as any of the sciences or language arts. With

this in mind, the NEA puts great emphasis on arts

education. 

In 2006, the NEA supported youth writing programs

in Poughkeepsie, New York, and San Francisco,

California. We helped awaken students to the

excitement of dance in St. Louis, Missouri, and

2006 Annual Report 3

As part of California Shakespeare Theater’s Student Discovery program,students participate in a post-show discussion

with the cast of As You Like It.

Photo by Jay Yamada
Chairman’s Statement

Departments issue statistics and studies in their

realms, the NEA does so in ours.

In 2006, we issued a survey titled The Arts and Civic

Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life.

Extrapolated from our 2002 Survey of Public

Participation in the Arts, these data are indisputable in

showing that people who are involved in the arts are

more active, engaged, and involved public citizens.

People who regularly avail themselves of literature,

theater, opera, dance, and other arts are

demonstrably more active in their communities than

those who do not. Their lifestyles reflect the same

level of vigor and social commitment as those of

sports enthusiasts. A healthy engagement with the

arts is a sound indicator of civic and community

health.

DEMOCRATIC REACH

Because we know the difference that availability to a

thriving arts community can make to our youth and

families, the NEA has made a priority of reaching

every community. To be truly national, the National

Endowment for the Arts has awarded at least one

direct grant for every 760,000 Americans. Every

member of Congress can return to his or her district

and find at least one arts organization that is receiving

catalytic support from the NEA. I say catalytic because

for every dollar the NEA grants, seven to eight

additional dollars are generated. 

4 National Endowment for the Arts

At Miami, Florida’s Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, a 17th-century Italian figure of Neptune was shattered during 2005’s Hurricane Wilma; 

in 2006, the statute was restored with support from an NEA grant. 

Photos courtesy of Vizcaya Museum & Gardens
Chairman’s Statement

2006 Annual Report 5

CONTINUING THE

CONVERSATION

As we move forward, the NEA is eager to continue

the national conversation and build the positive

consensus surrounding the necessity of keeping the

arts in our lives, of introducing them to our children as

early as possible, of the transformative power they

can have at every stage of our lives, and of the part

they play in defining us as a nation. 

Dana Gioia

Chairman

Think of the difference that can mean to a rural or

inner city dance company, orchestra, or small

museum. Think of the expanded horizons open to

young people who are able to see live theater, hear

live jazz or chamber music. 

These direct grants are in addition to NEA National

Initiatives that may be available in cities and towns as

well as NEA dollars that go to state arts agencies and

then to local arts organizations.

We also reached into areas whose artistic health was

severely compromised by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and

Wilma in 2005. In times of loss and devastation,

people are especially needful of the solace and

inspiration the arts can provide. The NEA invested

more than $700,000 in 34 direct grants and

additional support to the Gulf Coast in 2006 to help

arts organizations move forward with reestablishing

their vital place in the lives of their communities. 

Chairman Gioia tours the Aldrich

Contemporary Art Museum with

Harry Philbrick, the museum’s

director, and U.S. Representative

Christopher Shays (Connecticut)

during a trip to southwestern

Connecticut in 2006. 

Photo by Terri Garneau
2006 Poetry Out Loud National

Champion Jackson Hille of Columbus

Alternative High School in Ohio.

Photo by James Kegley 
National Initiatives

2006 Annual Report 7

the NEA awarded a second round of American

Masterpieces grants in visual arts and a first round of

grants in dance, musical theater, and choral music.

Funding also went to state arts agencies and regional

arts organizations to develop and support American

Masterpieces projects at the state and regional level.

Sixteen visual arts organizations received grants

totaling $1,240,000 to support touring exhibitions

such as Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture

(Artrain, Inc.) and American Photography 1850-1960

(Cleveland Museum of Art). NEA support enabled

many of these exhibitions to tour to the nation’s small

and mid-sized museums, for which the cost of these

shows is usually prohibitive. 

In American Masterpieces: Musical Theater, 13

organizations received grants of $25,000 to

$75,000—for a total of $580,000—to support

productions of classic works from the American

musical theater repertoire, including Porgy and Bess,

West Side Story, and Oklahoma! Many of these

I

n order to reach even more Americans who may

not have ready access to the arts, the NEA

created the National Initiatives program in 2003.

Since then, the program has grown from one to eight

National Initiatives, partnering with local communities,

arts organizations, presenters, and regional arts

organizations to bring high quality arts programming

and educational activities to communities throughout

the country. The National Initiatives in FY 2006—

American Masterpieces, NEA Arts Journalism

Institutes, the Big Read, Great American Voices, NEA

Jazz Masters, Operation Homecoming, Poetry Out

Loud, and Shakespeare in American Communities—

have reached millions of people in all 50 states. The

following pages highlight just a few of the activities

that comprise these special initiatives.

AMERICAN MASTERPIECES

American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic

Genius is designed to acquaint Americans with the

best of their cultural and artistic legacy. In FY 2006,

National Initiatives
8 National Endowment for the Arts

productions featured outreach components such as

mini-tours, audience discussions, and in-school

workshops.

American Masterpieces: Dance grants were given in

FY 2006 through a partnership with regional arts

organization the New England Foundation for the

Arts. These grants covered two categories:

reconstruction and tour of masterworks of the

American dance repertoire—such as the Alvin Ailey

American Dance Theatre’s reconstruction and tour of

Talley Beatty’s Road of the Phoebe Snow—and a

college component, which supports the reconstruction

of master works by college dance programs, such as

the University of Michigan’s performance of Martha

Graham’s Primitive Mysteries.

The NEA also provided American Masterpieces

support to the choral music field with grants for

regional choral festivals highlighting the work of 49

U.S. composers who have made significant

contributions to the discipline, including William

Billings (1746-1800), Charles Ives (1874-1954), and

Libby Larsen (b. 1950). Eight organizations received

grants of $20,000 to $90,000 to present American

Masterpieces festivals, for a total of $490,000. These

projects featured a variety of activities including master

classes, workshops, lectures, and performances. In FY

2007, these grant recipients were eligible to apply for

additional NEA funding to support festival-related

recording and radio broadcast projects.

American Masterpieces: Choral Music launched on

June 11, 2006 with “America Sings!”, an exuberant

celebration of the nation’s rich choral music heritage,

in partnership with Chorus America and under the

leadership of American Masterpieces: Choral Music

Artistic Director Philip Brunelle. Held at the Music

Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, the

Music Director Philip Brunelle takes a bow at the end of the “America Sings!” concert, which launched the American

Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative. 

Photo by Jim Saah
National Initiatives

2006 Annual Report 9

More than 200 journalists from nearly every state

have attended the institutes thus far. Most run for 10

days and are offered in three disciplines, through

partnerships with three prestigious universities.

University of Southern California’s Annenberg School

for Communications co-sponsors the theater and

musical theater institute each winter. Columbia

University organizes the classical music and opera

institute each fall in New York City. And Duke

University, through a partnership with the American

Dance Festival, hosts the dance institute every June. 

Writers, reporters, critics, editors, and broadcast

producers who attend the institutes find the schedule

to be packed with performances, panels, and handson classes. They go backstage and take voice lessons

at the Metropolitan Opera, have lunch with actors

from landmark theater productions, and see three

internationally acclaimed dance companies perform in

one day. Fellows also spend time honing their own

writing skills through craft classes and writers

workshops. The list of prominent critics who have

mentored NEA Arts Journalism Institute fellows

include John Lahr (The New Yorker), Michael Phillips

(Chicago Tribune), and Terry Teachout (The Wall Street

Journal).

Jay Handelman, theater critic for the Herald Tribune in

Sarasota, Florida, was one of 61 journalists who

attended an NEA Arts Journalism Institute during FY

2006. “Our conversations in and out of the different

sessions and workshops led me to realize that

newspapers need to change their approach to

covering the arts....By demystifying art forms that

some people don’t know or care about, we can

hopefully build more interest in the stories that we

write and make more people interested in the art

forms we cover.”

program featured 12 choruses, an orchestra, a fifeand-drum corps, a barbershop quartet, and even

square dancers. Featured choruses included the Young

People’s Chorus of New York City and the United

States Army Chorus performing work by American

composers, including Stephen Foster, Aaron Copland,

and Leonard Bernstein. 

NEA ARTS JOURNALISM

INSTITUTES

Just as a great nation deserves great art, every

community deserves quality arts coverage. At a time

when many publications are reducing their culture

pages, the National Endowment for the Arts wants to

equip arts writers and broadcasters with the insider

expertise that should make their positions essential. To

that end, in 2004 the agency established NEA Arts

Journalism Institutes, brief sabbaticals for journalists to

spend attending performances, talking about the arts,

and writing reviews under the tutelage of some of the

country’s top arts writers. 

New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff talks with fellows

of the NEA Arts Journalism Institutes at the American Dance

Festival at Duke University in North Carolina. 

Photo by Bruce Feeley/adf
National Initiatives

10 National Endowment for the Arts

THE BIG READ

In 2006, the NEA debuted the Big Read, a national

reading initiative designed to restore reading to the

center of American public culture. The Big Read is the

literature component of American Masterpieces. The

program was developed in response to the 2004 NEA

survey Reading at Risk, which reported that less than

half of American adults were reading any literature.

Presented in partnership with regional arts

organization Arts Midwest, the program is modeled

on the popular City Reads, in which communities

come together to read and discuss a single book. 

Ten cities and towns participated in the program’s

pilot phase from January to June 2006: Huntsville,

Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; Fresno, California;

Miami, Florida; Boise, Idaho; Topeka, Kansas;

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Buffalo, New York;

Enterprise, Oregon; and Brookings/Sioux Falls, South

Dakota. These communities received Big Read grants

of $15,000 to $40,000—for a total of $265,000—to

celebrate one of four classic American novels:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Great Gatsby by

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Their Eyes Were Watching God by

Zora Neale Hurston, or To Kill a Mockingbird by

Harper Lee. Each community also received reader’s

and teacher’s guides for its Big Read novel; an audio

guide featuring excerpts from the novel and

commentary by noted writers, scholars, and public

figures such as retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra

Day O’Connor; promotional materials, such as

banners, posters, and customized television public

service announcements; and an organizer’s guide for

hosting a Big Read program.

The pilot communities developed an impressive roster

of events including a Roaring ‘20s street party in

Huntsville, Alabama; a Fahrenheit 451 technology

exhibit at Boise, Idaho’s hands-on science museum;

and a dramatization of one of the courtroom scenes

from To Kill a Mockingbird in Sioux Falls, South

Dakota. (South Dakota’s Big Read is highlighted in the

state grants section of this annual report.)

In FY 2007, the Institute of Museum and Library

Services, which provides leadership and funding for

the nation’s 17,500 museums and 122,000 libraries,

became the NEA’s lead federal partner for the project.

The Boeing Company also joined the Big Read to

support the program in military communities.

Additional support was provided by the Paul G. Allen

Family Foundation and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

The Arts Endowment awarded 189 grants to cities

and towns nationwide to hold Big Read celebrations

in 2007.

GREAT AMERICAN VOICES 

The NEA continued to serve members of the military

and their families through its Great American Voices

initiative, in which professional opera companies

brought live performances of classic songs from opera

Miami, Florida’s Big Read programming for Fahrenheit 451

included Spanish-language events such as this one. 

Photo courtesy of Florida Center for the Literary Arts
National Initiatives

In February 2006, Florida’s Pensacola Opera visited

Tyndall Air Force Base for a three-day residency by

singers from the opera’s Young Artists Program. On

the first day in residence, the opera company

presented two performances of the children’s opera

The Three Little Pigs at a local elementary school and

at the base’s youth center. More than 600 students

attended these performances. On day two, Pensacola

Opera presented performances of “Opera in a

Trunk”—an improvisational opera performance

created from audience suggestions—at the Tyndall

Community Center and the Tyndall Family Camp. The

Tyndall Family Camp, one of the base’s unique

features, is an on-base RV site for military families and

veterans vacationing in Florida. The company gave its

and musical theater to military installations

nationwide. Great American Voices was inaugurated

in 2005 in cooperation with OPERA America and with

support from The Boeing Company. In 2005 and

2006, 24 companies performed at 39 bases in 24

states, including Naval Station Pearl Harbor (Hawaii),

the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (New York),

and Albany Marine Corps Base (Georgia).

Performances were offered at no cost to the base or

to audience members. In addition to the

performances, participating artists conducted school

visits and pre-concert briefings to familiarize each

community’s youth and adults with these musical

genres.

The Tyndall Air Force Base audience enjoying Pensacola Opera’s performance of The Three Little Pigs as part of

NEA’s Great American Voices initiative. 

Photo courtesy of Tyndall Air Force Base
National Initiatives

12 National Endowment for the Arts

final performance on the last day of the residency at

the Tyndall Officer’s Club to an audience of more than

200. The concert included favorites from the opera,

musical theater, and jazz repertoires, including the

sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor, “A Boy Like That”

from West Side Story, and a pair of Spanish folk

songs. In March 2006, the company brought its

performances to Eglin Air Force Base in Valparaiso.

The experience was so gratifying to the Pensacola

Opera that it is continuing its outreach activities at 

the air force bases. With NEA support, Pensacola

Opera expanded its military performances to include

Pensacola Naval Air Station. In 2006–2007, the

company offered more than 20 performances to 

the three bases and the schools that serve military

children. 

NEA JAZZ MASTERS 

The NEA established the NEA

Jazz Masters Fellowships in1982

to honor those musicians who

throughout their lifetimes have

made significant and lasting

impact on the field of jazz.

Each year, another class of

legends is inducted as NEA

Jazz Masters and feted during

the NEA Jazz Masters concert

and awards program. The NEA also helps to build and

expand the audience for jazz in the United States

through the NEA Jazz Masters on Tour program. In

partnership with Arts Midwest and with support from

Verizon, NEA Jazz Masters on Tour is a series of

presentations by NEA Jazz Masters at jazz festivals

that include performances, educational activities, and

speaking engagements. In 2006, 45 communities

hosted 74 Jazz Masters on Tour performances. Dave

Brubeck, Marian McPartland, and Paquito D’Rivera are

just a few of the 24 NEA Jazz Masters who

participated in those performances.

The NEA Jazz Masters program does more than honor

these living legends, it also works to create the next

generation of jazz masters and aficionados through

NEA Jazz in the Schools. Produced by Jazz at Lincoln

Center and supported by a grant from the Verizon

Foundation, NEA Jazz in the Schools is a five-unit,

Web-based curriculum and DVD toolkit for use by

high school teachers to explore jazz as an indigenous

American art form as a means to understand

American history. Each of the units includes an

introductory video, a lesson essay, a teacher’s guide

with cross-curricular activities, assessment methods,

student activities, and links to multimedia resources

such as musical excerpts, period photographs, and

biographical sketches of significant jazz musicians. The

flexible units can be taught in a day or expanded into

a more comprehensive series of lessons. Each of the

units is structured to meet lesson objectives and

national curriculum standards for U.S. history, social

studies, arts education/music, civics and government,

and geography. 

The full NEA Jazz in the Schools curriculum was

launched in January 2006 as an online resource.

Teachers from more than 6,800 schools have ordered

the toolkits, which they have in turn passed on to

more than 150,000 additional teachers. In total,

nearly 4.6 million students have benefited from the

toolkits alone. Even more teachers and students have

benefited from using the NEA Jazz in the Schools

curriculum online.
National Initiatives

2006 Annual Report 13

services. Workshops were held at 50

military installations, with 24 writers

leading sessions for more than 6,000

individuals. 

In 2006, Random House published

Operation Homecoming: Iraq,

Afghanistan, and the Home Front in

the Words of U.S. Troops and Their

Families, an anthology of letters, 

e-mails, personal narratives, poems,

and short fiction written by U.S.

military personnel who served after

September 11, 2001, and their

immediate families. Anthology editor

Andrew Carroll and an independent

panel of writers read through 1,200

submissions before selecting the

nearly 100 pieces that comprise the

anthology. While the anthology

contains writing developed during

the Operation Homecoming

workshops, writers did not need to

participate in the program to be

eligible to submit works to the project. All of the

submissions received from the anthology will be

housed at an open government archive. 

To launch the anthology, the NEA hosted a celebration

at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, on

September 12, 2006. At the widely attended event,

more than 45 of the book’s contributors were on

hand for a group book signing. After the launch,

Andrew Carroll and some of the anthology’s

contributors also took part in a more than 30-city

book tour throughout the U.S. and overseas,

including a stop at the National Book Festival on the

National Mall. The tour visited more than ten military

bases nationwide, with stops in California, Georgia,

OPERATION HOMECOMING

In April 2004, the NEA debuted the initiative

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime

Experience, in partnership with the Department of

Defense and with generous support from The Boeing

Company, to provide writing workshops by nationally

known writers at domestic and overseas military bases

representing all four branches of the U.S. armed

Former Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Gregory S. Cleghorne and his 

son at the book launch for the NEA anthology, Operation

Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home Front, in 

the Words ofU.S. Troops and Their Families. 

Photo by Kevin Allen
National Initiatives

14 National Endowment for the Arts

New York, North Carolina, and

Texas. Several of the anthology’s

writers also appear in two

Operation Homecoming

documentaries, which

premiered in 2007.

Proceeds from the Operation

Homecoming anthology were

used to provide arts and cultural

programming to U.S. military

communities. Free copies of 

the book also were given to

military installations, schools,

and libraries.

POETRYOUT

LOUD

Poetry Out Loud is an NEA initiative developed with

the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation that capitalizes

on the latest trends in poetry—spoken word and

poetry slams—to introduce the love of poetry through

memorization and recitation to a new generation.

After a successful pilot program in Washington, DC,

and Chicago in FY 2005, the NEA partnered with the

nation’s state arts agencies to launch Poetry Out Loud

nationally in FY 2006, with competitions taking place

in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Participating schools received free standards-based

curriculum materials, including print and online poetry

anthologies, a teacher’s guide, and an audio guide on

the art of recitation featuring well-known actors and

writers. From January to April 2006, thousands of

students from more than 400 schools participated in

Poetry Out Loud programs managed by each state

arts agency in the state’s capital region or beyond.

Student competitions took

place at classroom, school,

district, or regional levels and

culminated in a state final.

Each state finalist received

$200 and an all-expenses-paid

trip to compete in the Poetry

Out Loud National Finals in

Washington, DC. Each state

finalist’s school received $500

for the purchase of poetry

books for the school’s library.

On May 15 and 16, 2006, all

51 Poetry Out Loud State

Champions met in the nation’s

capital for semi-finals and finals

competitions administered by

the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, a Baltimore-based

regional arts organization. After a welcome banquet

the previous evening, on May 16 the state champions

participated in a Capitol Hill breakfast with Members

of Congress. The competitors next assembled at the

District’s historic Lincoln Theater for three regional

semi-final rounds of competition, which yielded 12

finalists. These finalists competed in an evening finals

round, reciting two poems each, after which the final

five recited a third poem in the hope of taking first

place. 

Ohio State Champion Jackson Hille ultimately was

crowned the 2006 Poetry Out Loud National

Champion, after arresting recitations of “A Satirical

Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General” by

Jonathan Swift, “Altruism” by Molly Peacock, and

“Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins. Hille, a high school

senior, received a $20,000 college scholarship. Second

place went to Teal Van Dyck of New Hampshire who

received a $10,000 scholarship, and third to Kelli

U.S. Representative Deborah Pryce of Ohio

congratulates POL National Champion Jackson

Hille in her DC office. 

Photo by Peter Freeman
National Initiatives

Theatre, and Florida’s Teatro Avante—gave 1,228

performances of 19 of Shakespeare’s plays in 1,022

communities in 40 states. These performances

reached 300,000 youth and adults, bringing the total

number of individuals exposed to the Bard through

the initiative to nearly 750,000 through FY 2006. 

Kentucky’s Actors Theatre of Louisville participated in

the NEA’s Shakespeare initiative for the first time in FY

2006. A previous recipient of a Tony Award for Best

Regional Theater, the theater’s educational programs,

such as Actors in the Classroom, annually benefit

more than 11,000 students. In September and

October 2005, the company conducted educational

activities and performances of the comedy Twelfth

Night at 16 schools. In all, 14 performances were

given and 112 educational activities conducted,

reaching more than 2,100 youth and children. 

In-school and after-school activities afforded students

the opportunity to interact with professional actors

and production staff, and included pre- and postperformance workshops emphasizing text analysis,

interactive theater exercises, and playwriting. In

collaboration with the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival,

the Actors Theatre also sent participating teachers and

community center coordinators through the Festival’s

teacher training institute. 

Taulia Anae of Hawaii, who received a $5,000

scholarship. The remaining finalists each received

$1,000 scholarships, and the schools of all 12 finalists

received $500 for the purchase of poetry books.

SHAKESPEARE IN AMERICAN

COMMUNITIES: SHAKESPEARE

FOR A NEW GENERATION

In FY 2006, the NEA entered its third year of

Shakespeare for a New Generation, the second phase

of its innovative Shakespeare touring program,

Shakespeare in American Communities. Shakespeare

for a New Generation provides professional

Shakespeare performances and educational

programs—free of charge or at a deeply discounted

rate—to high school and middle school students.

Thirty-five theater companies were selected to

participate during the 2005-06 school year, each

providing performances and activities for a minimum

of 10 schools. By the end of the school year, students

from 1,626 schools had seen a Shakespeare

production, and more than 10,000 educational

toolkits had been distributed for classroom use.

Participating theater companies—such as Minnesota’s

Guthrie Theater, Alaska’s Fairbanks Shakespeare

The Actors Theatre of

Louisville’s production of

William Shakespeare’s

Twelfth Night, directed 

by Aaron Posner. 

Photo by Harlan Taylor

2006 Annual Report 15
Gobey Hassan with Ilays, a multicultural group of

artists from Somalia, dances with Granville High

School student Elle VanWalsen from Ohio as part 

of Arts Midwest’s Midwest World Fest. 

Photo by Morgan Wonorski, THE ADVOCATE
State and Regional Partnerships

2006 Annual Report 17

cultural programs—because of geography, economic

conditions, ethnic background, or other prohibitive

conditions—can apply for grants of $200 to fund arts

field trips. The grants, which are distributed on a firstcome, first-served basis, are most often used to defer

T he NEA supports the cultural life of the public

at the state as well as federal level through

partnerships with state arts agencies (SAAs)

and regional arts organizations (RAOs). Forty percent

of the NEA’s funding is distributed among these

agencies, thereby enabling them to be viable

supporters of the cultural life of their communities. 

There are 56 official state and jurisdictional arts

agencies in the United States, including one in each of

the fifty states and in the District of Columbia, Puerto

Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana

Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Through the SAAs,

the Arts Endowment supports projects that are

meaningful to local communities, while at the same

time enabling local arts organizations to leverage

financial support from other sources.

An example of one of these state partnerships is the

Iowa Arts Council’s (IAC) Big Yellow School Bus grant

program. Through this program, both public and

private K-12 Iowa schools that lack access to arts or

State and 

Regional Partnerships

The 4th-grade students at Lambert Elementary took a trip to the

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art as part of the Iowa Arts Council’s 

Big Yellow School Bus program.

Photo courtesy of the Iowa Arts Council
State and Regional Partnerships

18 National Endowment for the Arts

transportation expenses, thus enabling students to

participate in activities such as live performing arts

events and museum exhibitions. In FY 2006, IAC

initially allocated $25,000 to the Big Yellow School

Bus grant program, which served more than 9,000

students in 125 Iowa schools. A second round of

funding for the program, comprising public and

private funds, was announced in January 2006,

ultimately serving nearly 6,000 students in 75

additional schools. 

The Arts Endowment also serves the public at the

regional level through RAOs, which were created by

state arts leaders in partnership with the Arts

Endowment to transcend state boundaries and give

the public access to a greater and richer variety of arts

experiences. These six RAOs—Arts Midwest, MidAmerica Arts Alliance, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation,

the New England Foundation for the Arts, Southern

Arts Federation, and the Western States Arts

Federation—work with the NEA on initiatives such 

as the NEA Regional Touring program, which helps

bring quality performing artists and companies to

communities across the country with the help of

federal, state, and private funds. RAOs also partner

with the Arts Endowment on NEA National Initiatives

such as Poetry Out Loud (Mid Atlantic Arts

Foundation) and Operation Homecoming (Southern

Arts Federation).

Arts Midwest is a regional arts organization

headquartered in Minneapolis, serving audiences, arts

organizations, and artists throughout Illinois, Indiana,

Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio,

South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to

partnering with the NEA on several National

Initiatives—Shakespeare in American Communities,

NEA Jazz Masters on Tour, and, most recently, the Big

Read—Arts Midwest also provides high quality arts

programs to the public throughout its nine-state

region.

Inaugurated in 2003, one outstanding Arts Midwest

project is Midwest World Fest, a two-year touring

program that brings international performing artists to

Midwestern communities for weeklong residencies.

Residency activities include a public concert, one or

two school concerts, multiple in-school workshops,

and additional outreach activities, such as community

dinners and master classes for local musicians. Arts

Midwest also develops a comprehensive curriculum

for participating schools, which is targeted to various

grade levels and designed to be integrated into

existing curricula. 

For the 2005-2007 cycle, Midwest World Fest touring

artists included Mexican son jarocho ensemble

Chuchumbe, the multi-ethnic Israeli ensemble Esta,

The Bamboo Orchestra of Japan, and Somalian artists

Hibo Nuur and Kooshin, who performed with the

ShegoBand. These artists traveled to 11 Midwestern

communities, including Waterloo, Iowa; Prairie du

Chien, Wisconsin; and Newark, Ohio. Nearly 90,000

individuals benefited from the project, including more

than 70,000 youth and children. 

Tomoyuki Iwatsuki demonstrating a bamboo instrument in Prairie

du Chien, Wisconsin, as part of Arts Midwest’s Midwest World Fest. 

Photo by Shigeyo Henriquez
Lifetime Honors

2006 Annual Report 19

The public recommends recipients for the award, and

the National Council on the Arts nominates them to

the President for final selection. The awards, which are

non-monetary, are presented each year at a special

White House ceremony. The National Medal of Arts

was designed by internationally renowned sculptor

Robert Graham.

Information on submitting a nomination can be found

on the NEA Web site at www.arts.gov.

In 2006, the following artists, organizations, and arts

patrons received the National Medal of Arts:

I

t is not always possible to accurately measure the

impact of a particular artist’s work over his or her

career. Some artists, despite their great influence,

are never recognized for their effect in the arts field. In

the 1980s, the NEA realized the importance of

recognizing artists for lifetime achievements in

addition to current projects. Three such awards were

initiated: National Medals of Arts, NEA Jazz Masters,

and NEA National Heritage Fellows.

NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS

Created by Congress in 1984, the National Medal of

Arts is conferred annually by the President to honor

persons and organizations that have made

extraordinary contributions to the excellence, support,

growth, and availability of the arts in the United

States. Unlike other arts awards, the National Medal

of Arts is not limited to a single field or area of artistic

endeavor. 

Lifetime Honors

William Bolcom

Classical Composer

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Cyd Charisse 

Dancer

Los Angeles, California

Roy R. DeCarava 

Photographer 

Brooklyn, New York

Wilhelmina Holladay

Arts Patron 

Washington, DC

Interlochen Center

for the Arts 

School of Fine Arts

Interlochen, Michigan
20 National Endowment for the Arts

NEA JAZZ MASTERS

FELLOWSHIP

Though its exact origins are often disputed, jazz is

inarguably one of the nation’s most vibrant

indigenous art forms. In 1982 the NEA created the

NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, the highest honor that

our nation bestows upon jazz musicians, to recognize

those artists who have made significant contributions

to the development and performance of jazz. Each

year, a one-time award of $25,000 is presented from

among various categories.

Additionally, the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters

Award for Jazz Advocacy recognizes individuals who

have made major contributions to the appreciation,

knowledge, and advancement of the American jazz

art form as a writer, patron, or presenter. 

NEA Jazz Masters

Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bandleader

Over the course of a six-decade career, pianist,

bandleader, and composer-arranger Toshiko Akiyoshi

has made a unique and vital contribution to the art of

big-band jazz. Her big band albums have received 14

Grammy Award nominations, and Akiyoshi is the first

woman ever to place first in the Best Arranger and

Composer category in the Down Beat Readers’ Poll. 

President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush with the 2006 National Medal of Arts recipients in the Oval Office: from left, Ben Jaffe and

his mother Sandra Jaffe (Preservation Hall Jazz Band), Gregory Rabassa, Cyd Charisse, Roy DeCarava, Viktor Schreckengost, Dr. Ralph

Stanley, Wilhelmina Holladay, William Bolcom, Jeffrey Kimpton (Interlochen Center for the Arts), and NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. 

White House photo by Paul Morse

Erich Kunzel

Conductor, Cincinnati 

Pops Orchestra

Cincinnati, Ohio

Preservation Hall Jazz

Band 

Jazz Ensemble

New Orleans, Louisiana

Gregory Rabassa 

Literary Translator

Brooklyn, New York

Viktor Schreckengost

Industrial Designer/

Sculptor

Cleveland, Ohio 

Dr. Ralph Stanley 

Bluegrass Musician

Coeburn, Virginia
2 1

Lifetime Honors

Jimmy Scott, Vocalist

For more than five decades, vocalist Jimmy Scott has

numbered the jazz world’s best singers among his

select group of fans. Although he was, for a period,

“perhaps the most unjustly ignored American singer

of the 20th century” (according to Joseph Hooper in a

New York Times Magazine profile), Scott today is once

more finding a dedicated international audience for

his emotionally penetrating art. 

Frank Wess, Solo Instrumentalist (Flute)

A multi-instrumentalist whose inspired solos have kept

big band jazz fresh and vital into the present, Frank

Wess is one of the most influential and instantly

recognizable flutists in jazz history. Wess is also

revered as a smoothly swinging tenor saxophone

player in the Lester Young tradition and an expert 

alto saxophonist.

Curtis Fuller, Solo Instrumentalist (Trombone)

A remarkably fluent trombonist, Curtis Fuller’s

impeccable sense of time and ambitious solos have

made him a mainstay of the hard-bop scene. He has

added his instrument and compositions to albums by

John Coltrane, Bud Powell, the Jazztet, and Art

Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

Ramsey Lewis, Pianist

With a style that springs from his early gospel

experience, his classical training, and a deep love of

jazz, pianist and composer Ramsey Lewis has built a

decades-long career as one of America’s most popular

performers. Lewis is the artistic director of the “Jazz at

Ravinia” series of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the host

of a weekday morning drive-time radio show on

Chicago’s WNUA-FM, and the host of the syndicated

radio show Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis.

From left to right, top to bottom: Chairman Gioia with NEA Jazz Masters Dan Morgenstern, Phil Woods, 

Curtis Fuller, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ramsey Lewis, Jimmy Scott, and Frank Wess. 

Photo by Tom Pich
Lifetime Honors

22 National Endowment for the Arts

Phil Woods, Composer-Arranger

One of the most brilliant alto saxophonists in jazz,

composer, arranger, saxophonist, bandleader, and

educator Phil Woods has devoted himself to the alto

saxophone since the age of 12. The three-time

Grammy Award winner has composed more than 200

songs and recorded several albums with new

arrangements of famous composers.

Dan Morgenstern, A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz

Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy

Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers

University since 1976, Dan Morgenstern is a jazz

historian and archivist, author, editor, and educator

who has been active in the jazz field since 1958. As

head of the Institute of Jazz Studies, he is responsible

for the largest collection of jazz-related materials

anywhere.

NEA NATIONAL HERITAGE

FELLOWSHIP

The nation’s folk arts—that is, the artistic expression

that is at once rooted in the collective American

experience and in the traditions of the nation’s many

ethnicities—is perhaps one of the truest windows into

the American character. The nation’s folk and

traditional arts reflect the many tongues that make up

the distinctly American artistic voice. 

Since 1982, the NEA has recognized the artists who

dedicate their lives to cultural traditions and arts with

NEA National Heritage Fellowships. Ten NEA National

Heritage Fellowships, the country’s most prestigious

honor in the folk and traditional arts, were awarded in

2006. The fellowships include a one-time award of

$20,000.

Additionally, the Bess Lomax Hawes Award is given to

individuals who have made major contributions to the

excellence, vitality, and public appreciation of the folk

and traditional arts through teaching, collecting,

advocacy, and preservation work. 

Interviews with the 2006 awardees, as well as

presentations of their work, can be found on the NEA

Web site (www.arts.gov). The NEA National Heritage

Fellowships were presented in 2006 with support

from the Darden Restaurants Foundation.

Newly honored Frank Wess (left) talks with fellow NEA Jazz 

Masters Gerald Wilson and Jon Hendricks. 

Photo by Tom Pich 
Lifetime Honors

Charles M. Carrillo

Santero (Carver and 

Painter of sacred 

figures)

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Delores E. Churchill

Haida (Native Alaskan) 

Weaver

Ketchikan, Alaska

Henry Gray

Blues Piano Player and 

Singer

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Doyle Lawson

Gospel and Bluegrass 

Singer, Arranger, 

and Bandleader

Bristol, Tennessee

Esther Martinez

Native American 

Storyteller

Ohkay Owingeh, 

New Mexico

Diomedes Matos

Cuatro (10-string Puerto 

Rican guitar) maker

Deltona, Florida

George Na’ope

Kumu Hula (Hula 

Master)

Hilo, Hawaii

Wilho Saari

Finnish Kantele

(Lap-harp) player

Naselle, Washington

Mavis Staples

Gospel and Rhythm and 

Blues Singer

Chicago, Illinois

Nancy Sweezy (Bess

Lomax Hawes Award)

Advocate, Scholar, 

Presenter, and 

Preservationist

Westwood, Massachusetts

Treme Brass Band

New Orleans Brass Band

New Orleans, Louisiana

NEA National Heritage Fellows

From left to right, top to bottom: Chairman Gioia with NEA National Heritage Fellows Henry Gray; Diomedes Matos; Charles M. Carrillo;

Wilho Saari; Benny Jones, founder of the Treme Brass Band; George Na’ope, Nancy Sweezy, Doyle Lawson, Delores E. Churchill, Mavis

Staples, and Esther Martinez (who passed away September 16, 2006). 

Photo by Tom Pich
Cellist Evan Drachman

performing during the Sitka

Summer Music Festival. 

Photo courtesy Sitka Summer Music Festival 
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 25

The following pages highlight some of the successful projects that the NEA has supported in every state. While

these examples are by no means comprehensive, they are highly illustrative of the diverse, quality art that the 

NEA funds. 

1 Includes 58 grants for Arts on Radio and Television, 33 grants for Folk and Traditional Arts Infrastructure, and 11 grants for Save America’s Treasures. 

2 Includes 28 grants for Summer School in the Arts. 

Access to Artistic Excellence: This category funds projects that encourage and support artistic creativity, preserve

our diverse cultural heritage, and make the arts more widely available in communities throughout the country. 

Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth: This category funds projects that help children and youth acquire

appreciation, knowledge, and understanding of and skills in the arts. The focus is on children and youth in the

general age range of five through 18 years old. 

Challenge America: Reaching Every Community: In this category, the focus is on simple, straightforward local

projects that involve experienced professional artists and arts professionals in small or mid-sized communities

where opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. 

Grant Highlights

FY 2006 Grant Category APPLICATIONS: 

Number Received

GRANTS: 

Number Awarded

Access to Artistic Excellence1 2,207 1,769

Learning in the Arts2 639 228

Challenge America: 

Reaching Every Community 414 233
Grant Highlights

26 National Endowment for the Arts

Alabama Symphonic

Association

BIRMINGHAM

The Alabama Symphony

Orchestra’s main goal is

simple—to change lives

through music. And the more

people it reaches, the more lives it

has the potential to change. Each

year, the Alabama Symphony

Orchestra (ASO) presents Alabama

residents with a full season of

more than 150 concerts. The 

54-member orchestra, led by

Justin Brown, performs for more

than 100,000 people each year in

both traditional venues, such as

concert halls, and nontraditional

venues—including schools,

retirement homes, and parks. In

addition, at least 15 of its concerts

each year are provided free of

charge and more than 23,000

individuals participate in ASO’s

outreach programs, such as 

“On the Road,” a program which

brings the orchestra to all 99 of

Birmingham’s neighborhoods 

and focuses on inner-city schools

and neighborhoods. 

ASO is committed to reaching

residents throughout all of

Alabama and in 2006, the Alabama

Symphonic Association received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $20,000 to

support ASO’s Touring Alabama

initiative. Between October 2006

and May 2007, ASO toured the

communities of Livingston,

Dothan, and Chilton County,

providing not only high-quality

concerts, but also a variety of

educational and community

activities. 

In all three communities,

musicians held master classes for

high school band and orchestra

students, providing the students

with instruction focused on each

instrument. In addition, ASO held

concerts for elementary school

students and provided teachers

with accompanying educational

materials. The orchestra also

provided a pre-show presentation

for their final concert in each

community to give residents the

opportunity to learn more about

the music the orchestra performs. 

Alabama

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra Brass Ensemble conducts a master class for Dothan

High School band students in Dothan, Alabama.

Photo courtesy of Alabama Symphony Orchestra
2006 Annual Report 27

Montgomery

Museum of Fine Arts 

MONTGOMERY

Handmade quilts have

long served as a medium

for memorializing home,

family, and friends, and as a means

of personal expression and

individual creativity. According to

Robert Cargo, gallery owner and

longtime collector of Alabama

quilts, “Prior to about 1980,

African-American quilts,

particularly those from Alabama,

were scarcely known outside the

black community that created

them.” Alabama’s first accredited

museum, the Montgomery

Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), has

taken up the cause of not only

making these works better known,

but preserving the works for future

generations. 

In recent years, MMFA has focused

on attracting Birmingham’s

African-American population

through both their exhibits and

outreach programs. In FY 2006,

MMFA received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$15,000 to conserve and house a

collection of 48 African-American

quilts, an acquisition

representative ofsouthern

African-American culture. The

project includes the labor and

materials for stabilization and for

applying the proper headers to

display the quilts, and materials

for housing the exhibition in a safe

environment, all of which must be

undertaken to achieve the

museum’sfinal goal of displaying

the quilts in their gallery and

creating an exhibit to tour. Textile

conservator Harriet P. Neal

undertook the conservation

process, which was concluded in

May 2007.

All created in the second half of

the 20th century, the quilts are

representative of the work of some

of the region’s most well-respected

quilters in a style distinctive to the

African-American community,

such as the use of large patterns,

asymmetry, and bold colors and a

de-emphasis on precise quilting

stitches. The collection will 

not only provide a deeper

understanding of this artistic

tradition, but also will attract

nontraditional visitors to the

museum from Birmingham’s

African-American population.

Odell Valentine’s Lone Star 

is part of the Montgomery 

Museum of Fine Arts’s collection 

of African-American quilts. 

Photo by Emily Stuart Thomas
Grant Highlights

Sealaska Heritage

Institute 

JUNEAU

I

n Juneau, Alaska,

“Celebration” is a proper

noun. It’s the only name that

could describe the biennial festival

that has shut down the entire town

every other June since 1982. In FY

2006, the Sealaska Heritage

Institute received an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$40,000 to support Celebration

2006, a five-day event of

indigenous art, dance, and culture. 

The festival opened with the

traditional Coming Ashore

Ceremony. When the war canoes

arrived at Juneau’s Marine Park,

clan members announced their

arrival in Tlingit and accepted a

ceremonial drink of water. Then,

symbolically dressed as ravens,

eagles, whales, and other

creatures, they began dancing to

the beat of a ceremonial drum. 

Celebration is a mix of educational

events, entertainment, and

contests. Organizers from Sealaska

Heritage Institute chose the 2006

theme, “Reflections of our

ancestors in the faces of our

children,” because they wanted to

emphasize the importance of

passing on their cultural heritage.

In keeping with the Sealaska

Heritage Center’s language

preservation work, Celebration

2006 included nine workshops in

Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian.

Participants were encouraged to

continue pursuing language

studies back home.

Alaska

Background: Visiting chamber

musicians performing a Mozart

quintet with Alaskan mountains

in the background during the Sitka

Summer Music Festival. 

Photo courtesy Sitka Summer 

Music Festival

Below: A dancer wearing the

Sleeping Man mask performs at

Sealaska Heritage Institute’s

Celebration 2006. 

Photo by Bill Hess 
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 29

Contests at Celebration 2006

included black seaweed recipe

judging and canoe races, and a

traditional art market also featured

work by more than 100 artisans. A

gallery of Native-American art

work, including masks, sculptures,

and other works—most in vivid

Northwest red, white, and black—

were on display throughout the

festival. 

Celebration also drew dancers

from across Alaska, as well as

British Columbia, Yukon Territory,

and Washington state. About 1,500

dancers from 43 ensembles

donned regalia to perform in

Centennial Hall and march down

the streets of Juneau in the closing

parade. More than 5,000 people

attended the Celebration 2006

events.

Sitka Summer Music

Festival 

SITKA

No divas need apply to

perform at the Sitka

Summer Music Festival.

Musicians who sign on to play

concerts in remote Alaskan

villages must be willing to forego

the comforts of a hotel and the

acoustics of a concert hall in favor

ofstaying at homes and

performing in gymnasiums. It’s

not a glamorous tour, but Paul

Rosenthal, artistic director of the

festival, has no trouble finding

takers. 

“It’s very easy to recruit people to

come to Alaska.It’s an adventure

to come here,” Rosenthal said.

“You are not going to get rich doing

these concerts, and you’re not

going to be famous, but you are

going to have a good time.”

Rosenthal, a Juilliard-trained

violinist, founded the festival in

1972 to bring high-quality

chamber music to Alaska. The

festival began in Sitka, a culturally

inclined coastal community, where

the festival continues to offer nine

concerts each June. The music

competes with the view: Beyond

the stage is a wall of glass, water,

and mountains. Eagles have been

known to sweep down from the sky

during concerts.

In addition to the festival in Sitka,

musicians attending the festival

often participate in touring

concerts throughout the state. In

2006, the festival musicians

traveled to Cordova, Dillingham,

Juneau, and Togiak. In these

outlying towns, the Sitka festival

concerts have been known to draw

up to 100 percent of the total

population. People come not

because they want to hear a

particular Mozart sonata or

Arensky piano trio, but simply

because they want to hear highquality chamber music. And the

Sitka Summer Music Festival

provides it.
Grant Highlights

30 National Endowment for the Arts

University of

Arizona 

TUCSON

T wentieth-century

photography is fast

becoming art history. In

the digital age, archiving slides is

no longer storage; it’s

preservation. That’s why the

University of Arizona’s Center for

Creative Photography applied for a

Save America’s Treasures grant, a

program offered jointly by the NEA

and the National Park Service. In

2006, the university received a

$270,000 Save America’s

Treasure’s grant to conserve work

by one of America’s most revered

photographers: Ansel Adams.

The Center for Creative

Photography was co-founded in

1975 by Adams and John P.

Schaefer, the university’s

president at the time, as a working

institution for research in

photography—a place that would

not only give the public access to

Adams’s prints, negatives, and

personal items, but also collect the

work of other significant and

creative photographers. The Ansel

Adams archive remains the

center’s largest collection,

containing approximately 2,500

fine prints, more than 40,000

negatives, and some 700 linear

feet of archival boxes containing

everything from Adams’sreceipts

to his signature Stetson hat. 

Thunderstorm, Mission San Xavier del

Bac, Arizona,ca. 1948, by Ansel Adams,

one of the photographs being preserved

through a Save America’s Treasures grant.

Photo courtesy of Collection Center

for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. © Trustees of the Ansel

Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Arizona
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 31

Of chief concern to conservators

are the 40,000 negatives made of

unstable cellulose acetate and

cellulose nitrate film stock.

Neither chemical ages well. With

money from the Save America’s

Treasures grant, the center plans to

purchase a giant freezer that will

safely store thousands of negatives.

The grant is also funding a massive

project that involves remounting

1,250 Adams’s prints to acid-free

paper and cataloging them in an

easy-access manner.

Adams’s photos of the American

West remain more popular than

ever—not only as iconic images,

but as a testimony to what was

possible before the digital age.

“There’s an explosion of technical

interest in how photographers

achieved what they achieved,”

explained Barbara Allen, assistant

director at the center.

Grand Canyon 

Music Festival

GRAND CANYON

When flutist Clare

Hoffman and violinist

Robert Bonfiglio

founded Grand Canyon Music

Festival in 1983, they anticipated

an audience of enlightened tourists

coming to commune with music

and nature. The couple quickly

realized that a more important

audience was already there, waiting

for them in rural northern

Arizona. Soon Hoffman and

Bonfiglio weren’t just planning a

concert series, they were teaching

music to children on NativeAmerican reservations.

The outreach program began

informally in 1984. Each year more

reservation schools requested

visits from musicians. To meet the

needs ofschools more than 100

miles away, they established the

Native American Composer’s

Apprentice Project in 2001. The

idea has been simple but

successful: professional composers

go out to schools in advance and

teach students the basics of music

notation and theory. Then, while

the musicians are in Arizona for

the festival, they visit schools and

perform works written by the

students. 

In 2006, Grand Canyon Music

Festival received a NEA $20,000

Learning in the Arts grant to send

the avant-garde string quartet

Ethel out to three reservation

elementary schools, where the

musicians gave concerts, and to

five high schools, where they

performed works written by

students with the assistance of

composer-in-residence Raven

Chacon. Several students who

began composing through the

program have continued studying

music after high school. 

Perhaps the greatest success story

to date is Rochelle Chester, a

Monument Valley High School

student who participated in the

program in 2006. She submitted a

recording of a string quartet she

wrote to the radio show From the

Top,securing an appearance on the

program and having her quartet,

“Moon’s Lullaby,” performed. The

show aired nationwide on PBS

affiliates during spring 2007.

Students from Chinle High School on

Arizona’s Navajo Nation composing works

to be performed by the string quartet Ethel,

who visited their school in 2006.

Photo courtesy of grand canyon

music festival
Grant Highlights

32 National Endowment for the Arts

Arkansas State

University 

STATE UNIVERSITY

P

erhaps not as well known as

its fellow Southern states,

Arkansas has a rich history

in the folk arts, from the blues of

its eastern delta region of the

Mississippi River to the string

band music of its northwestern

Ozark Mountains. In 2005,

Arkansas State University

partnered with the Arkansas Arts

Council to establish the Arkansas

Folklife Program, which provides a

full-time Folk Arts Coordinator

position at the university to

promote the folk arts throughout

the state. 

In FY 2006, Arkansas State

University received an NEA Folk

Arts Infrastructure grant of

$30,000 to support the second

year of the Folk Arts Coordinator

position. After spending the

previous year concentrating on 

the Delta region, Dr. Michael J.

Luster, the Arkansas Folk Arts

Coordinator, focused on

conducting fieldwork in Arkansas’s

Ozarks. This included assessing

the archival holdings of Ozark

folklife and documenting the

efforts to preserve the region’s

folklore. This information was

stored in Arkansas State

University’s folklore archives and

used to create a database of

traditional artists in the Arkansas

region.

As a result of his previous year’s

research, Luster contributed

greatly to the planning of the Delta

Blues Symposium, held annually at

Arkansas State University and

devoted to the examination of the

music and culture of the delta

region. As part of this symposium,

Dr. Luster arranged the Blues in

the Schools program, where blues

musicians visited middle school

classrooms and spoke about their

music. 

Dr. Luster also uses his research to

nominate significant artists for the

NEA National Heritage Fellowship

program and Arkansas’s

equivalent, the Living Treasure

program—awards which increase

knowledge and recognition of the

importance of the folk and

traditional arts on a national and

state level.

Arkansas

Essie the Blues Lady performs at West Memphis

(Arkansas) Junior High as part of the Blues in the

Schools program. 

Photo by Simon Hosken
2006 Annual Report 33

Pine Bluff Symphony

Orchestra 

PINE BLUFF

I

n the rural, agricultural

setting of southeast Arkansas,

a demand for classical music

led to the creation of the Pine Bluff

Symphony Orchestra (PBSO) in

1987. Growing from two

subscription concerts a year to a

season of four concerts with more

than 70 musicians, PBSO also

features guest artists as well as

local choirs. In addition to its

regular season, PBSO also has

collaborated with area universities

for concerts and has presented

casual, cabaret-style concerts to

attract more residents.

PBSO also maintains strong

educational programs, providing

more than 200 instruments for

local schools as well as in-school

lessons for students unable to

afford private lessons, sponsoring

a youth orchestra, and running a

summer orchestra workshop. 

In FY 2006, PBSO received an NEA

Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to support a concert

featuring pieces from American

musicals. Performed on March 24,

2007, in Pine Bluff, and March 25

in Monticello, The Splendor of

Broadway included classic music

by Broadway icons, such as Irving

Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter,

and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Approximately 3,000 attended the

concert, which attracted additional

community interest by

collaborating with vocalists from

the Arts & Science Center for

Southeast Arkansas, who have

performed the pieces previously as

part of Arts & Science Center

musical productions.

In addition to strengthening the

connection between PBSO and the

Arts & Sciences Center, the

concert also was integral to PBSO’s

efforts to build stronger

community support of both PBSO

and orchestral music in general.

Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra and singers from the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas perform The Splendor of Broadway

on March 25, 2007 in Monticello, Arkansas. 

Photo by Tom Barton
Grant Highlights

34 National Endowment for the Arts

Santa Barbara

Museum of Art

SANTA BARBARA

P

erception matters in the

fickle field of modern art.

It takes a successful

exhibit, accompanied by buzz, to

make the art-world map. In 2007,

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

made the leap from a regionally

respected museum to an

institution regarded for its

international touring exhibitions.

Tamayo: A Modern Icon

Reinterpreted, the first major

American retrospective of works

by Mexican painter Rufino

Tamayo, has drawn international

attention to the little art museum

north of Los Angeles. Nearly

60,000 people saw the exhibit

while it was hung in Santa Barbara.

Art magazines ran complimentary

reviews right alongside critiques of

shows in major cities.

“We aren’t in LA, we aren’t in

Washington, DC, but we are doing

a retrospective of international

caliber,” curator Diana D. duPont

said. “It’s been an overwhelming

success. The NEA gave us a

chance.”

The museum received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $80,000 to support the

exhibition. DuPont called on 98

museums and private collectors

from four continents to collect

works for the show, which closed

in Santa Barbara at the end of May

2007 and traveled on to the Miami

Art Museum and the Museo

Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in

Mexico City.

DuPont is thrilled to see her

museum acclaimed for gathering

Tamayo’s work. Born in Mexico in

1899, Tamayo was never fully

embraced by his homeland or his

adopted environs of New York and

Paris. It’s only in recent years that

his painting has been lauded for

leaping boundaries rather than

representing a national style.

“Tamayo fused together Mexican

art, American art, and

Modernism,” du Pont said. “It’s

that fusion that makes him so

special.”

California

Rufino Tamayo’s Mujeres de Tehuantepec (Women of Tehuantepec),1939, was part of

the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s exhibition Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted. 

Photo courtesy of Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Albright-Knox Art

Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1941:21, © Herederos de Rufino Tamayo
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 35

California State

University

Festival of New 

American Music

SACRAMENTO

Contemporary classical

music has long enjoyed a

solid fan base in Northern

California. The region is perhaps

best known as home to composer

John Adams and innovative

symphony and opera companies.

But for three decades, Sacramento

State University also has been

doing its part to nurture

California’s avant-garde tradition.

In 2006, the university received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $10,000 to bolster its 29th

annual Festival of New American

Music.

The November 2006 festival

brought more than two dozen guest

composers and artists to give more

than 60 concerts, lectures, and

educational assemblies. The

emphasis, as always, was on 20thand 21st-century composers and

artists who have dedicated their

careers to performing

contemporary works. Pianist and

composer Frederic Rzewski

delivered the 2006 keynote

address, then sat at the piano to

perform his own solo and chamber

works. 

In recent years the festival has

embraced contemporary world

music as well as works in the

Western tradition. Edward Ortiz,

the Sacramento Bee’s music critic,

raved about the San Franciscobased Melody of China quartet.

Their performance of Yuanlin

Chin’s “Two Prose Poems” made

Ortiz’s 2006 list of top-ten music

events in the Bay Area.

Melody of China was one of several

ensembles that visited northern

California schools during the 

10-day festival. The innovative

Talujon Percussion Ensemble and

bluegrass-influenced Free Planet

Radio were also dispatched to

schools. All concerts, even the

evening galas at the university,

were free and open to the public.

KXPR-FM broadcast the opening

gala concert live on Capital Public

Radio. 

Violinist Todd Reynolds performed at the 2006 Festival of New American Music. 

Photo by Kevin Kennefick
Grant Highlights

36 National Endowment for the Arts

Fort Collins Museum

Foundation 

FORT COLLINS

To many Americans,

Native-American music

consists of the chanting

and drums that they watched in old

Westerns on television. But

Native-American music is more

complex and diverse than that, and

the Fort Collins Museum (FCM)

presents that new vision of NativeAmerican music to thousands of

people each year through their

Crossroads at the Council Tree

Native American Music Festival. 

The museum was founded in 1939

as a pioneer museum, but has

grown to focus more on the area’s

culture and history. Since 2002 the

museum has had the support of the

Fort Collins Museum Foundation,

which has worked to develop the

museum into the premiere

institution of its kind in northern

Colorado. In FY 2006, the Fort

Collins Museum Foundation

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $15,000 to

support the fourth Crossroads

festival on September 2, 2006. 

The festival educates the public

about the contemporary culture 

of Native Americans, presenting

traditional Native-American music

with flute and drum along with

rock, hip-hop, blues, and folk

music, showcasing the effects 

of Native Americans on

contemporary culture.

In addition to the performances,

FCM arranged an art exhibit that

highlighted the work of local artist

Bunky Echo-Hawk, with other

two- and three-dimensional art

works by students at the Institute

of American Indian and Alaska

Native Culture and Arts

Development.

Fort Collins Museum also arranged

an in-school educational

component to accompany the

festival. Hoop dancer Jackie Bird

visited eight elementary schools,

four Native-American speakers

gave lectures at high schools, and

singer Pura Fe performed a

concert at Colorado State

University, accompanied by Cary

Morin of the band the Atoll.

Colorado

Amember of the Iron Family Dancers

watches as a youngster practices the steps. 

Photo courtesy of Michael Tamkun

and the Fort Collins Museum
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 37

Denver Office of

Cultural Affairs

DENVER

On April 14 and 15, 2007,

more than 35,000

residents and visitors

participated in Doors Open

Denver, a program to highlight

Denver’s architectural growth by

providing free access to sites of

historic and modern architectural

importance. The 82 diverse sites

included skyscrapers, libraries,

college buildings, and hotels. In

order to properly introduce the

public to the sites, the Denver

Office of Cultural Affairs (DOCA)

provided expert-led tours, selfguided tours, and “urban

adventures”—self-guided tours

that were tailored to a specific

interest or theme. 

In this second year of the program,

DOCA received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$25,000, which allowed the 

office to broaden its reach by

promoting the program in ethnic

communities, and by including

sites in predominantly or

historically minority communities.

As a result of this program,

participants not only become more

familiar with their community, but

they’re also awakened to the

impact of their surroundings.

Doors Open Denver builds an

appreciation for architecture in

general, as well as an

understanding of Denver’s own

architectural masterpieces.

Established in 1991 by City

ordinance, the Denver Office of

Cultural Affairs works to advance

the arts and culture in the city and

county of Denver, which includes a

vibrant arts community of more

than 300 arts organizations. Other

programs include the Denver Poet

Laureate Program, which increases

the awareness and appreciation of

poetry in Denver, and the City Free

Concert Series, featuring local

performing arts groups and

individuals. 

The Equitable Building, built in 1892, the tallest building in Denver at that time, is a stop on

the architectural tour of the city,Doors Open Denver.

Photo courtesy of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs
Grant Highlights

38 National Endowment for the Arts

Hartford Jazz Society 

HARTFORD

I

n 1961, the Hartford Jazz

Society (HJS) hosted its first

ever ticketed concert. The

performer was a little-known jazz

pianist named Randy Weston.

Nearly half a century later, Weston

is an NEA Jazz Master, famous for

infusing the jazz idiom with

African rhythms, and the Hartford

Society is the oldest nonprofit jazz

concert presenter in the United

States.

With the support of an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$10,000, the society welcomed

Weston back to Hartford in

2006. In the afternoon

before the concert, Weston

provided a master class in

jazz piano for students.

During his evening

performance with his

African Rhythms Trio, the

towering pianist captivated the

audience with his quirky melodies

and inventive beats, just as he did

45 years ago.

And HJS was happy to bring the

jazz great back. “Hartford has a

long history of being a city

enthusiastic for jazz,” HJS

president Dan Feingold said.

“We’re halfway between Boston

and New York. In the heydays of

jazz, artists passing through would

try out new numbers in Hartford.”

HJS seeks to book a spectrum of

jazz musicians who push the ethnic

and stylistic boundaries of jazz.

Other artists on the 2006 schedule

included contemporary blues

singer Shemekia Copeland, who

sold out the Atheneum for the

society. The day before the concert,

Copeland coached aspiring

vocalists at an NEA-funded master

class held at a Hartford church.

HJS plans to continue sharing the

joy of jazz with young people by

offering more master classes

and inviting high school jazz

combos to open concerts for

big-name artists.

Connecticut

NEA Jazz Master Randy Weston.

Photo by Tom Pich
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 39

Yale University

NEW HAVEN

Yale University’s Gallery of

Art received NEA funding

not only to display great

art, but to send masterpieces far

from the gallery’s Connecticut

quarters.

With help from an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$60,000, the Yale gallery curated

its first-ever traveling exhibition

culled from its permanent

collection of early 20th-century

art: Société Anonyme: Modernism for

America. The internationally

acclaimed exhibit opened in the

fall of 2006 at UCLA’sHammer

Museum in Westwood, California,

where the Los Angeles Times

deemed it one of the top-ten art

events in southern California.

From there it was on to

Washington, DC, where the pieces

were hung at the Phillips

Collection. In 2007, the exhibit

will visit the Dallas Museum of Art

and the Frist Museum in Nashville,

Tennessee, and finally return

home to Connecticut, where it will

be shown jointly by Yale and

Mount Holyoke College.

The exhibition represents the

painstaking effort of Yale curators

to recreate the early 20th-century

exhibits organized by the original

Société Anonyme: Connecticut

painter Katherine Dreier, the

French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp,

and American photographer Man

Ray. During the 1920s and 30s, this

trio of artists rented galleries in

New York and exhibited works by

the likes of Wassily Kandinsky,

Paul Klee, and Max Ernst. Dreier’s

home became a modern art

repository. In 1950, she

bequeathed her home and

collection to the Yale Gallery,

where the works have been

displayed intermittently ever

since. 

Critics across the country are

grateful to Yale for sharing Société

Anonyme with a wider audience.

“What you see here is the

wonderful, unruly mess that

Modernism deserves,” Roberta

Smith wrote in the New York Times.

Angelika Hoerle’s Female Bust,1920, was one of the

artworks featured in the exhibition Société Anonyme:

Modernism for America.

Photo courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Collection Société Anonyme
Grant Highlights

40 National Endowment for the Arts

Delaware Center for

the Contemporary

Arts 

WILMINGTON

Nurturing new and

emerging visual artists is

something for which the

Delaware Center for the

Contemporary Arts (DCCA)

strives. In addition to presenting

nearly 30 exhibitions a year, DCCA

offers programs such as Visual and

Performing Arts Camps for

students K-6, Pre-College Art

Studio for high schoolers, and an

Art and Community Program to

bring young artists to work with

groups in the community. 

In FY 2006, DCCA received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $12,000 to provide

residencies for two visual artists,

Maria Anasazi and Yukie

Kobayashi, in 2007 as part of the

Art and Community Program.

DCCA provided each artist with a

studio, housing, stipend, material

allowance, and travel expenses and

paired the artist with a community

group for an eight-week residency. 

In June and July of 2007, Maria

Anasazi worked with men and

women at YWCA Delaware’s Home

Life Management Center, which

provides emergency and

transitional housing for

families. Anasazi’s goal was

to explore issues of identity,

loss, and change by having

the group collaborate on a sewing

project. Each participant used old

sewing paper patterns to create

clothes, symbolizing their old

lives, and then used new materials

and their own ideas on top of the

old patterns, symbolizing a new

life pattern. Anasazi documented

the process through photos and

video.

Yukie Kobayashi worked with 13

local home-schooled students and

six students at Wilmington

Hospital’s First State School, which

serves critically ill children who

are unable to attend regular

school. Kobayashi taught the

students a variety of traditional and

contemporary hand-papermaking

techniques from both Asian and

Western cultures, using both

natural pulps and Japanese

mulberry fiber. At the conclusion

of the program, students exhibited

their work at DCCA.

Yukie Kobayashi teaches home-schooled students how to

create marbleized effects on their handmade paper as part of

her Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts residency. 

Photo by Holly Bennett Jackson
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 41

Delaware Division of

the Arts

WILMINGTON

The state parks of Delaware

are known for their

boating and swimming,

hiking and camping, but not

necessarily for their music. The

Delaware Division of the Arts

(DDOA) is aiming to change that. 

As the state agency that

administers grants and programs

that support arts programming,

educate the public, increase

awareness of the arts, and

integrate the arts into all facets of

Delaware life, DDOA received an

NEA grant of $595,000 to support

its Partnership activities in FY

2006. DDOA used a portion of its

NEA funding for the Delaware

Division of Parks and

Recreation/Delaware Folklife

Program’s 2006 summer concert

series of traditional forms of

music.

At Wilmington’s Bellevue State

Park, a mini-series of six

performances devoted to PanCaribbean music featured such

groups as the Sankofa African

Dance and Drum Company and

Micaela Moreno’s Flamenco

Ensemble. Several of the

performances at Bellevue also

featured audience members. The

West African storytellers, Griots

Wa Umoja, invited children on

stage to help them with a

performance and the Christina

River Steel Band, who had worked

with a creative arts camp at

Bellevue prior to their

performance, invited these

campers to perform with them.

At the Killens Pond State Park in

Felton, three performances

featured musicians playing

bluegrass, traditional Irish music,

and traditional and original blues.

Lastly, at the White Clay Creek

State Park near Newark,

singer/songwriter Kelly Ricketts,

original bluegrass group Delaware

Rag, and lower case blues

performed at four concerts.

In total, more than 3,600 people

attended the summer concert

series and were introduced to such

diverse music styles as bluegrass,

Caribbean, and traditional Irish

music.

Delaware

During their performance at Bellevue State Park in Delaware, West African

storytellers/folklorists, Griots Wa Umoja, invited audience members to participate. 

Photo by Michael Miller
Grant Highlights

42 National Endowment for the Arts

The Washington

Ballet 

WASHINGTON

The Latino/Hispanic

population in Washington,

DC, has grown by 154

percent from 1980 to 2000, and

even faster in its suburbs. So local

arts organizations such as the

Washington Ballet have been

presenting programs specifically to

engage with this growing

population. 

In FY 2006, Washington Ballet

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 for

¡Noche Latina!, a production

designed to celebrate Latino

culture through a combination of

live music and dance. ¡Noche

Latina! included four live bands

performing songs from Bolivia,

Cuba, and Mexico and three

ballets: Paul Taylor’s tango

Piazzolla Caldera, Nacho Duato’s

Na Floresta, and Septime Webre’s

Juanita y Alicia, inspired by his

homeland, Cuba. 

¡Noche Latina! was presented

January 31 through February 4,

2007 at the John F. Kennedy

Center for the Performing Arts and

attended by approximately 6,470

people. The city’s Latino leaders

and members of community

organizations were invited to open

rehearsals and performances. In

addition, 1,200 more people

attended four performances at

Washington Ballet’s Town Hall

Education Arts & Recreation

campus (THEARC) in Anacostia.

Washington Ballet held two

performances for DC Public

School students and other

community and school groups and

two performances for the public

with reduced-price tickets and

free tickets for students studying at

THEARC.

¡Noche Latina! also was integrated

into Washington Ballet’s DanceDC,

which each year reaches more than

600 elementary school students in

four public schools and one

community center. Participating

students studied Latino culture

and created their own salsa dance.

Students also attended free

performances of ¡Noche Latina! at

THEARC.

District of

Columbia

Jared Nelson performs in Septime

Webre’s Juanita y Alicia, part of

Washington Ballet’s¡Noche

Latina! presentation. 

Photo by Carol Pratt
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 43

Heritage

Preservation

WASHINGTON

P

ublic murals can enliven

neighborhoods, offering

commentary on events and

challenges in the community.

Unfortunately, weather can cause

damage to the artwork, which

without attention, will disappear. 

DC’s Heritage Preservation created

a project to help preserve such

public art.In FY 2006, Heritage

Preservation received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $35,000 for Rescue Public

Murals, a project developed to

identify and preserve the nation’s

outdoor mural masterpieces. 

Individuals and communities

submitted information about

murals throughout the nation to

Heritage Preservation. An advisory

committee made up of muralists,

conservators, and art historians

are assessing the murals and

determining ten that are both the

most endangered and significant

outdoor murals. For each one, 

the committee will develop

recommendations for

conservation, maintenance, 

and fundraising. At present, three

works have been picked for

conservation.

Two of the works chosen were

Norma Montoya’s Innocence(1973)

and Mario Torero and C.A.C.A.’s

We Are Not a Minority (1976).

Created at the Housing Authority

of the City of Los Angeles’s

property at Estrada Courts, the

murals exemplify the passions of

the Chicano movimiento, the

movement for social justice. A

distinctly different mural assessed

by the committee, Homage to

Seurat: La Grand Jatte in Harlem

(1986) is the last remaining New

York City mural by Eva Crockcroft,

an artist, art historian, and author

instrumental in the national

community murals movement.

In addition to preserving the ten

identified murals and drawing

attention to their artistic and

historical significance, the advisory

committee is also identifying

options for a national database of

murals and is assembling best

practices on mural creation.

Norma Montaya’smural Innocence (1973) in Los Angeles is one of the murals

being preserved by Heritage Preservation’s Rescue Public Murals initiative. 

Photo by Moira Egan
44 National Endowment for the Arts

Orlando Opera

Company 

ORLANDO

Bringing people to the

opera is much easier than

bringing opera to the

people. Moving sets, orchestras,

and large casts throughout the

hinterland makes mounting a

touring opera production a

difficult proposition. The Orlando

Opera Company, however, is

dedicated to doing just that.

Since 1994, Orlando Opera has

been on the Florida State Touring

Program, through which the

company has visited 39 of Florida’s

67 counties, bringing affordable

presentations to audiences with

limited exposure to live opera and

musical theater, including those

areas underserved by the arts. In

FY 2006, Orlando Opera received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $15,000 to

support an expansion of its touring

program. 

The expansion included the

addition of a full-scale production

of L’Elisir d’Amore—previously

produced for the company’s

mainstage series—to its touring

schedule. The company performed

L’Elisir d’Amorefor nearly 1,500

patrons at the Tampa Bay

Performing Arts Center.

Orlando Opera also added smallerscale productions, including inschool performances, with piano

accompaniment to its touring

agenda. Suitable for all age groups,

these productions included

Introduction to Zarzuela; Opera

Extravaganza, a revue of opera,

operetta, and Broadway selections;

a midsized production of The

Marriage of Figaro; and an abridged

version of Hansel and Gretel, which

incorporated local teachers and

students at each site into the

performance. The in-school

performances took place at 56

schools from September 2005 to

May 2006 and benefited more

than 17,000 students. Figaro

toured to Vero Beach, Florida, for

two performances in March 2006,

which benefited 650 youth and

adults. 

Dr. Dulcamara (Rod Nelman) arrives

in the village and peddles a magic

elixir to townsfolk in the Orlando

Opera Company’s production of

L’Elisir d’Amore. 

Photo by Tony Firriolo
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 45

The three-day festival took place

from June 8-10, 2006 at several

sites, including Florida State

University’s Ruby Diamond

Auditorium. Visiting artists to the

festival from Congo, Senegal, and

Guinea included Guinean dancer

Moustapha Bangoura, who studied

with the Les Ballet Africains;

dancers Ndeye Gueye from Senegal

and Mabiba Baegne from Republic

of Congo; and drummers Eric Gore

from the Ivory Coast and Mangue

Sylla from Guinea.

The festival featured ten African

dance workshops, and eight

African drum workshops in a

range of styles including dun dun,

djembe, and ngoma. A culminating

performance featured the festival’s

teaching artists and ACDT’s

resident company performing the

Ivory Coast and Ghana piece titled

“Abodon and Lobi.” 

Additional festival activities

included two free children’s dance

workshops, a book fair with local

and regional authors, and a health

forum on diabetes with health

screenings. More than 250

children and youth and 950 adults

participated in the workshops,

while more than 1,000 individuals

attended the culminating

performance.

Florida

African Caribbean

Dance Theatre

TALLAHASSEE

With a primary mission

of promoting and

preserving African

culture, the African Caribbean

Dance Theatre (ACDT) presents

the annual African Dance

Festival—which includes arts

workshops, performances, and a

festival marketplace. In FY 2006,

ACDT received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$15,000 to support the 9th Annual

Florida African Dance Festival, the

only statewide African dance event

in Florida.

“This award allows our company to

expand and enhance this year’s

festival offerings,” Jevelle

Robinson, ACDT co-founder and

executive director, told the

Tallahassee Democrat. “Over 30

artists—the largest group of artists

to date—will be a part of the event

this year.”

Mohamed Diaby and Tonya Powell of

African Caribbean Dance Theatre

perform at the 9th Annual Florida

African Dance Festival, sponsored by the

African Caribbean Dance Theatre. 

Photos by Austin Roberts
Grant Highlights

46 National Endowment for the Arts

Savannah Music

Festival

SAVANNAH

Known for its diversity as

well as the excellence of

its musicians, the

Savannah Music Festival (SMF)

hosts renowned jazz, blues,

bluegrass, classical, and

international artists over a 17-day

period each spring in historic

downtown Savannah. Founded in

1980, SMF is Georgia’s largest

music festival, highlighting not

only world-class musicians, but

also integrating the event into the

community as the festival takes

place throughout the entire

historic district, including

theaters, houses of worship, and

art museums. Education is an

integral part of the festival, with

10,000 free tickets provided 

for students and educational

materials supplied to teachers in

anticipation of the concerts.

In FY 2006, SMF received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 for their 2006 festival,

which featured 500 classical, jazz,

blues, bluegrass, gospel, zydeco,

and world musicians, including

NEA Jazz Masters Paquito

D’Rivera, Jim Hall, Slide

Hampton, Roy Haynes, and Ahmad

Jamal. Between March 17 and April

2, 2006, approximately 48,000

people attended the festival, an

increase of 33 percent over the

previous year. In addition to 59

ticketed events, SMF also featured

free midday concerts, youth

education programs, artist

workshops, a three-day gospel

workshop, and a two-day high

school jazz band workshop.

One of the primary goals of the

festival is to provide the

opportunity for musicians to

collaborate and blend genres to

make unique festival

performances. For 2006, examples

of this included four string

musicians combining elements of

bluegrass, folk, and jazz music, and

Hamilton de Holanda, an

instrumentalist from Brazil,

collaborating with mandolinist

Mike Marshall to blend bluegrass,

classical, world, and swing music. 

Georgia

NEA Jazz Master Slide Hampton works

with high school jazz students from across

Georgia in an annual jazz band workshop

at the 2006 Savannah Music Festival. 

Photo by Ayano Hisa
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 47

Robert W. Woodruff

Arts Center

Alliance Theatre Company

ATLANTA

One of Atlanta’s theater

companies that produce

professionally staged

productions for both adult and

youth audiences, the Alliance

Theatre Company has presented

high-quality theater on two stages

at the Robert W. Woodruff Arts

Center since 1968. The Alliance

has become one of the nation’s

leading regional theaters, and is

renowned for its role in producing

world premieres, many of which go

on to Broadway, such as Alice

Walker’s The Color Purple. 

In 2003, the Alliance created the

Graduate Playwriting Competition,

an opportunity for students in the

country’stop graduate playwriting

programs to compete for a full

professional production by

Alliance Theatre. In FY 2006, the

Arts Center received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $40,000 to support Alliance

Theatre’s competition and the

world premiere of the winning

play. Twenty-six playwrights from

13 schools submitted plays, and a

national judging panel picked the

winner and four other finalists,

who received stage readings of

their plays. On April 7, 2006, the

winning play, ...,” said Said, by Yale

School of Drama student Kenneth

Lin and directed by the Alliance’s

Artistic Director Susan V. Booth,

opened on the Alliance’sHertz

Stage and ran for a total of 28

performances. Throughout the

rehearsal process, Lin was in

residence at the Alliance and

participated in audience

enrichment activities surrounding

his play.

Alliance Theatre’s Graduate

Playwriting Competition not only

introduces the Atlanta community

to new and groundbreaking

theater, but it also provides

support and encouragement to new

playwrights as well as important

connections and invaluable

recognition in the theater

community.

Sarah Said (Jacqueline Antaramian) with

her father Andre (Michael Santo) in a

scene from ...,” said Said,winner of the

Alliance Theatre Company’sGraduate

Playwriting Competition in 2006. 

Photo by Greg Mooney
Grant Highlights

48 National Endowment for the Arts

Moanalua Gardens

Foundation 

HONOLULU

I

nHawaii, hula dancers have

the power to move highways.

The Moanalua Gardens

Foundation was founded in 1970 to

save a natural botanical garden

from being bisected by the

Moanalua Freeway. The Moanalua

Gardens occupy land that belonged

to Hawaiian royalty until the late

1800s. To celebrate preserving the

land, the foundation held its first

Prince Lot Hula Festival in 1978,

named after the king who held hula

dances on the site during the late

1800s. It’s been growing in scope

and reputation ever since, and is

now regarded as the largest

noncompetitive hula festival 

in Hawaii.

Competitive hula festivals are glitzy

indoor events that the average

Hawaiian family cannot afford to

attend, according to Mahealani

Merryman, executive director of

Moanalua Gardens Foundation.

Each year, the Prince Lot Hula

Festival invites approximately ten

dance schools, or haluas, to

perform at the festival. In 2006,

the foundation received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 to provide travel

stipends for the haluas who flew

from three other islands to

perform at the historic festival and

to continue keeping admission

prices down—admission is a

suggested $3 donation per person.

“It’s all a great big help,”

Merryman said. “The grant helps

us spread the spirit of aloha.”

Even though colonial rulers

forbade Hawaiians from hula

dancing, during his reign Prince

Lot held clandestine parties with

hula and songs at Moanalua. The

modern-day festival pays homage

to a historic kahuna, or hula

instructor. For 2006, the chosen

honoree was Kama’ipu’upa’a, a

court dancer and favorite to the

king. About 7,000 visitors crowded

the gardens and crossed over into

the adjacent city park to enjoy a

fair ofHawaiian crafts and cuisine. 

Hawaii

A young dancer from 

Halua Hula  ́ O Nawahine

performs at the 2006 Prince 

Lot Hula Festival.

Photo courtesy of moanalua

Gardens foundation
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 49

Hawaii Opera

Theatre 

HONOLULU

When educators from

Hawaii Opera Theatre

visit island schools,

they don’t waste time bemoaning

the limited musical resources

available. Instead, they take

advantage of exposing students to

classical music. Children

encountering opera for the first

time are blissfully unaware of

stereotypes like plump sopranos

wearing Viking helmets; they take

to arias like catchy pop songs.

“These kids have no inhibitions,”

said Erik Haines, the educational

director ofHawaii Opera Theatre

(HOT). “They sing opera on the

playground and in the baseball

dugout.” 

In 2006, Hawaii Opera Theatre

received an NEA Learning in 

the Arts grant of $20,000 to stage

full-length operas at five Oahu

elementary schools. For two

months, each school was

transformed into an opera

company, with students learning

how to do everything from sing 

to apply stage makeup. Three

schools presented a custom

adaptation of Madame Butterfly,

with Puccini’s tragic ending

replaced by a comic punch line. A

fourth school staged Gilbert and

Sullivan’s The Mikado. And at

Waikele Elementary, third-graders

produced their own eco-opera,

Save the Habitats, based on poems

they wrote about ecology in a

language arts class. HOT’s resident

accompanist set the students’

libretto to famous arias to create

the opera.

HOT has been offering residencies

in some form since 1995. The

program expands each year, and

future plans call for staging operas

on the island of Maui, where only

one-third of the elementary

schools have music teachers. The

company also flies singers to all

the major islands to perform at

schools and offers dress rehearsal

tickets to Honolulu students for

each of its mainstage productions. 

Ko-Ko discusses his impending

marriage to a reluctant Yum-Yum

and her sisters in Aina Haina

Elementary School’s production 

of The Mikado.

Photo courtesy Hawaii 

Opera Theatre
Grant Highlights

50 National Endowment for the Arts

Idaho Falls Arts

Council 

IDAHO FALLS

Asthe largest city in the

sparsely populated

eastern Idaho region,

Idaho Falls sits as the center of

cultural activities for the region.

The Idaho Falls Arts Council

(IFAC) promotes the arts in this

region, owning and operating the

Willard Arts Center, which

includes two art galleries, three

classrooms, a conference room,

and the 988-seat Colonial Theater.

In addition to presenting visual

arts exhibitions and performing

arts performances, IFAC also

offers arts education programs and

promotes other arts organizations

and events in the region.

The Willard Arts Center, with other

local arts organizations such as the

Idaho Falls Symphony, the

Museum of Idaho, Actors’

Repertory Theatre of Idaho, and

the Idaho Falls Public Library,

comprise Idaho Falls’s Cultural

District. This 10-block downtown

area in the city’s historic district

also includes art galleries,

restaurants, a film theater, public

art gift shops, and antique stores.

Located 100 miles south of

Yellowstone and Teton National

Parks, Idaho Falls attracts visitors

to the town who are on their way to

these landmarks. In FY 2006, IFAC

received an NEA Challenge

America grant of $10,000 for

marketing and promotional

activities for its Cultural District.

In order to entice visitors, IFAC

began by revising and reprinting a

Cultural District brochure. This

was distributed at visitor centers,

downtown stores and arts

facilities, hotels/motels, and other

high-traffic areas. In addition,

billboards were displayed at the

Idaho Falls airport and along major

roadways traveled by tourists.

Lastly, banners promoting the

Cultural District were hung on

utility poles throughout the whole

10-block area. IFAC’s efforts are

designed to promote the cultural

district to both tourists and local

residents, transforming Idaho

Falls into a destination point for

visitors to the region.

Idaho Falls Arts Council arranged for billboards to be displayed on major roads to attract tourists to Idaho Falls’ Cultural District. 

Photo courtesy of Idaho Falls Arts Council
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 51

Festival Dance and

Performing Arts

Association 

MOSCOW

The only professional 

dance series between

Seattle and Minneapolis,

the Festival Dance and Performing

Arts Association presents

performances in ballet, jazz,

modern dance, world dance, and

musical theater from such diverse

organizations as Alvin Ailey II, St.

Petersburg Classic Ballet Theatre,

and the National Song & Dance

Company of Mozambique. 

In FY 2006, Festival Dance

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $9,000 for its

Youthreach Project, designed to

introduce students in remote and

underserved locations to dance

performances of artistic quality

and cultural diversity. In 2006,

four free programs were provided

by three dance companies to 

4,000 third- through sixth-grade

students from 15 rural

communities in Idaho and

Washington. 

Students were bussed to large

theaters, where they viewed

performances by dancers, singers,

and musicians of Mexico City’s

Ballet Gran Folklorico de Mexico,

Russian ballet artists from the St.

Petersburg Classic Ballet Theatre,

and a program of Bharatanatyam

dance of South India by Ragamala

Music and Dance Theatre. At each

performance, the artistic director

or tour manager narrated the

performances, and led background

discussions, demonstrations 

of technique, and miniperformances. For instance, 

the Ragamala Music and Dance

Theatre taught students the

importance and meaning behind

hand and eye movements in

Indian dances and then students

participated by using hand

gestures to help tell a story.

In order to prepare students for

the performances, Festival Dance

provides teachers with study

guides about the companies and

types of dance the students will

see, as well as discussion questions

and activity suggestions. Typically,

students participate in this

program for three years, giving

them the opportunity to view

multiple performances and

introducing them to diverse types

of international dance and music.

Idaho

St. Petersburg Classic Ballet Theatre dancer

performing the well-known piece “The Dying

Swan” fromCarnival of the Animals as part

of the Festival Dance Youthreach Project. 

Photo by C. Rod Bacon Photography
Grant Highlights

52 National Endowment for the Arts

Dalkey Archive Press 

NORMAL

Alittle publicity goes a

long way. During three

weeks in 2005, Dalkey

Archive Press sold 15,000 copies

of its most popular title, The Third

Policeman, after the cover of the

book made a 1.2 second

appearance on the hit television

show Lost and producers hinted

the book held a clue to the series’

plot. Sales of the book soared to

more than six times the annual

average. The small staff at Dalkey

was floored, and left wishing every

title they publish could land a spot

on primetime. 

For more than two decades, Dalkey

has been dedicated to bringing

out-of-print masterpieces back

into print and making compelling

American and international

literature available to the American

public. 

In 2006, Dalkey received an NEA

Access to Excellence grant of

$55,000 to publish a half dozen

foreign titles: Summer in Termuren,

by Danish Nobel Prize nominee

Louis Paul Boon; Distant Relations,

by Mexican novelist Carlos

Fuentes; A Fool’s Paradise, by

contemporary Finnish writer Anita

Konkka; the break-out Irish novel

In Night’s City, by Dorothy Nelson;

Melancholy, by the Norwegian

dramatist Jon Fosse; and Everyday

Life, the French bestseller by Lydie

Salvayre.

So far, none of those books has

landed a TV spot. Everyday Life did

garner a glowing review and

“Books of Particular Interest”

mention in the New York Times,

however, prompting a second print

run. But most of the time, Dalkey’s

publisher John O’Brien relies on

his judgment of a good book.

“If a book is really that good, it

crosses countries and it crosses

cultures,” O’Brien said. “James

Joyce’s Dublinersis a great

example. It’s my belief that it’s the

art of great literature to transcend

time and place.”

Illinois

Dalkey Archive Press is publishing 

six new titles of foreign fiction with

supportfrom the NEA.

Book covers courtesy of 

Dalkey Archive Press
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 53

WBEZ Alliance

CHICAGO

Afamily is seated around a

television set, watching

old home movies.

There’s Mom and Dad, now in

their 60s, exchanging wedding

vows on the screen. Dad recalls

how he much he loved the sermon.

Mom remembers hating the

minister’s message. Their grown

daughter, Sasha, sighs and says,

“To begin with, my parents never

got along.” 

Got the picture? Well, there isn’t

one. Only voices tell the story in

‘Til Death Do Us Part, one of 258

entries in the 2006 Third Coast

International Audio Festival. The

festival was founded by WBEZ-FM,

Chicago’s public radio station, as a

“Sundance for Radio.” This annual

celebration of audio

documentaries has received NEA

funding every year since its

inception in 2000. In FY 2006, the

festival was awarded an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $20,000 to continue expanding

its programming. The festival now

has three components—a

competition for radio

documentaries, a conference in

Chicago for narrative radio

producers, and a new “Listening

Tour” at film festivals.

Sitting in a dark theater, just

listening to audio stories such as

‘Til Death Do Us Part, may sound a

little bizarre. But Joanna Zorn, the

festival’s executive producer,

suggested that Third Coast is all

about promoting radio with an arthouse aesthetic. “We want to raise

the level of discussion to an artistic

level,” Zorn said. “Radio is often

thought of as an information

source—it’s where we go to get the

news, the traffic, the weather—but

it really can be so much more than

that. We want to raise awareness 

of audio documentaries as an 

art form.”

Alaska Public Radio host Rebecca Sheir

took home the Director’s Choice Award

for her audio documentary on Jewish

death and burials at the 2006 Third

Coast International Audio Festival. 

Photo courtesy of WBEZ Alliance
Grant Highlights

Northern Indiana 

Art Association 

MUNSTER

When John Cain first

traveled to Bilbao,

Spain, two years ago,

he gazed at the winding facade of

the Guggenheim Museum and

envisioned northwest Indiana.

“We saw so many parallels between

that region of Spain and our city,”

Cain said.

Cain is the executive director of the

Northern Indiana Art Association

(renamed as South Shore Arts in

2006), a trio of gallery spaces and

art education centers that serve

more than 50 Indiana

communities. The service area

includes Gary and

Hammond, two former steel towns

whose economies have grown

stagnant. Before the Guggenheim

opened its Frank Gehry-designed

Bilbao museum in 1997, the

Basque region was suffering from a

similar post-industrial malaise.

Along with other urban

redevelopment projects, the

museum has become a catalyst for

economic renewal in north central

Spain.

Cain hopes South Shore Arts can

inspire a similar resurgence in

Indiana. To that end, the

organization received an NEA

Challenge America grant of

$10,000 in FY 2006 to present

From Rust to Restoration: Basque Art

and the Bilbao Effect, an exhibit

featuring more than 400 works by

20 artists from the Basque region.

The exhibit was presented

simultaneously at three venues:

South Shore’s main gallery in

Munster, the Also Castillo Gallery

in Chicago, and the Gallery for

Contemporary Art at the Gary

campus ofIndiana University

Northwest (IUN). 

More than 8,000 people came out

to see the multimedia exhibit. The

paintings, sculptures, and ceramic

works attracted viewers from a

range of demographic groups,

including art and Spanish students

from 35 local schools. Events

related to the Rust to Restoration

exhibit included a chamber music

concert featuring music from the

Basque region and a three-day

conference at IUN: The Arts and

Urban Renewal. 

Jesus Lizaso’s Teorema de 2 Lentesstands in the

foreground of the exhibition From Rust to

Restoration: Basque Art and the Bilbao Effect. 

Photo courtesy of South Shore Arts

Inalados,ceramic

sculptures by Basque artist

Angel Garraza, serve as

gallery centerpieces for the

exhibition From Rust to

Restoration: Basque Art

and the Bilbao Effect.

Photo courtesy of 

South Shore Arts
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 55

Fort Wayne

Philharmonic

Orchestra 

FORT WAYNE

I

f MTV can do it, so can the

Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

The orchestra received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $15,000 in FY 2006 to

fund Unplugged, an informal

concert series that aims to

attract younger audiences who

also may watch the MTV

program of the same name. 

The Philharmonic’s Unplugged

concerts feature shorter classical

works, snippets of symphonies,

and music with crossover appeal. 

“We’re trying to demystify classical

music,” said Jeffrey Moore, the

philharmonic’s grants and

research director. “Audiences get a

sense right from the beginning

that this isn’t a stuffed-shirt

concert.”

Before and during each

performance, video footage is

projected onto screens hanging

above the musicians. The

multimedia content includes

interviews with the musicians,

images that correspond with the

music, or commentary from music

director Edvard Tchivzhel. Each

concert features a theme with a

unique marketing campaign: for

example, Haydn vs. Beethoven was

billed as “A Smackdown between

Two Great Composers.” Local

actors portraying the two

composers bantered back and

forth between movements.

The Unplugged concert series has

tapped into an up-and-coming

creative class of young people

in northeast Indiana. The

philharmonic, which was

founded in 1944, launched

the casual concert series in

1996. A total audience of about

3,500 attended the four

Unplugged concerts, including

many people who came to hear the

orchestra for the first time. Of

those newcomers, one in five later

purchases a ticket for a classical

concert. But for $13, the reduced

price of an Unplugged concert

can’t be beat. Tickets include a

post-concert party with the

musicians. 

Indiana

Mozart (Brad Diamond) and Salieri (Philip

Kraus) spar onstage at an Unplugged

concert at the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

Photo courtesy Fort Wayne

Philharmonic.
Grant Highlights

56 National Endowment for the Arts

Old Creamery

Theatre Company 

AMANA

I

n 1971, Iowa’s first

professional theater company

was founded in Garrison,

Iowa. The city’s old co-op dairy

gave the theater both a name and a

home and the Old Creamery

Theatre Company performed there

for the next 17 years, until it moved

to Amana, Iowa. 

Touring is an integral part of the

Creamery’s programming and an

active way for it to reach Iowa’s

small, isolated communities. In FY

2006, the Creamery received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $18,000 to expand its

outreach programs and bring its

productions to underserved

populations in Iowa and

throughout the Midwest. The first

component of its outreach

initiative, the Young People’s Tour,

resulted in 121 performances of

TeRRiFiCC Tales between February

19 and May 16, 2007, reaching

nearly 40,000 students. 

Prior to beginning its tour, the

Creamery held its annual writing

contest for students in first

through sixth grades. Each story

was required to teach a lesson, and

from these entries the Creamery

created TeRRiFiCC Tales, a fully

staged theatrical production that

focuses on the six pillars of

character: trustworthiness,

respect, responsibility, fairness,

caring, and citizenship. Based on

the schools’ enthusiasm for this

production and a desire to reach

more students in the rural

Midwest, the production will tour

to additional schools in the fall of

2007.

The Creamery also toured its

mainstage production of Dates with

a Nut by Meg Merckens and Iowa Thomas P. Johnson to five

Clockwise from top: Ryan Gaffney (standing with trumpet), Nicholas Hodge, 

Sean McCall, and Deborah Kennedy in the Old Creamery Theatre Company’s

2006 Young People’s Tour.

Photo by Anne Craig
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 57

communities in southern and

central Iowa between April 10 and

May 6, 2007, reaching more than

17,000 people. In each

community, the Creamery held

between one and six

performances, as well as questionand-answer sessions with the

actors, director, and playwright. 

Iowa Trails Council 

CENTER POINT

Achapter of the Iowa Trails

Council, the Jefferson

County Trails Council

(JCTC) works to design, plan, and

develop local multiple-use trails.

JCTC has built three bridges over

the past seven years, in addition to

maintaining the trail system and

constructing new trail segments. 

JCTC promotes its efforts through

local photography and art exhibits

of scenes along the trails and also

integrates art elements into its trail

design. In FY 2006, the Iowa Trails

Council received an NEA

Challenge America grant of

$10,000 for JCTC to design and

implement artistic enhancements

to the Cedar View Pedestrian and

Bicycle Trail Bridges. 

Taking inspiration from local

railroad history and natural

history, local artist Judy Bales

designed artistic elements for the

two bridges, such as a mosaic

entryway comprising pavers and a

flagstone approach. In addition,

Bales designed an enhancement

for one bridge’s chain-link fence

using Cor-Ten steel. Cor-Ten steel

self-oxidizes, forming a protective

coat of rust, and both the color of

the metal and Bales’s organic

design give the bridge a more

natural look, complementing the

woodlands that surround it.

Planning for this project began in

January 2006 and, with the

community’s help, work on both

bridges was completed in July

2007. Public participation and

collaboration were key to the

success of the project. Community

members participated not only in

the actual installation of the

design, but in the planning process

as well. For instance, a local

manufacturing company, Creative

Edge, helped JCTC to figure out

how best to cut the Cor-Ten steel

and another company, SchausVorhies Manufacturing, developed

a way to attach the Cor-Ten to the

existing fencing. 

Judy Bales designed decorative elements to retrofit onto the Cedar View Bridge,

helping to soften the very industrial appearance of the bridge yet not obstruct 

the view of the creek and woodlands. 

Photo by Judy Bales
Grant Highlights

Johnson County

Community College

The Carlson Center 

OVERLAND PARK

Stiefel Theatre for

the Performing Arts 

SALINA

MOMIX. Paul Taylor

Dance Company.

Trinity Irish Dance. 

It’s a line-up that could appear at

Chelsea’sfamed Joyce Theater or

Jacob’s Pillow, the renowned dance

venue in the Berkshires. Where

did this prestigious trio of

companies all perform? The Great

Plains State of Kansas.

During FY 2006, the NEA provided

funding to two performing arts

centers that are committed to

bringing internationally known

acts to the heartland: the Stiefel

Theatre in Salina and the Carlsen

Center on the campus of Johnson

County Community College,

located 22 miles south of Kansas

City. Both centers share similar

missions: they bring world-class

cultural entertainment to people

who would otherwise be driving to

Chicago, or more likely, never see

professional dance. Programmers

at both sites keep an eye out for

performers who may be driving

across the country and ask them to

perform at one or both venues,

which are spaced about 175 miles

apart on I-70. Artists are often

skeptical, but leave the state

impressed with the venues.

“We’re in Kansas, but we are doing

some interesting things,” said

Charles Rogers, artistic director of

the Carlsen Center. The center

presents a mix of touring theater,

chamber music, and children’s

performances. Rogers ventured

into dance in 1999, when he

overheard at a conference that

Dance St. Louis was looking for

partners to commission a new

work from Paul Taylor.

Kansas

Julie Tice and Michael

Trusnovec are the principal

dancers in Paul Taylor’s

Banquet of Vultures, a piece

co-commissioned by the

Carlsen Center and performed

at the theater during 2006. 

Photo by Tom Caravaglia

58 National Endowment for the Arts
Grant Highlights

Rogers surprised his colleagues by

saying he would be interested. The

Carlsen Center has since cocommissioned three more dances

from Taylor, a contemporary

choreographer known for mixing

the grace of ballet with comedy and

athleticism. During the 2005-

2006 season, the Carlsen Center

used its NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 to

fund a master class with Taylor’s

company. The grant also supported

a performance by Shen Wei Dance

Arts and a residency for Hubbard

Street 2 to co-create a piece with

49 aspiring local dancers.

Halfway across the state, the Stiefel

Theatre also offered an NEAfunded master class. The theater

invited students from every dance

school within 100 miles to come

kick up their legs with Trinity Irish

Dance Company.

“Their performance was

incredible,” said Amanda Macklin,

project director. “It was so much

more than just some Celtic

dancing.”

The Stiefel Theatre was once a Fox

movie palace that provided cheap

entertainment at the height of the

Great Depression. The theater

gradually fell into decline and

closed in 1981. In 2003, it

reopened as a privately owned

performing arts center dedicated

to serving central Kansas.

In FY 2006, the center received an

NEA Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to book performers with a

world music theme, like the Trinity

Irish Dance Company. The grant

also funded an evening ofIndian

music with sitar virtuoso Anoushka

Shankar. Her band of

percussionists offered a wellattended tabla drumming

workshop. 

“World music is something that

has not been presented a lot in this

area,” Macklin said. “We want to

offer programming that will bring

in a little more diversity.”

Salina-area ballet students and members of Trinity Irish Dance Company 

stretch together at a master class sponsored by Stiefel Theatre. 

Photo courtesy of Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts

2006 Annual Report 59
60 National Endowment for the Arts

Media Working

Group

LEXINGTON

Back in the 1920s and 30s,

there was one promoter of

country music that was

second only to the Grand Ole

Opry—the WLS radio program,

National Barn Dance. The radio

program, broadcast out of

downtown Chicago, began in 1924

and ran until 1960, presenting live

music and entertainment to

millions of people every Saturday

night during its 26-year run. In FY

2006, Media Working Group

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $20,000 to

support post-production and

editing costs for a documentary

film about the program, The

Hayloft Gang: The Story of the

National Barn Dance.

National Barn Dance appealed not

only to rural audiences but also to

city listeners who had come from

rural communities. The

pioneering program set the

standard for the hundreds of

similar barn dance radio programs

that followed in its wake. Some of

the iconic performers featured on

National Barn Danceincluded “The

Singing Cowboy” Gene Autry;

Country Music Hall of Famers Red

Foley and Bradley Kincaid; and

Lulu Belle and Scotty Wiseman,

“The Sweethearts of Country

Music.” 

The one-hour film incorporates

archival film footage, photographs,

and music with interviews with

surviving performers and

listeners, broadcast historians,

folklorists, and folk and country

music experts. Activities supported

by the NEA grant included the

digitizing and editing of archival

film footage, the creation of

graphic materials and music, and

the recording of the film’s

narration by Garrison Keillor. The

completed documentary will be

broadcast on public television in

partnership with the Independent

Television Service, WTTW National

Productions, and Kentucky

Educational Television. The Hayloft

Gangis expected to premiere on

PBS in late 2008.

The WLS Prairie Farmer Road Show in Wisconsin, 1936. 

Photo by James G. Buchanan
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 61

Southeast Kentucky

Community and

Technical College

CUMBERLAND

The Bluegrass region of

Kentucky gave its name to

the music that originated

there (via Bill Monroe and his Blue

Grass Boys), so it is not surprising

that one of the programs the

Southeast Kentucky Community

and Technical College’s

Cumberland campus pioneered

was the Bluegrass Series. One of

the college’s artistic missions is to

promote the preservation of

Appalachian culture, and what

better part of Kentucky culture to

preserve than the musical style that

was created there. The Bluegrass

Series focuses on local Kentucky

talent, and has featured

performers such as Paul Williams

and the Victory Trio, Pine

Mountain Railroad, and the

Shadow Ridge Band. 

Southeast Kentucky Community

and Technical College received an

NEA Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to support the kickoff of

the Goin’ Back to Harlan Bluegrass

Festival, a celebration of the

Bluegrass Series. The festival was

inaugurated as a way to showcase

the region’s rich cultural heritage

and local musicians, to provide

quality arts programming for the

local community, and to build

community awareness of and

partnerships for arts tourism.

More than 20 community

organizations collaborated with the

college on the Goin’ Back to Harlan

Bluegrass Festival. The three-day

festival took place on the college’s

Harlan Campus June 22-24, 2006.

There were 32 featured performers

including the Cumberland Gap

Connection, the Dixie Bluegrass

Express, Dale Ann Bradley, and

2006 International Bluegrass

Music Association Emerging Artist

of the Year Steep Canyon Rangers.

There also were 14 open mic

performances by festival

attendees. Nearly 2,000 people

attended the festival, which the

college is planning on making an

annual event.

Kentucky

Bassist “Fat Albert” Blackburn of the bluegrass band Fescue

performs at the 2006 Goin’ Back to Harlan Bluegrass Festival

sponsored by the Southeast Kentucky Community and

Technical College’s Cumberland campus. 

Photo by David penix/chesare burke
Grant Highlights

Tulane University

The Shakespeare 

Festival at Tulane 

NEW ORLEANS

After the hurricane season

of 2005, New Orleans

knew a little something

about being “star-crossed,” so it

was appropriate that one of the

performances by the Shakespeare

Festival at Tulane (SFT) in the first

season after Hurricane Katrina

wreaked its havoc was Romeo and

Juliet, held August 3-12, 2006, on

Tulane University’s campus. The

NEA awarded the university an

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $8,000 for SFT’s production. 

The damage of Hurricane Katrina

to SFT included displacement of

staff and actors, some now living in

FEMA trailers, and devastation of

its offices, theater space, costumes,

and props. Still, the show must go

on, and SFT managed to put

together a show, although

performances were reduced from

12 to eight. Even with that

restriction, more than 930

attended the production.

In order to provide patrons from

all economic levels the chance to

attend, SFT provided half-price

previews August 3 and 4 and paywhat-you-will performances

August 6 and 12. The community

seized this opportunity and all four

performances were sold out. 

SFT has played an important role

in revitalizing New Orleans

following Hurricane Katrina. This

production provided the actors, Louisiana technicians, designers, and

Teddy Boone as Romeo and Sharon London

as Nurse at the Capulet masquerade ball in

Tulane Shakespeare Festival’s production of

Romeo and Juliet.

Photo by Brad Robbert
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 63

support staff not

only employment,

but also the

chance to help

bring normality

back to the city. SFT’s

summer festival is a

summer tradition for

residents in New Orleans and

having this tradition continue

brought a feeling of recovery. One

member of the cast and crew, many

of whom lost their homes in the

hurricane, commented, “Here at

the theater, I feel like I have a

home again.”

Louisiana Art &

Science Museum 

BATON ROUGE

The Louisiana Art and

Science Museum (LASM),

which offers displays and

education programs on the arts

and sciences—including a

planetarium and Challenger

Learning Center with simulated

space missions—serves more than

221,000 people, mainly from the

East Baton Rouge Parish and its

surrounding parishes, each year.

The population of Baton Rouge is

more than 50 percent AfricanAmerican, and LASM provides

programming to reach this

important part of its community. 

LASM works in partnership with

LINKS, Inc., a national AfricanAmerican women’s service

organization, and each year the two

present an exhibition and lecture

program during Black History

Month that focuses on the

contributions of African

Americans to art.In FY 2006,

LASM received an NEA Challenge

America grant of $10,000 to

support an exhibition of

Howardena Pindell’s work as part

of the museum’s Black History

Month programming.

Running from

January 19 through

April 7, 2007, 

the exhibition

Howardena Pindell:

Hidden Histories

included 51 of Pindell’s

mixed-media works created

between the 1970s and 2006.

LASM provided guided tours for

elementary and middle school

students, as well free docent tours

on the weekend and a free family

guide, all designed to inform

visitors about Pindell’s concepts

and engage them in a dialogue

about the exhibit.In addition,

LASM provided free admission to

the exhibit on two dates.

Howardena Pindell herself gave a

public lecture at LASM on her

work and the current issues facing

women in the arts, and spoke oneon-one with students participating

in LASM’s YouthALIVE!, a workbased learning program for

underserved young women in the

community. In addition, Pindell

spoke with graduate art students at

Southern University, a historically

black college, and Xavier

University in New Orleans.

Howardena Pindell’s Untitled 3C, a

mixed-media work from 2005, is one of the

features in the Louisiana Art &Science

Musuem’s exhibition on the artist. 

Image courtesy of Sragow Gallery, New York
Grant Highlights

64 National Endowment for the Arts

Portland Museum 

of Art 

PORTLAND

I

n an era when arts education

often has fallen to the

wayside, Portland Museum of

Art wants to help art teachers

remain critical to a child’s

education. Four years ago, the

museum received an NEA grant to

develop Looking to Learn, crossdisciplinary lesson plans that

revolve around works from the

museum’s permanent collection. 

In 2006, the museum received an

NEA Learning in the Arts grant of

$45,000 to develop Artful

Assessment, the second phase of

Looking to Learn. The new

program paired an art teacher and

classroom instructor from each of

ten Maine elementary schools.

They worked on developing

realistic goals for students that, 

if met, would prove that progress

can be measured even in a

subjective subject like art. The

grant provided stipends for the

teachers, transportation for

students to travel to the museum,

and substitutes for the art teachers

so they could go on the field trips

as well. 

Back at school, students were

asked to create their own work of

art inspired by a piece they had

studied from the Looking to Learn

collection. In May of 2007, the

museum held a Celebration

Reception so the Portland

community could assess art

projects created by students in the

10 classes. Families that might

never have come to see a Winslow

Homer exhibit at the museum

instead came out to see their

child’s artwork inspired by Homer

and other artists with ties to

Maine. The exhibition won rave

reviews, according to education

director Dana Baldwin.

“We treated the student art very

carefully, with professional labels,

so the work looks like it belongs in

the museum,” Baldwin said.

Approximately 350 people

attended. 

Joseph Marriner Gerrish Family by

unknown artist, circa 1824, at the 

Portland Museum of Art, Maine. 

Image courtesy of Portland 

Museum of Art

Artwork by fifth-graders at Presumpscot Elementary School hangs on display at the

Portland Museum of Art. Their paintings were inspired by the portrait of the Gerrish Family

from the museum’s permanent collection. 

Photo courtesy of Portland Museum of Art
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 65

Watershed Center

for the Ceramic Arts 

NEWCASTLE

Maine isn’t called

Vacationland for

nothing. On weekends,

motorists clog Route 1 heading for

coastal cabins. Along the way,

tourists stop to shop at places like

Blueberry Cupboard and Cool as a

Moose. They buy balsam fir

sachets, lighthouse magnets, and

pottery dotted with Maine’s

signature blueberries. Many Maine

potters make a living producing

such serviceable ceramics, but

cross Wiscasset Bridge and wander

west on winding dirt for a mile,

and you’ll find a sanctuary for

artists who aspire to create art

from clay: the Watershed Center

for the Ceramic Arts.

“Watershed’s mission isn’t to teach

people to make blueberry pottery,”

said Tyler Gulden, the center’s

programs director. 

For 20 years, the Watershed Center

for the Ceramic Arts has been

providing residencies for potters

who want to take a break from

producing commercial pottery and

instead create ceramic art. To mark

the anniversary, the center

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 to

fund a series of ceramics symposia

that were open to the public.

“In our community, many people

know about Watershed as an

organization, but even some of our

closest neighbors don’t know what

we do,” Gulden said.

The symposia were held at

Skidompha Public Library, a more

accessible location than the

ceramics studio. As many as 50

people came to hear Watershed’s

summer artists-in-residence

discuss and demonstrate their

work. The center also continued to

offer slide nights, open studios,

and community dinners. Thanks to

the symposia, more local residents

have been driving out that dirt

road in Newcastle to watch the

artists at work.

Maine

Jane Shellenbarger, a 2006 artist-inresidence at Watershed Center for the

Ceramic Arts, applies brushwork to a plate. 

Photo courtesy of Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts
Grant Highlights

66 National Endowment for the Arts

CambodianAmerican Heritage 

FORT WASHINGTON

After the Cambodian

holocaust in the 1970s,

when many traditional

dancers and musicians were killed,

the survival of an art form was in

jeopardy. As the leading

Cambodian arts education and

performance organization in the

United States, CambodianAmerican Heritage (CAH) has

undertaken the responsibility of

preserving this Asian artistic

tradition, training the next

generation of CambodianAmericans in Cambodian classical

and folk dances and traditional

music, and also introducing this

traditional art form to a

mainstream American audience. 

In FY 2006, CAH received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 in support of

instruction in Cambodian dance

and music, culminating in a

performance in celebration of the

Cambodian New Year. From

November 2006 through April

2007, Cambodian-American

students ages three through adult

participated in dance and music

classes, organized and taught by

CAH artistic director and NEA

National Heritage Fellow SamOeun Tes, music director and NEA

National Heritage Fellow Chum

Ngek, and dance director Devi

Yim. 

The 37 dance students and five

music students performed on April

29, 2007, at Gunston Middle

School in Arlington, Virginia. The

dancers and musicians presented

nine pieces, showcasing

Cambodian classical dance, such as

Robaim Phoung Neary, used to open

a special event, and Cambodian

folk dances, such as the Robaim

Kangok Pailin, or Pailin Peacock

Folk Dance. In addition to these

traditional dances, the concert also

featured Robaim Prosithi Por, a

classical dance choreographed by

CAH’s teachers. The performance

was recorded for broadcast on DC

public access television stations.

By creating new dances and

preserving traditional ones, CAH

provides an invaluable service to

the Cambodian-American

community and is integral to the

survival and resurgence of this

tradition for the future.

Maryland

Background: Cambodian-American

Heritage’s dance students perform as part

of a Cambodian New Year celebration. 

Photo by Tom Pich
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 67

University of

Maryland at 

College Park 

Clarice Smith Performing

Arts Center

COLLEGE PARK

To celebrate the

achievement of women 

in the arts, the University

of Maryland’s Clarice Smith

Performing Arts Center created a

series as part of its 2006-2007

season that featured some of

America’s most renowned female

artists. The center received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $45,000 to support the

residencies and presentations in

the series, Legendary Leaders:

Legacies of Artful Women. 

As the hub for the university’s

music, theater, and dance

departments, the center’sseries

helped to bring more attention to

those talented female artists, past

and present, who have made

significant contributions to the

performing arts.

The series began on October 12

and 13, 2006, with a concert by

Imani Winds and vocalist René

Marie, entitled Josephine 

Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot. The

presentation used historic film set

to new compositions to reflect on

the life and times ofsinger,

dancer, and actress Josephine

Baker. On November 2 and 3,

2006, the Liz Lerman Dance

Exchange presented 30th

Anniversary Retrospective, a

compendium of three works

choreographed by Liz Lerman that

incorporated both the University

of Maryland Symphony Orchestra

and a group of community dancers.

On November 12, 2006, jazz band

leader and composer Maria

Schneider conducted her big band

in a concert of her works that

included her own commentary and

stories. Lastly, on March 29, 30,

and 31, 2007, the center hosted a

festival of workshops, symposia,

and concerts under the leadership

of artistic director Diane White. 

Each of these performances

included a residency, allowing the

artists to hold master classes with

the university’s performing arts

students, and participate in public

lectures, symposia, and

workshops. In total, more than

3,700 took advantage of the

performances and concerts.

As part of the series Legendary Leaders: The

Legacies of Artful Women, the Liz Lerman

Dance Exchange and a group of community

dancers perform Still Crossing, one of three

works that made up Liz Lerman’s 30th

Anniversary Retrospective. 

Photo by Enoch Chan
Grant Highlights

68 National Endowment for the Arts

Isabella Stewart

Gardner Museum 

BOSTON

I

sabella Stewart Gardner first

welcomed visitors to her

museum on New Year’s Day,

1903 with a musical and visual arts

celebration. Following an opening

concert performed by members of

the Boston Symphony Orchestra,

the museum was opened to display

a flower-filled courtyard

surrounded by galleries of art. The

museum has remained essentially

unchanged since then, housed in

three floors of galleries in a 15thcentury Venetian-style palazzo and

boasting a collection spanning

more than 30 centuries and

including works by such masters as

Rembrandt van Rijn, Sandro

Botticelli, and James McNeill

Whistler. 

The museum still bustles with

artistic activity and presents

ongoing programs in celebration

of historic art, contemporary art,

music, education, and

horticulture. To bring the museum

into the 21st century, however, the

Gardner Museum is making its

collection of 3,200 objects

available online, with the support

of an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $25,000.

The project involves digitizing

images, creating a database of

bibliographic and descriptive

details, creating summaries of art

historical research on the objects,

and publicizing the availability of

the database and its specialized

features. The museum physically

receives approximately 180,000

visitors annually, a figure that

cannot increase significantly

without raising substantial

preservation issues. By adding the

collection to the museum Web

site’s current offerings, the

Gardner will help to ensure

continued access to its holdings

without risking critical damage to

the work. The enhanced Web site is

expected to launch to the public in

late 2007. 

Landscape with David and Bathsheba, 

by Herri Bles, circa 1535-40, is one of the

works in the Isabella Stewart Gardner

Museum’s permanent collection to be

digitized in 2007. 

Image courtesy of Isabella Stewart

Gardner Museum

Massachusetts
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 69

Shakespeare &

Company 

LENOX

Tina Packer, artistic

director of Shakespeare &

Company, has said,

“Engagement with great poetry in a

dramatic setting is one of the most

important learning opportunities

we can provide young people in

this country.” And to support that

belief, the theater company began

Shakespeare in Action, a theater

arts residency program for high

school students. 

In FY 2006, Shakespeare &

Company received an NEA

Learning in the Arts grant of

$50,000 to support the program.

Beginning in September 2006,

more than 600 students from 11

high schools in Massachusetts and

New York participated in the nineweek program comprising in-class

curriculum-based teaching

sessions and six master classes in

stage combat, Elizabethan dance,

text in performance, stage

management, publicity, and

technical theater. Students also

worked after school for 20 hours

per week with professional artists,

including an education artist,

actors, a costumer, a set designer,

and a production director.

Classroom teachers received two

weeks of professional development

sessions with the theater artists.

Each residency culminated in a

full-scale, 90-minute production

of one of nine Shakespeare plays.

These performances were attended

by nearly 5,000 teachers and

students. In November, students

also took part in the Fall Festival of

Shakespeare, a noncompetitive

festival of student performances. 

Shakespeare & Company also

participates in the NEA’s

Shakespeare in American

Communities national initiative—

which brings full productions of

Shakespeare’s works with

educational and community

outreach activities to middle and

high schools—and received a 2006

Coming Up Taller award for its

Shakespeare in the Courts

programs, which presents

Shakespeare’s work to adjudicated

youth. 

Maizy Scarpa (l) and Steve

Johnson in Chatham High

School’s production of

King Lear, part of

Shakespeare & Company’s

Shakespeare in Action

education program. 

Photo by Elizabeth Aspenlieder
Grant Highlights

70 National Endowment for the Arts

Detroit Institute 

of Arts 

DETROIT

Covering nearly 3,000 years

of history, the Detroit

Institute of Arts’ NativeAmerican art collection includes

pieces from North, Central, and

South America. Spacing issues,

however, have hampered the

museum’s ability to show these

sculptures, ceramics, and textiles

in their entirety. Until now. 

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)

is undergoing an extensive

renovation and expansion program

that will, among other

improvements, add 35,000 square

feet of gallery space. As part of the

renovation, the museum has

reconfigured its curatorial plan for

each gallery to allow for flexibility

in the ways in which objects are

arranged, including thematically,

culturally, or chronologically. DIA

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $75,000 in FY

2006 to support the reinstallation

of its Native-American collection

post-renovation.

The collection comprises early

religious artifacts, ceremonial

attire, and domestic objects such

as a 19th-century Navajo blanket

and an early 20th-century Western

Apache basket. Approximately 300

objects from the collection will be

reinstalled in a 4,000-square-foot

first floor gallery. The project

included final exhibition design

and fabrication, development of

interactive interpretive media, and

consultations with scholars and

technical experts. 

Founded in 1885, DIA’s large

collection includes muralist Diego

Rivera’sseminal Detroit Industry

fresco cycle and an 1887 Vincent

Van Gogh self-portrait, the first

Van Gogh acquired by a U.S.

museum. The museum’s buildings

feature more than 100 galleries,

small and large lecture halls, an art

reference library, and a state-ofthe-art conservation lab. The

museum, including all of its newly

reinstalled collections, will reopen

to the public on November 23,

2007. 

Michigan

Man’s Shirt,circa 1860, from the 

Crow tribe, one of the articles in the

Detroit Institute of Arts’s NativeAmerican art collection. 

Photo courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts 
Grant Highlights

University Musical

Society 

ANN ARBOR

Established in 1879, the

University Musical Society

(UMS) is one of the oldest

performing arts presenters in the

country. It has maintained its high

quality through uncommon and

exciting bookings, such as the

Jerusalem String Quartet, Wynton

Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln

Center Orchestra, and Hubbard

Street Dance Chicago. By booking

artists working in authentic

cultural traditions, UMS is able to

engage audiences in a better

understanding of these traditions

throughout the community. UMS

presents more than 75

performances and 100 free

educational events each year in five

performance spaces and in local

community venues.

With a focus on the region’s

African-American, South-Asian,

Mexican, and Arab-American

communities, UMS received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $50,000 to support four

artist residencies in February and

March 2006, with public

performances and community

engagement programs. The

residencies included the Mariachi

Los Camperos de Nati Cano (an

NEA National Heritage Fellow),

the performance troupe Children

of Uganda, and India’s Nrityagram

Dance Ensemble. A fourth

residency, Summit of the Levant,

featured master musicians from

Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. 

Residency activities included youth

performances for area

schoolchildren, professional

development workshops for

teachers on Mexican cultural

traditions and Ugandan

performing arts, master classes in

Indian traditional dance, familyfocused dance and music

workshops, and artist visits to area

schools and churches. For several

performances UMS also provided

bussing subsidies to encourage

program participation by students

from underserved schools. In total,

the four residencies served more

than 9,000 adults and 8,200

children and youth.

Members of the Children of Uganda

performing ensemble pose with Catherine

Blackwell at a performance exchange at

Blackwell Academy, the Detroit charter

school named in her honor.

Photo courtesy of University 

Musical Society
Grant Highlights

72 National Endowment for the Arts

Minnesota Opera

Company 

MINNEAPOLIS

Operas such as Tosca and 

La Traviata are performed

with ruthless regularity,

but the Minnesota Opera Company

is committed to producing one

new work and one worthy rarity

each year. As a result, two operas

made their United States debuts

during the 2006–2007 season.

One was brand new, the other was

160 years old. 

The company received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $20,000 to support its

production of Orazi e Curiazi, a

long-forgotten opera by Saverio

Mercadante. Orazi e Curiazi was

considered a triumph when it

premiered in Naples in 1846, but

Mercadante’s efforts soon would

be overwhelmed by grand Italian

operas and by Wagner’s music

dramas. 

Dale Johnson, the artistic director

of Minnesota Opera, knew that

with the right creative team in

place, Mercadante was ripe for a

revival in Minneapolis. Johnson

hired Tony- and Oscar-winning

director Eric Simonson to recast

Orazi, a 7th-century tale about two

Italian families torn apart when

their countries go to war, as a

tragedy set during the American

Civil War. Designers clad the Orazi

men in Confederate gray, the

Curiazi in Union blue, and the

women in resplendent antebellum

gowns. By all accounts, the singers

and musicians relished a chance to

perform such lovely but unfamiliar

music. Minnesotans packed the

Ordway Center for the Performing

Arts to see the results. 

“Our audiences love this stuff,”

Johnson said. “It was a bit of a sell

at first, but now the whole notion

of bel canto is imprinted on our

audiences.” Performances were

attended by 7,460 people, and

after the 2006-2007 season, a

record number of Twin Cities

residents renewed their opera

company subscriptions.

Curiazio (tenor Scott Piper) vows to fight for

his family honor, much to the alarm of his

fiancée Camilla (soprano Brenda Harris)

in Minnesota Opera’s production of Saverio

Mercadante’sOrazi e Curiazi.

Photo by Michal Daniel

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle’s Cloud

Prototype no.1is a 14-foot

titanium model of a cumulonimbus thundercloud.

Photo by Scott Stulen
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 73

Rochester Art Center 

ROCHESTER

Despite its title, Rochester

Art Center’s 2006

exhibition of works by

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle was hard to

miss. Blinking out of Existence was

the most ambitious installation

ever undertaken by the 60-yearold art museum in southeastern

Minnesota. In 2004, the museum

relocated to a 36,000 square-foot

facility that could easily

accommodate special exhibits 

such as Blinking. 

The center received an NEA

Challenge America grant of

$10,000 toward presenting works

by Manglano-Ovalle, a Chicagobased Spanish-American artist,

and producing educational and

interpretive materials that made

his contemporary multimedia art

appeal to a wider audience. This

marked the first time the center

received an NEA grant.

Between June 23 and September

24, 2006, more than 6,400 people

wandered through the center’s

galleries, taking in ManglanoOvalle’s sculptures, videos,

photography, and ambient sound

recordings. Manglano-Ovalle, a

2001 MacArthur Fellowship

recipient, is known for his

collaborative artworks. Blinking

included Cloud Prototype no. 1, a

large-scale titanium sculpture of a

cumulo-nimbus thundercloud

modeled by atmospheric scientists

at the University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign. Even more

imposing was Iceberg (r11iO1),

Manglano-Ovalle’s co-creation

with Chicago architect Colin

Franzen. Using data gathered by

the Canadian Hydraulic Center, the

duo constructed a 25-foot scale

aluminum model of an iceberg

drifting off the coast of

Newfoundland. 

Such meteorologically themed

work resonated with Minnesotans.

Nearly one out of 15 Rochester

residents came out to see Blinking.

The art center also reached out to

southeastern Minnesota’s growing

Hispanic community by publishing

its first bilingual gallery guide and

offering Free Family Day activities. 

Minnesota
Grant Highlights

Ohr-O’Keefe

Museum of Art 

BILOXI

I

f George Ohr were alive today,

he’d be fighting Hurricane

Katrina’s wake by spinning

his own maelstrom from his

potter’s wheel. But since Ohr, the

“mad-dauber” of Biloxi,

Mississippi, has been dead for 90

years, the staff and supporters of

the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art

are rallying the Gulf Coast arts

community on his behalf. 

The museum had hoped to 

open a new four-acre campus 

with buildings designed by Frank

Gehry during 2006, but damage

due to Hurricane Katrina has

delayed the opening. The 

museum has gone forward

undaunted with its reconstruction,

and plans to open the center in late

2009 with an unprecedented

retrospective of work by Ohr, one

of the 19th century’s most

innovative ceramicists. A smaller,

traveling version of the show hits

the road in late 2007.

Before the storm hit in August of

2005, the museum applied for a

grant to fund the retrospective. It

initially received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$25,000 to support American

Maverick: The Masterpieces of George

Ohr.In the hurricane’s aftermath,

that funding was increased to

$40,000. The museum has used

the money to offset the cost of

storing and transporting its

extensive collection of Ohr pottery,

as well as pieces on loan from

private collections that will be

included in the retrospective. 

Mississippi

Cadoganby G.E. Ohr, circa 1900,

is one of the items to be featured

in the upcoming Ohr-O’Keefe

Museum of Art exhibition

American Maverick: The

Masterpieces of George Ohr. 

Image courtesy of Ohr-O’Keefe Museum

74 National Endowment for the Arts
“It will just be breathtaking,” said

Marjorie Gowdy, executive director

of the museum. “Many of these are

pieces that have not ever been in

the public eye. For the opening of

our new campus, we wanted the

very best available pottery, both

from our collection and private

collections. They are very much

American masterpieces.”

Mississippi

Department of

Archives and History

JACKSON

I

n 1975, writer Eudora Welty

sat down in front of

filmmaker Richard O.

Moore’s camera for five hours and

read from her famous short

stories. She also talked about the

craft of writing and about the rich

tradition of writing in the South.

From that five hours of footage,

Moore selected five minutes of

Welty’s voice to include in his

NEA-funded documentary, The

Writer in America. Then he

deposited eight canisters of 

16-mm color film into an NEA

storage facility. 

Those canisters were rediscovered

by the NEA’s Media Arts

department in 2006 and donated

to the Mississippi Department of

Archives and History. As Chairman

Dana Gioia explained when he

delivered the canisters to Jackson

himself, “It was Miss Welty herself

who said, ‘never think you’ve seen

the last of anything.’ I’m delighted

to say she was right.”

Chairman Gioia called finding the

Welty footage “one of the greatest

literary discoveries of the last

decade.” Along with the film

canisters, he presented the Welty

House with a $10,000 Chairman’s

Extraordinary Action Grant to

digitize and preserve the reel-toreel film.

According to Welty biographer

Suzanne Marrs, the NEA donation

is the earliest known Welty film of

extended length, as well as the only

one that captures the author at the

manual typewriter where she wrote

numerous literary classics. 

Mary Alice White, niece of the

famed Optimist’s Daughter novelist

and director of the Welty House,

said the film has since been

converted to DVD format. Plans

are underway to produce

educational guides that would

accompany copies of the DVD.

Excerpts from the footage also will

be shown at the new Welty House

Visitor’s Center.

Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 75

Film of Eudora Welty, who served on the

NEA’s National Council on the Arts from

1972 to 1978, was recently discovered by

NEA staff and donated to the Mississippi

Department of Archives and History. 

NEA File Photo
Robert L. Reed Tap

Heritage Institute 

ST. LOUIS

S

ince 1991, the Robert L.

Reed Tap Heritage Institute

(RTHI) has produced the St.

Louis Tap Festival, the world’s

oldest annual festival devoted to

the form. Reed, himself a

renowned dancer and teacher, is

dedicated to promoting an interest

in and appreciation for this

indigenous American dance style

in all its myriad forms,

expressions, techniques, and

ethnicities.

In FY 2006, RTHI received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 to support the 15th

Annual St. Louis Tap Festival,

which took place July 24-29, 2006.

The six-day festival featured tap

artists from throughout the United

States as well as Canada. The roster

of more than 70 events included

master classes, jam sessions,

lectures, video screenings, a

Missouri

participant showcase featuring

dancers from seven states and

Canada, and All That Tap XV, the

festival’s culminating

performance. In addition to

showcasing the festival’s master

tappers, All That Tap XV also

provided shadowing and

internship opportunities for

student dancers. 

Several festival events were offered

free of charge or at a discounted

rate, including workshops; the

outdoor Tap Jam, which featured

“cutting contests” by participants;

and a panel discussion moderated

by national tap dance columnist

Melba Huber. Notable artists

participating in the festival

included Israeli tappers Avi Miller

and Ofer Ben, The Lawrence Welk

Show veteran Arthur Duncan, and

1999 NEA National Heritage

Fellow Jimmy Slyde. The

participation of world-renowned

stars of yesterday, today, and the

next generation make the festival

one of the most popular in the city.

More than 2,500 individuals

benefited from the festival,

including more than 1,500

children and youth.

76 National Endowment for the Arts

2006 Honoree Arthur Duncan, Wizdom

Rounds, Professor Robert L. Reed, and Dee

Mac Sandoz strike a pose bridging the gap

between generations and between tap and

hip hop. 

Photo by Melba Huber
reStart, Inc. 

KANSAS CITY

When you are living on

the streets, the arts

may not be your first

concern. But the arts can make a

difference in homeless children’s

lives by nurturing their desire to

learn and think creatively. And that

is why reStart, Inc., an interfaith,

overnight emergency shelter,

began its Arts at reStart program

with assistance from an NEA

Learning in the Arts grant of

$20,000 in FY 2006.

“The homeless children’s

incredible creative imaginations

and talents are reinvigorated by

learning, experiencing, and

participating in arts units with

Kansas City’s finest arts

educators,” said Linda Kemnitzer,

administrator of the Arts at reStart

program. The program provides

participants with three levels of

ongoing professional arts

instruction: live experience of

multidisciplinary arts on- and offsite, curriculum-based hands-on

study of arts disciplines, and

presentations of participants’

work.

In July 2006 and January,

February, and May 2007, Arts at

reStart students participated in

units on digital photography,

poetry, and the painter Thomas

Hart Benton. Classes met two to

five times per week for 120

minutes, providing 15 hours of

learning in each discipline. Field

trips included a visit to the Truman

Museum to view Benton’s mural

Opening to the West and to the

American Jazz Museum to view

portraits by Pulitzer Prize-winning

photographer Dan White, who also

led the digital photography

workshops. At the end of each unit

student work was displayed at

reStart.

During the project, participants

also attended workshop opera

rehearsals at the Lyric Opera of

Kansas City, a performance of The

Mikado by Paul Mesner’s Puppets,

and a production of Geppetto & Son

by Coterie Theatre. Two-hundredand-thirty homeless children and

youth benefited from the program. 

Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 77

Jalen and Alicia, both seven

years old, learned to use digital

cameras and edit their prints

through a reStart photography

workshop with Pulitzer Prizewinning photographer Dan

White. 

Photos by Jalen and Alicia of each other, courtesy of reStart
Grant Highlights

Montana

78 National Endowment for the Arts

International Choral

Festival 

MISSOULA

I

n the United States alone,

more than 28 million people

engage in choral singing,

according to a Chorus America

study. So it is not surprising that

the International Choral Festival in

Missoula, Montana, is such a hit.

More than 75 world-class choirs

and thousands of singers from

around the world have participated

in the International Choral Festival

since it began in 1987, including

choirs from Argentina, Botswana,

China, and Thailand. In FY 2006,

the International Choral Festival

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 for its

2006 festival. 

Taking place from July 12-16,

2006, 13 international choirs and

seven domestic choirs were

selected through a rigorous

screening process. Participating

choirs ranged from Slovenia’s

Mariborski Oktet to Kansas’s

Lawrence Children’s Choir to

India’s Navrachana School Choir,

which traveled to the United States

for the first time as part of this

festival. In addition to the choirs’

geographic diversity, they were

also diverse in their age ranges: the

festival included adult, youth, and

children’s choirs.

Each choir performed separately

and then as a group for the finale

concert, when they were joined by

three other Montana-based choirs

for a total of 712 singers. The

festival contained a total of 17

concerts, including three preview

concerts that were open to the

public for free, altogether reaching

a total of 20,000 people. 

In addition to the official

performances, the festival also

arranged for outreach concerts to

be held in Montana’s smaller, rural

communities, where because of

geographic isolation residents do

not have the chance to experience

such international culture. Lastly,

the festival co-sponsored with the

University of Montana a six-day

symposium on choral conducting

with Dr. Melvin Unger, Director of

the Riemenschneider Bach

Institute, in Berea, Ohio.

Ústí Children’s Choir of the Czech Republic, participants in the 2006 International Choral

Festival. 

Photo by Mark Gorseth
Grant Highlights

Great Falls

Symphony

Association 

GREAT FALLS

The Great Falls Symphony

Association (GFSA)

includes the Great Falls

Symphony Orchestra, an 80-voice

symphonic choir, a regional youth

orchestra, and two professional

resident ensembles, the Cascade

String Quartet and the Chinook

Winds Quintet. These musicians

travel extensively throughout

Montana, presenting educational

school programs and performing

in both large and small

communities. In addition, for

more than 30 years, GFSA has

presented Jr/Sr concerts twice a

season for students in the region as

well as senior citizens and those

who are developmentally disabled. 

GFSA takes great efforts to provide

its musicians with artistically

stimulating opportunities and its

community with high-quality

concerts. Part of GFSA’s success

has been its ability to attract

world-class musicians to its

theater in Great Falls. In FY 2006,

GFSA received an NEA Challenge

America grant of $10,000 to bring

celebrated violinist Itzhak Perlman

to Montana for a premiere

performance. 

In addition to an evening

performance with GFSA’s

orchestra on April 6, 2006, in the

Great Falls Civic Center Mansfield

Theater, GFSA arranged for an

open rehearsal and invited string

students from Montana’s high

schools and universities as well as

members of GFSA’s Regional Youth

Orchestra. More than 600

students took advantage of this

opportunity to observe Itzhak

Perlman’s rehearsal with the

orchestra. For the evening concert,

GFSA sold out its 1,782-seat

theater, drawing an audience from

all four corners of the state. In

recognition of an important cause

of Itzhak Perlman’s, GFSA also

offered discounted tickets to

disabled members of the

community.

Itzhak Perlman plays with the Great Falls

Symphony Orchestra at the open rehearsal to

more than 600 students. 

Photo by Stu White, GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE
Grant Highlights

University of

Nebraska at Lincoln 

University of Nebraska

Press

LINCOLN

While the percentage of

published foreign

works in English

translation is in single digits, one

publisher is attempting to make

those foreign authors better known

on these shores. 

The largest academic publisher in

the Great Plains, the University of

Nebraska Press (UNP) has

published first-rate creative

literary work, memoirs, and

scholarly works for more than 60

years. In addition, UNP is one of

the leading publishers of

translated literature, having

published more than 100 books of

literature in translation and nearly

a dozen series that include

translations. In FY 2006, the

University of Nebraska received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $25,000 for the

publication, promotion, and

distribution of ten books of

international literature in English

translation.

University of Nebraska Press

printed 1,000 copies of each book,

distributing them through a variety

of means, including libraries,

major bookstore chains,

independent and college

bookstores, internet booksellers,

and the press’s own Web site.

Chosen for their literary quality,

reputation, and value in the study

of humanities, the books include

such diverse authors as French

writer and winner of the Prix

Goncourt Paule Constant, whose

White Spirit was translated by Betsy

Wing; Algerian journalist Baya

Gacemi, whose I, Nadia was

translated by Paul Côté and

Constantina Mitchell; and Mercè

Rodoreda, one of Catalan

literature’s most celebrated writers

and author of A Broken Mirror,

translated by Josep Miquel Sobrer. 

The University of Nebraska Press

is dedicated to making celebrated

international writing more

accessible, an act that promotes

these authors to readers outside of

their native languages and in doing

so, provides an invaluable tool for

understanding other cultures.

Nebraska

80 National Endowment for the Arts

Two of the translations that the University

of Nebraska Press is publishing with

support from the NEA. 

Book covers courtesy of University of Nebraska Press
Grant Highlights

Nebraska Arts

Council 

OMAHA

From 1990 to 1999,

Nebraska’s immigrant

population rose at least 50

percent, according to a study by the

Urban Institute. The Nebraska Arts

Council (NAC) recognized the

importance of making these new

diverse cultural traditions better

known to the public and created

the Latino Arts Initiative, designed

to identify and serve Nebraska’s

growing Latino arts field.In 2003,

through a collaboration with the

Nebraska Humanities Council and

the University of Nebraska–

Lincoln Plains Humanities

Alliance, NAC created the

Nebraska Folklife Network (NFN),

devoted to the documentation,

preservation, and presentation of

Nebraska’s diverse folk and

traditional arts.

In FY 2006, NAC received an NEA

Folk & Traditional Arts

Infrastructure grant of $25,000 to

support Nebraska Folklife

Network’s 2007 activities. This

included the implementation of

Nebraska by Heart, a folk arts

curriculum focused on Nebraska

and used by teachers at the middle

school level, as well as professional

development activities for teachers

and traditional artists focused on

this curriculum.

NFN also created museum trunk

exhibits highlighting Nebraska’s

farm and ranch traditions and

educational kits on IrishAmerican and Iraqi cultural

traditions to be used by schools to

meet Nebraska social studies, arts,

and other academic standards and

recommendations. NFN’s

activities are designed to both

highlight Nebraska’s deep

traditions as well as appreciate the

culture of its newer immigrants,

building a greater cultural

understanding among its citizens

and preserving these diverse

traditions and cultures for the

future.

2006 Annual Report 81

Wayne Connell, rancher, cowboy poet, and

traditional artist in horsehair and leather,

with a bosal style braided hackamore he

made for training horses on his ranch near

Tryon,Nebraska, included in the Nebraska

Farming and Ranching Trunk Exhibit. 

Photo courtesy of Nebraska Folklife Network
Grant Highlights

82 National Endowment for the Arts

Nevada Ballet

Theatre 

LAS VEGAS

When Val Caniparoli

first choreographed

Lamberena for the San

Francisco Ballet in 1994, he

envisioned a dance that celebrates

the joy of living. Through

movement and music that

alternates between African and

Western traditions, he sought to

convey that expressing joy

transcends cultures. In FY 2006,

Nevada Ballet Theatre received a

$10,000 NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant to present

Lambarena in Las Vegas.

In March 2007, Caniparoli, his

assistant, and a pair of African

dance instructors all traveled to

Las Vegas to work with 14 Ballet

Theatre company members on the

piece. “It was a challenge for the

dancers,” Caniparoli said. “It

definitely stretched them.”

The score alternates between

traditional African vocal music and

pieces written by Johann Sebastian

Bach 250 years ago. That may

sound like an odd combination,

but not to those who know the

story behind Lambarena. Named

for an African village in presentday Gabon, the dance pays tribute

to Albert Schweitzer, the Nobelprize winning musicologist who

wrote a biography of Bach, earned

a medical degree, then moved to

Africa to establish a hospital. 

Caniparoli’s dance features music

from an album compiled by

French arranger Hughes de

Courson. With little derivation, the

dancers perform Western classical

ballet to Bach’s partitas, fugues,

and arias but emulate African

dance when the Gabonese music

comes on. As in other cities, the

Las Vegas performances of

Lambarana were complemented by

African dance master classes for

area teachers and two school-day

matinees for children, who were

offered a Lambarena study guide.

“It’s an amazing program that

brings in children and audiences

who would normally never come to

a ballet,” Caniparoli said. “They

watch in wonder. And they love it.”

Principal Dancer Racheal Hummel-Nole evokes the earthy spirituality of African

dance while maintaining classical ballet technique in Nevada Ballet Theatre’s

production of Lambarena.

Photo by Jeff Speer
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 83

Nevada Humanities

Committee 

RENO

I

t’s no mirage—the Vegas Valley

Book Festival does get a little

bigger and better each year. At

the inaugural festival in 2002,

several hundred people came to

hear the venerable John Irving

speak in suburban Henderson,

Nevada. The Nevada Humanities

Committee, an independent

nonprofit group that first

organized the festival, doubled the

number of events in 2004 and

added venues in Las Vegas. A year

later, the city became a festival

cosponsor and included it in the

Las Vegas centennial celebration.

By 2006, the book festival was a

busy two-day event in downtown

Las Vegas that was more a

celebration of the writing life than

a cavalcade of book signings.

Memoirists, poets, and music

journalists had equal time on the

podium. Workshops focused on

screenwriting, editing, and self

publishing.

To support bringing in guest

authors and panelists, Nevada

Humanities received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000. Chuck Palahniuk,

author of the 1996 cult-classic

Fight Club,served as keynote

reader, but just as many people

attended events such as the panel

discussion on the Las Vegas years

ofHoward Hughes, the eccentric

entrepreneur. Some of the authors

attending the festival included

novelist and screenwriter Peter

Lefcourt, rock music critic Jim

DeRogatis, slam poet Beau Sia, and

children’s author Beti Kristoff.

The 2006 festival also included a

spin-off, the Target Children’s

Book Festival, a half day of familyfocused readings, giveaways, and

performances. More than 5,000

people attended book festival

events. 

Nevada

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk

delivered the keynote address at the 

2006 Vegas Valley Book Festival. 

Photo by Shawn Grant
New

Hampshire

84 National Endowment for the Arts

MacDowell Colony 

PETERBOROUGH

The oldest artists’ colony in

the nation, MacDowell

Colony provides the

essential items all artists need—

time and space. The composer

Edward MacDowell and his wife,

Marian, founded MacDowell

Colony in 1906, and throughout its

history the only criterion for

acceptance has been talent. Today,

MacDowell hosts more than 250

writers, composers, visual artists,

photographers, printmakers,

filmmakers, architects, and

interdisciplinary artists each year

from all parts of the United States

and abroad.In all, MacDowell has

hosted more than 5,500 artists,

including Aaron Copland, James

Baldwin, and Alice Walker. 

At the colony, artists receive room,

board, and their own studio, which

includes the instruments

necessary for their particular art,

such as a piano for a composer, or

Composer and seven-time MacDowell

Colony Fellow Meredith Monk at work on

Basket Rondo, a new work for the

WesternWind Vocal Ensemble, which she

began at MacDowell in 1994. She also

began a new piece for her vocal ensemble

and the Kronos Quartet during her 2006

residency. 

Photo by Joanna Eldredge

Morrissey
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 85

a dark room for a photographer.

Between 20 and 30 artists are in

residence at any time and artists

can stay for a maximum of two

months. Need-based grants are

available to alleviate travel costs, a

practice which ensures that those

who are qualified to attend have

the means to do so. Residents

share breakfast and dinner

together and have their lunch

delivered to their studios to

eliminate distractions during the

workday. Artists-in-residence also

benefit the surrounding

community through presentations

of their work at local schools,

libraries, and senior centers.

In FY 2006, MacDowell Colony

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $25,000 to

support fellowships for ten artist

residencies. These residencies are

becoming a necessary way for

artists to support their creative

work, and many artists describe

their time at the colony as a

turning point in their creative

career. 

City Cultural

Commission 

PORTSMOUTH

I

n 2002 the mayor of

Portsmouth established the

City Cultural Commission,

known as Art-Speak, as part of a

city-wide cultural plan. Charged

with representing and promoting

the arts in Portsmouth, a small city

on the New Hampshire coast with

20,000 residents, a primary

responsibility of Art-Speak is to

carry out Portsmouth’s cultural

plan, which identified the need for

more cultural space and housing

for cultural workers. 

In FY 2006, Art-Speak received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $12,000 to conduct an arts

district planning study for the

Islington Street corridor of the

city. This one-mile corridor in

Portsmouth’s downtown currently

provides limited studio space for

artists, but through this study will

be transformed into a home for the

arts, artists, and creative

businesses. Art-Speak will hire an

urban planning/design consultant

firm to work with the commission

and carry out the project’s seven

components, from analyzing the

area, to identifying opportunities

for community participation, to an

implementation plan. It also will

establish standards, guidelines,

and application processes to guide

the developers, businesses, and

artists in implementing the arts

district plan.

This study gives Art-Speak the

leverage it needs to encourage

support among community,

political, educational, and business

leaders. In order to keep the

community connected to the

process, Art-Speak will provide

the public with all presentations,

meeting summaries, and

documents related to the study on

their Web site. An online

discussion forum also will be

created to engage the community

in a dialogue about the city’s

cultural plan.

The West End Studio Theater, one of the

buildings that will serve as an anchor in

Portsmouth’s arts district as part of the

city’s arts district planning study.

Photo by Jason Page
Grant Highlights

New Jersey

86 National Endowment for the Arts

Paper Mill Playhouse 

MILLBURN

Having a disability should

not preclude anyone

from participating in and

enjoying the arts. New Jersey’s

Paper Mill Playhouse strives to

make the lavish musical

productions for which it is known

available to all audience members,

regardless of disabilities. “We want

the experience for all of our

patrons to be as high quality as the

show onstage,” Michael Mooney,

Paper Mill’s access program

manager,said.In FY 2006, the

playhouse received an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$10,000 to support its continuing

effort to help all audience

members get the full Paper Mill

experience.

More than 400,000 people attend

performances at the playhouse

each year. Approximately 4,000 of

the theater’s patrons identify

themselves as disabled, according

to Mooney. Since 1983, the theater

has been offering ASL-interpreted

performances of every mainstage

show. The theater also pioneered

various accessibility options. 

Since 1996, the theater has offered

special “open captioning”

performances designed to

accommodate hearing-impaired

audience members. During those

shows, the script appears on a large

LED screen situated to the left of

the stage. Audio captions, provided

via headphones by a live reader,

and Sensory Seminars offered 90

minutes before designated shows,

cater to vision-impaired

theatergoers. The Sensory

Seminars bring blind patrons

backstage, where designers

describe the show’s aesthetic and

props are passed around. For

example, backstage before

Carousel, blind children had a

chance to finger the stars that

dangle from the ceiling in the

heaven scene. “Once you hold that

Lucite star in your hands, you get

that same feeling that Julie does in

the show,” Mooney said. 

An LED screen displays open captions during 

a Paper Mill Playhouse production of Grease!,

part of the theater’s accommodations for the

hearing-impaired. 

Photo courtesy Paper Mill Playhouse
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 87

Institute for Arts 

and Humanities

Education

NEW BRUNSWICK

David Sarnoff would have

been proud. On a spring

evening in 2007, about

two dozen technically inclined

teenagers gathered in the

Princeton library that bears the

pioneering broadcaster’s name.

The occasion was the premiere of

Cardinal Pride, a documentary

commemorating the 40-year

legacy of Lawrence Township High

School. The teen filmmakers spent

countless hours both during and

after school collecting interviews

and images that told the story of

their school. 

The event was part of Pixel Nation,

a unique program created through

a partnership by the Institute for

Arts and Humanities Education

(IAHE) and several New Jersey

civic groups. In 2006, IAHE

received an NEA Learning in the

Arts grant of $35,000 to offer Pixel

Nation event at two sites: Lawrence

Township High School and The

Cave, a Highland Park community

center.

In classes taught by visiting Pixel

Nation professors, the high school

students learned all aspects of

video, from scriptwriting to taping

to editing. Word of the

documentary quickly spread

around Lawrence Township High

School. Retired teachers offered to

be interviewed, and marketing

students volunteered to promote

the premiere. By the project’s end,

a broad range ofstudents had been

involved in some way. 

Some 20 miles away in Highland

Park, a second group of Pixel

Nations students were

simultaneously working on their

own experimental movies.

Program director Maureen

Heffernan and her staff discovered

that the students flourished when

asked to experiment but stay

within bounds. From November

2006 through May 2007,

approximately 25 children, ages 11

to 15, created short movies during

The Cave’s after-school program

and showed off their efforts at a

“school’s out” party.

Top: Asela Perez,14 years old, captured this

smile in her experimental movie, Put Your

Records On,created through the Pixel

Nation after-school program. 

Bottom:A shadow falls in 15-year-old

David Webber’s experimental movie,

David’s Darkness,which he created

through the Pixel Nation after-school

program.

Images courtesy of Institute for

Arts and Humanities Education
Los Reyes de

Albuquerque

Foundation 

ALBUQUERQUE

Founded in 1961 by 2003

NEA National Heritage

Fellow Roberto Martínez,

Los Reyes de Albuquerque is 

a traditional music group

specializing in the Nuevomexicano

music of northern New Mexico and

southern Colorado. The group has

performed several times at the

Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife

Festival, at the National Hispanic

Cultural Center, and as part of the

National Council for the

Traditional Arts Raices Musicales

national tours. The Los Reyes 

de Albuquerque Foundation

complements the group’s 

public performance schedule 

by producing free programs 

intended to preserve, promote,

and perpetuate Nuevomexicano

music and culture.

Los Reyes de Albuquerque

Foundation received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $17,500 to support 60

presentations by Martínez on

Nuevomexicano folk traditions in

Albuquerque, Pueblo, and several

of the state’s rural and underserved

areas. The 60-minute

presentations comprised brief

informative talks on the origin and

significance of Nuevomexicano

music and song and dance

performances. According to

Martínez, each presentation takes

place “in a relaxed setting where

the audience is encouraged to sing

along, dance, or simply enjoy the

music. Corridos and canciones

alternate with old-time dances,

including waltzes, marchas, inditas,

cunas, and polkas, which are part

of the historical fabric of colonial

and 19th-century New Mexico, and

still popular today.” Approximately

3,500 adults and 1,200 youth

benefited from these

performances. 

New Mexico

88 National Endowment for the Arts

Los Reyes de

Albuquerque performing

traditional music at

Share Your Care Adult

Day Care Center.

Photo by Roberto Martínez
Grant Highlights

The grant also supported five

presentations to underserved

middle and high school students 

of Albuquerque public schools by

Robert D. Martínez, Roberto

Martínez's son and collaborator, 

of Entriega de los Novios, an 

18th-century cololonial New

Mexico social ritual featuring

improvised sung verse. More than

650 students benefited from these

presentations.

Millicent Rogers

Museum 

TAOS

Millicent Rogers,

Standard Oil heiress

and legend in the

fashion industry, fell in love with

Taos, New Mexico, the first time

she went there. She spent much of

the rest of her life supporting the

rights of Native-American people

living in the area, and was

enamored of their arts and culture.

In 1956, four years after her death,

a museum was founded in her

name to celebrate the Southwest

culture that she found so

inspirational. The museum’s

extensive collection comprises a

comprehensive collection of Maria

Martinez pottery; Hispanic

religious and secular arts and

crafts; Navajo and Pueblo textiles;

historic and contemporary Navajo

silver and turquoise jewelry; and a

wide range of 20th-century art by

Native American, Hispanic, and

Euro-American artists.

The Millicent Rogers Museum

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $25,000 to

support the reinstallation of the

museum’s permanent collection in

celebration of its 50th anniversary.

The Best of the Southwest: Celebrating

50 Years at the Millicent Rogers

Museum features one hundred of

the most significant works in the

museum’s collection,such as a rare

1860s First Phase Ute Style Chief’s

Blanket and The Disciples Washing

the Feet of Christ, a unique Spanish

Colonial Hide painting. The

exhibit opened on May 11, 2006,

and was expected to close on

March 31, 2007. Due to the show’s

popularity—it attracted more than

21,000 visitors—the museum

moved the closing date to August

31, 2007. 

In addition, the museum

developed exhibition-specific

materials for its educational

program for fourth- and fifthgrade students, which brings

approximately 1,000 Taos County

students to the museum each fall

and spring. This multivisit

program assists teachers in

fulfilling New Mexico state

curriculum requirements in art,

math, history, and the sciences.

2006 Annual Report 89
Grant Highlights

90 National Endowment for the Arts

New York

Genesee-Orleans

Regional Arts

Council

BATAVIA

Western New York,

mostly rural outside

the large cities of

Buffalo and Rochester, is not the

place you would expect to find an

Egyptian Sufi performing the

famous spinning dance. But when

the Genesee-Orleans Regional

Arts Council, also known as Go

Art!, put on its celebration of

community and ethnic dance

traditions from New York State—

called On Your Feet!—that was one

of the acts audiences saw

performed.

In FY 2006, Go Art! received an

NEA Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to support the dance

festival, which took place at two

locations in Genesee and Orleans

Counties—the April 28th event in

Pavilion and the April 29th event

in Medina. Each free event

featured one-hour workshops for

participants to learn dances,

followed by a dance concert and

refreshments. 

“The event also turned out to be a

vibrant exchange between dancers

from the region, and those who

traveled from the New York City

area to participate and offer lesserknown traditions,” said Karen

Canning, director of the

Traditional Arts Program at Go Art!

Groups performing included the

Niagara River Dancers, based in

the Tuscarora Nation near Niagara

Falls, New York, performing

traditional Native American

dances; the Borinquen Dance

Theatre, from Rochester,

presenting dances from different

regions of Puerto Rico; the Polish

Heritage Dancers of Western New

York from Lancaster, invoking

Polish folk dance; Kelly’s Old

Timers, a square dance band from

Perry; Yasser Darwish of Bay Ridge,

who performs tanoura, the

traditional Egyptian Sufi spinning

dance; and Rita Silva from

Brooklyn, performing dances in

the Brazilian candomblétradition, a

blend of Yoruba spiritist belief and

Roman Catholic symbolism. 

Yasser Darwish performing a secular Sufi spinning dance

during the On Your Feet! dance festival in Medina, New York. 

Photo by Tom Rivers
Grant Highlights

Lincoln Center for

the Performing Arts 

NEW YORK

At the Lincoln Center

Festival 2006, a monster

took center stage, with

the NEA’s help. The Lincoln

Center for the Performing Arts

(LCPA), a national leader in arts

and arts education, received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $35,000 to support the

festival. 

The centerpiece of Lincoln Center

Festival 2006, the comic opera

Grendel was co-commissioned with

the Los Angeles Opera and

featured an elaborate set designed

by George Tsypin, a corps of 20

dancers, and a 75-piece orchestra.

Director Julie Taymor wrote the

libretto with J.D. McClatchy based

on the 1971 novel by John Gardner,

which tells the story of Beowulf

from the monster’s point of view.

The score was composed by Elliot

Goldenthal, his first opera, and

bass Eric Owens starred in the title

role. 

Taking place over three weeks in

July, the festival celebrated its

tenth anniversary by offering 16

premieres and debuts by

companies from eight countries.

In addition to the New York

premiere of Grendel, other

highlights included Benjamin

Baqby’s telling of Beowulf,

performing in Old English and

accompanying himself on the lyre,

to complement the opera;

DruidSynge, a presentation of the

complete works of playwright John

Millington Synge; two U.S.

premieres and one New York

premiere by Israel dance

companies Yasmeen Godder and

the Bloody Bench Players, the

Batsheva Dance Company, and

Emanuel Gat Dance; a New York

premiere of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie

Zane Dance Company’s dance

piece Blind Date; and Balkan

composer and guitarist Goran

Bregovic and his 40-member

band. 

Desmond Richardson as Beowulf and Eric Owens as

Grendel in the Lincoln Center Festival 2006 production

of Grendel,composed by Elliot Goldenthal with

libretto by director Julie Taymor and J.D. McClatchy,

based on John Gardner’s 1971 novel. 

Photo by Stephanie Berger
Grant Highlights

Triad Stage 

GREENSBORO

Deeply rooted in and

devoted to its southern

community and cultural

heritage, Triad Stage, Piedmont

Triad region’s largest professional

theater, turned to the Appalachian

part of the state for a 2006

presentation.

In FY 2006, Triad Stage received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 for the

development of Preston Lane’s

Brother Wolf, which celebrates the

region’s Appalachian culture.

Loosely based on Beowulf, the play

combines dance and folklore from

the Southern Appalachians and

features original mountain music

by Laurelyn Dossett, performed

live for each performance. “[L]ive

music plays a pivotal role at just the

right moments,” wrote Ken Keuffel

of the Winston-Salem Journal. “It

reinforces the play’s spiritual

underpinnings.” 

Running from March 12–April 2,

2006, and attended by more than

6,000 individuals, Brother Wolf 

was one of Triad Stage’s most wellattended productions in its history.

The production also accomplished

one of the organization’s primary

goals—to attract new audiences

from the rural communities in the

Piedmont Triad.

To enhance their audience’s

knowledge of Appalachian

heritage, Triad Stage held postperformance talkbacks with the

North Carolina

The Triad Stage’s production of

Preston Lane’s Brother Wolf,

which featured live music for

each performance. 

Photo by NyghtFalcon

Photography
artists, arranged for a noted

scholar to discuss Appalachian

culture, and developed an art

exhibit related to Appalachia. For

high school students in Guilford

County, Triad Stage offered free

scripts, study guides, in-class artist

visits, and free tickets to evening

performances of Brother Wolf.

By integrating productions into its

season that focus on the heritage

and culture that is such a strong

part of the region’s history, Triad

Stage is actively working to

introduce more people to theater

and create a broader and more

diverse audience. 

Carolina Ballet 

RALEIGH

S

hakespeare has been good

to Carolina Ballet,”

suggested Roy C. Dicks in

the News & Observer. “First there

was its luminous Romeo and Juliet,

then the magical A Midsummer

Night’s Dream, and now its current

production, the impressive

Shakespeare Suite.”

In FY 2006, Carolina Ballet

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 for the

creation and presentation of a new

ballet by Robert Weiss.

Choreographed to Paul Morevec’s

Pulitzer Prize-winning music,

Tempest Fantasy is a 30-minute

dance meditation based on

William Shakespeare’s The

Tempest. Timour

Bourtasenkov starred

as Prospero, Lilyan

Vigo as Miranda, and

Alain Molina as

Ferdinand. Cyrille de

la Barre gave a

particularly captivating

performance as the

beastly Caliban.

Part of a program of three

works entitled Shakespeare

Suite, Tempest Fantasy accompanied

a reprise of José Limón’s The Moors

Pavane and the premiere of Lynne

Taylor-Corbett’s Love Speaks,

which incorporated Shakespeare’s

sonnets. Between February 16 and

March 5, 2006, 6,398 people

attended performances of

Shakespeare Suites.

One of the top ten ballet

companies in the United States,

Carolina Ballet has commissioned

approximately 60 ballets from

innovative choreographers since

1984, an act that expands the

company’s repertory and also

allows it to present its audiences

with innovative new works of the

highest artistic merit. Under the

artistic direction of Robert Weiss

and currently consisting of more

than 30 dancers from around the

world, the dance company

presents approximately 60

performances each season

primarily for residents in North

Carolina’s Triangle region,

including Raleigh, Durham, and

Chapel Hill.

“

Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 93

Margaret Severin-Hansen and

Pablo Javier Perez in Carolina

Ballet’s Tempest Fantasy. 

Photo by The Right Image

Photography
94 National Endowment for the Arts

FutureBuilders 

Trollwood Performing

Arts School 

FARGO

As a past winner of a

Coming Up Taller Award

from the President’s

Committee on Arts and

Humanities in 2002 and the North

Dakota Governor’s Award for the

Arts in 2003, the Trollwood

Performing Arts School (TPAS)

knows something about providing

arts training for students in grades

1-12. Since 1978, TPAS has

provided its community with

quality performances, which

currently include a two-show

youth performance season, a

middle school pre-show

performance, and a free

community event with student

performances in addition to

summer classes and an arts

workshop during the school year.

In FY 2006, FutureBuilders

received an NEA Summer Schools

in the Arts grant of $35,000 to

support TPAS’s Summer Mainstage

Musical Program. Each year

students ages 13-18 are given the

opportunity to act, to play in the

orchestra, and to work as

technicians to present a classic or

contemporary professional

musical. The program began with

the audition process in mid-May,

when 122 students were chosen for

the cast, orchestra, and technical

crew for a production of Fiddler on

the Roof. All of the students

received intensive training by

professional artists, whether they

were actors taking vocal, acting,

and dance classes; musicians

taking master classes; or

technicians learning set and

costume construction. The

students presented fourteen

performances July 12-15, July 19-

23, and July 26-30 for a total

audience of16,735.

Larger-than-life masks and Fruma Sarah body puppets, created under the direction of Louay Al Assaf, used to enact

Tevye’s fate-changing dream sequence in Trollwood Performing Arts School’s productions of Fiddler on the Roof.

Photo by David Samson
Grant Highlights

2006 Annual Report 95

North Dakota

TPAS’s Mainstage program meets

national, state, and local arts

education standards and students

are eligible to receive academic

credit for participating in the

program. The one-on-one

guidance students received helped

them to set high goals for

themselves and take risks,

resulting in greater creativity,

communication and collaborative

skills, and confidence in their

abilities as artists.

Turtle Mountain

Band of Chippewa

Elders Support

Services 

BELCOURT

The Turtle Mountains of

North Dakota are filled

with the rich traditions of

the Chippewa Tribe, but due to the

rural surroundings, it often is

difficult to find other cultural

events. The Turtle Mountain Band

of Chippewa Elders Support

Services (Chippewa Elders), which

provide services to the more than

1,500 elderly members of the

tribe, were able to present three

concerts by two world-renowned

classical pianists, Sergio Gallo and

Philip Thomson, with the

assistance of an NEA Challenge

America grant of $10,000.

The concerts were performed at

three locations in the state: the

University of North Dakota,

Bismarck State College, and Minot

State University. Most of the

concert attendees were from rural,

underserved areas of North Dakota

and had never before experienced

a live classical music concert. 

With performances of piano

masterpieces, Gallo and Thomson

presented classical music to the

residents in Grand Forks,

Bismarck, and Minot, and brought

together a diverse group that

included students, military

personnel, Native Americans, 

and farmers, for a total audience 

of 580.

The Chippewa Elders were able to

use the concerts to spread

important information about

health issues facing the elderly

members of the tribe, many of

whom struggle with poverty and

extremely high malnutrition levels,

and whose population will more

than triple in the next five years.

During intermissions of the

concerts, Chippewa Elders spoke

about the health issues and the

organization’s activities addressing

the issues.

Pianist Sergio Gallo participated in

Chippewa Elders’ series of classical 

music concerts. 

Photo by Jason McCullough
choreographer from The Color

Purple, led off with J. Lawrence

Paint(Harriet Tubman Remix), a

compelling dance that conveys the

travails of slavery and the strength

of one strong but diminutive

woman. Kevin Ward, the

company’s recently retired artistic

director, followed with Continuing

Education, a piece inspired by

Lawrence’s paintings from the

Civil Rights era. Next up was

Reggie Wilson, founder of Fist &

Heel Performance Group, with a

Caribbean-influenced We ain’t

goin’ home but we finna to get the

hell up outta here, based on

Lawrence’s The Migration Series.

The dance concluded with Reggie

Harris’s funky, hip-hop Jacob’s

Ladder.

“Color-ography” premiered in

Dayton in February 2007. From

southwest Ohio, the company

launched a 20-city U.S. tour. In

Seattle, critic Philippa Kiraly called

the Tubman piece “magnificent”

while in Pittsburgh, Jane Vranish

praised the dancers’ “zealous,

unremitting strength.” All told, the

tour was seen by more than 20,000

people: nearly 5,000 school

children attended matinees, 775

aspiring dancers took master

classes with the company, and

more than 15,000 people bought

tickets for evening performances.

Grant Highlights

Dayton

Contemporary

Dance Company 

DAYTON

S

ince 1968, the Dayton

Contemporary Dance

Company (DCDC) has

prided itself on collecting and

performing the works of AfricanAmerican choreographers. In FY

2006, DCDC received an NEA

Access to Excellence grant of

$30,000 for a project that fits well

within that mission. The company

asked four contemporary black

choreographers each to create a

new dance inspired by the

paintings of Jacob Lawrence, a

Harlem Renaissance artist who

depicted mid-century AfricanAmerican life in bright, abstract

scenes. 

The result was “color-ography, n.

the dances of Jacob Lawrence,” a

diverse evening of modern dance.

Donald Byrd, the Tony-nominated

96 National Endowment for the Arts

Sheri “Sparkle” Williams

portrays Harriet Tubman in

Dayton Contemporary Dance

Company’s world premiere of

J. Lawrence Paint (Harriet

Tubman Remix) by

choreographer Donald Byrd. 

Photo by Andy Snow
Grant Highlights

Cincinnati Art

Museum 

CINCINNATI

I

n 2006, the Cincinnati Art

Museum received a grant to

reinstate two of the city’s

aesthetic landmarks. The museum

received a Save America’s

Treasures grant of $135,200 to

restore two large-scale paintings

in the museum’s permanent

collection, one of 10 projects

jointly funded in 2006 by the

National Endowment for the Arts

and the National Park Service. 

Both murals were commissioned

in 1947 by Cincinnati businessman

and philanthropist John J. Emery,

2006 Annual Report 97

Ohio

Background: A detail of Saul Steinberg’s Mural of

Cincinnati (1947), recently refurbished and rehung at

the Cincinnati ArtMuseum in July 2007. 

Photo by Scott Hisey

who served on the museum’s

board during the 1940s. He

envisioned the Terrace Plaza

Hotel, then the city’s most

prominent modern building, as an

international showplace featuring

work by major contemporary

artists. To that end, he

commissioned a large-scale

painting by Spanish artist Joan

Miró and a multi-panel work by

New York illustrator Saul

Steinberg.

Cerulean blue dominates Miró’s

30-foot-long oil painting, which

hung for two decades in the hotel’s

rooftop restaurant. At the Terrace

Restaurant a few floors down,

guests enjoyed piecing together

Steinberg’s Mural of Cincinnati

while they ate. Rather than depict

the city geographically, Steinberg

conceived city landmarks in

thematic groups like statues,

fountains, and buildings with

interesting roofs. 

Both pieces were donated to the

museum in 1965, when the Terrace

was sold to the Hilton Hotels

Corporation. The paintings—

grease stained,smoke damaged,

and discolored by aging varnish—

have since spent more time in

storage than on display. After

undergoing a thorough cleaning at

Intermuseum Conservation

Association in Oberlin, all 10

panels of the Steinberg piece,

totaling 80 feet, were rehung in

June 2007 and complemented by a

retrospective of Steinberg’s New

Yorker cartoons. The refurbished

Miró should make its own debut at

the museum in 2008. 
Grant Highlights

Choctaw Nation of

Oklahoma 

DURANT

With 168,000 members

and a land base that

covers more than

15,000 square miles of hills and

valleys, the Choctaw Nation of

Oklahoma is the third largest

Indian tribe in the United States.

Since 1984, Choctaw Nation has

celebrated its heritage and the

future of its nation through an

annual Labor Day festival, drawing

more than 200,000 individuals

each year from both around the

United States and internationally. 

For 2006, the Choctaw Nation

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $20,000 for its

annual free festival, and in

specific, the Pow Wow, Living

Village, and Arts Show

components that emphasize the

tribe’s culture and history.

The Pow Wow provides both

entertainment through dancing

and singing, and an understanding

of the spiritual side of this ritual.

Visitors are exposed to the

language, values, and teachings of

the Native-American community,

and young American Indians learn

more about this important part of

their heritage. This traditional Pow

Wow is led by an emcee with head

dancers, and includes a contest,

gourd dancing, and performances

by the Choctaw Dancers.

Through the Living Village activity,

participants become completely

immersed in the sights, sounds,

and smells of the historic Choctaw

people. Members of the tribe cook

over fires, repair homes, weave

baskets, and make tools and

weapons to illustrate the history of

their culture. Lastly, the Choctaw

Art Show displays traditional

Choctaw crafts, such as painting,

bead work,sculpture, and

stickball. 

The festival activities are designed

to highlight the rich culture of the

Choctaw Nation, celebrating both

their heritage and their current

contributions.

Oklahoma

98 National Endowment for the Arts

The Choctaw Nation Pow Wow begins with

a grand entry.

Photo courtesy of BISHINIK
Grant Highlights

Tulsa Oratorio

Chorus 

TULSA

One of only three

performing arts

organizations in the Tulsa

region, the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus

(TOC) has brought choral music to

audiences throughout Oklahoma

since its founding in 1992. Apart

from the artistic director and

accompanist, the organization is

entirely volunteer-run; chorus

volunteers account for all

planning, fundraising, and

arrangement of venues and also

make up the 100-member choir

and 40-member volunteer

orchestra. Through the

commitment of its volunteer base,

TOC presents four to five concerts

each season.

In FY 2006, TOC received an NEA

Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to bring both the chorus

and orchestra to Miami,

Oklahoma, a rural, artistically

underserved community of

13,000, for a performance of

Brahms Requiem. Brahms Requiem is

a work representative of TOC’s

usual repertoire, chosen to

showcase the best of classic choral

music. In addition to TOC’s chorus

and orchestra, this performance

also featured two guest soloists,

Lindsey McKee and Richard

Sutliff.

TOC volunteers undertook all of

the logistical planning of

transporting the chorus and

orchestra 85 miles from Tulsa to

Miami. In addition, volunteers

arranged for platforms to be added

to the stage at the Coleman Theatre

to accommodate TOC’s entire

chorus. On May 7, 2006, after

nearly two months of rehearsals

and preparations, TOC performed

for approximately 800 people at

the Coleman Theater in Miami.

TOC has a tradition of making its

performances accessible to

students through reduced-price

tickets, and likewise in Miami,

TOC offered tickets at a special rate

for students at the local community

college.

2006 Annual Report 99

The Tulsa Oratorio Chorus brought a

performance of Brahms Requiemto

Miami, Oklahoma, with the support of

an NEA grant. 

Photo by John Southern
Grant Highlights

Portland Opera 

PORTLAND

Richard Nixon? Singing?

Even a few board

members were skeptical

when Portland Opera’s artistic

director, Christopher Mattaliano,

first proposed staging John

Adams’s 1987 opera Nixon in

China. The whole idea is bizarre:

Why write an opera about the

infamous president’s 1972 trip to

China? But Mattaliano insisted

that this opera could be revived in

Portland, and that people would

come see it. He was right. 

Portland Opera received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 to join a six-city coproduction of Nixon in China.

Charles MacKay, general director

at Opera Theatre of St. Louis,

spearheaded the project and asked

Mattaliano to join. The production

debuted in St. Louis in 2004,

traveled on to Minneapolis,

Portland, and Chicago, and will

continue to Denver in 2008. The

same creative team has worked on

each production and, in most

cities, the lead singers have

reprised their roles, with each

company supplying a supporting

chorus. Tenor Robert Orth stars as

the former President of the United

States and soprano Nancy Allen

Lundy portrays the First Lady.

When the opera premiered at

Houston Grand Opera,

musicologists immediately hailed

it as a classic, a perfect fusion of

Adams’s minimalist style and

world music motifs. This tour is

the first new major production of

the work since it was originally

performed in 1987. Nixon’s trip is

recounted through a sequence of

tableaux featuring historic

characters, including Nixon,

Chairman Mao, and Henry

Kissinger. 

Oregon Richard Nixon (baritone RobertOrth) prepares to

meet Chairman Mao in Portland Opera’s 2006

production of John Adams’s Nixon in China.

Photos by Duane Morris

100
Grant Highlights

“That’s what makes the piece

timeless,” Mattaliano said. “It’s

about public figures and their

private lives. And when you think

about it, that’s what so many great

operas are about.”

Eugene Symphony

Orchestra 

EUGENE

Contemporary composer

Michael Daugherty is the

musical antidote for

anyone who has ever listened to

contemporary classical music and

deemed it inaccessible, chaotic, or

overly academic. His harmonies,

rhythms, and instrumentation are

just as complex as the next

composer’s, yet Daugherty’s

audiences are at a distinct

advantage: as long as they know

their cartoon characters, super

heroes, and celebrity icons, they’ll

get what’s going on in the music.

In 2006, the Eugene Symphony

Orchestra received an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$7,500 to bring Daugherty and his

parade of pop culture allusions to

Oregon. The enigmatic composer

divided his four days between the

Hult Center concert hall and the

University of Oregon. On campus,

Daugherty taught

master classes to

composition students and

coached the university’s

percussion and wind ensembles

through performances of Niagara

Falls, Lex, and Shaken Not Stirred.

The weekend culminated with an

all-Daugherty concert at the Hult

Center. The Eugene Symphony

gave the West Coast premiere of

Daugherty’s Raise the Roof, a

timpani concerto he wrote for the

opening of Detroit’s Max Fisher

Music Center in 2003. Also on the

program: Route 66, a sonic trip

through the Heartland; Desi, a

Latin-influenced tribute to Desi

Arnaz; Above Clouds, a symphonic

movement inspired by the

paintings of Georgia O’Keefe; and

Red Cape Tango, Daugherty’s

musical depiction of Superman

and Doomsday’s final fight to the

death, based on the Latin Dies Irae,

or “Day of the Dead,” chant.

Daugherty expounded on all these

connections himself at a free

public lecture the day before the

concert, and spoke briefly from

the stage during the performance.

The concert was attended by 2,240

people and up to 55,000 listened

via broadcast on KWAX-FM,

Eugene’s classical music station. 

2006 Annual Report 101

Timpanist Charles Dowd earned rave

reviews for his solo performance when

the Eugene Symphony performed

Michael Daugherty’s Raise the Roof.

Photo by Steve Smith, PhotOregon 
Grant Highlights

Pittsburgh Irish &

Classical Theatre

PITTSBURGH

Nothing says Pittsburgh

like the Steelers, Heinz

Ketchup, and Samuel

Beckett. Or so it seemed to Andrew

Paul, artistic director of

Pittsburgh Irish & Classical

Theatre (PICT). In 2006, Paul

and his theater received an

NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $12,000 in

support of BeckettFest, a

repertory performance of all

20 stage plays by Beckett to

celebrate his 100th birthday.

The Irish playwright was one

of the most influential 20thcentury playwrights, bringing

a sense of minimalism and

absurdity to the realistic

drama of his day. The festival

proved wildly popular in

Pittsburgh, with nearly soldout crowds that included many

area college students.

“There are a lot of Beckett fans out

there. They came out of the

woodwork for this,” Paul said. 

Christopher Rawson, the Pittsburgh

Post-Gazette’s drama critic, was one

of the festival’s biggest fans. He

dubbed the festival Pittsburgh’s

“theater event of the year” and

picked two BeckettFest plays,

PICT’s Endgame and the Gate

Theatre of Dublin’s Waiting for

Godot, to lead off his “Top 10 Plays

of 2006” list. 

For Paul and his creative

ensemble, however, the festival’s

greatest distinction may have been

unofficial. As far as he knows, no

other theater in North America

celebrated Beckett’s centennial by

presenting a complete

retrospective of his stage

plays. An ensemble of 14

actors and directors

performed or read 18 of

Beckett’sshorter works in

repertory style, with different

combinations of plays

available each weekend. At a

separate venue, the seminal

Endgameran throughout the

three-week festival. All shows

were created by an

international team of

designers. Two months after

the festival, PICT completed

the Beckett Cycle by cohosting the Gate Theatre of

Dublin’s touring production of

Waiting for Godot.

Pennsylvania

102 National Endowment for the Arts

Simon Bradbury (Clov) and Larry John

Meyers (Hamm) appear in Pittsburgh Irish

&Classical Theatre’s acclaimed 2006

production of Samuel Beckett’sEndgame. 

Photo by Suellen Fitzsimmons
Philadelphia

Museum of Art 

PHILADELPHIA

Centuries before Rufino

Tamayo, Frido Kahlo, and

Diego Rivera, there was

Cristobal de Villalpando, a 17thcentury Spanish ensign tasked with

painting the sacristy in Mexico

City’s cathedral. The art of de

Villalpando, and some 40 other

near-anonymous artisans, drew

international attention in 2006

when the Philadelphia Museum of

Art debuted Tesoros/Treasures/

Tesouros: The Arts in Latin America,

1492-1820.

The exhibit makes a compelling

case that the artistic traditions of

Latin America are rooted in a

colonial fusion: Iberian

conquerors conscripted

indigenous Inca, Aztec, and Mayan

craftsman to produce functional

artworks for Catholic worship. The

museum received an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$100,000 to support touring the

exhibit, which was on view in

Philadelphia from September 

20 to December 31, 2006, and

traveled to Miami and Mexico 

City in 2007.

Curators Joseph J. Rishel and

Suzanne Stratton-Pruittspent

more than five years collaborating

on the selection of works for the

exhibit with a team of Latin

American scholars. The result is a

highly visceral and visually

stunning presentation of nearly

250 sculptures, paintings,

furniture, ceramics, and textiles

that spans three centuries. Nearly

all the artwork was created under

colonial Spanish or Portuguese

rule, yet the art of each indigenous

culture is distinct.

All told, more than 200,000 people

saw the show, with many more

participating in related educational

activities, including traditional

craft workshops for children and a

Day of the Dead celebration. By the

time Treasures closed, more than

26,000 people participated in

education programs related to the

exhibit, including nearly 10,000

school children. The museum also

reached out to the Hispanic

community in southeastern

Pennsylvania. About 2,600 Latinos

redeemed free tickets, distributed

through various community

groups. 

2006 Annual Report 103

Don Francisco de la Robe and His Sons Pedro and Domingo,1599, by Andean artist Andrés Sánchez Gallque, one of the pieces featured

in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition Tesoros/Treasures/Tesouros: The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820. 

Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art
Grant Highlights

Yorick’s Productions 

SAUNDERSTOWN

The NEA-initiated study

Creativity and Aging(2006)

revealed how ongoing,

community-based arts programs

improve the quality of life for older

Americans. But that wasn’t

anything Yorick’s Productions

didn’t already know, as

demonstrated by its Young at Heart

tour,supported by an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$10,000 in FY 2006. 

Since 1991 Yorick’s Productions

has been performing classical and

Czech traditional puppetry with

marionettes hand-carved by artist

Dusan Petran. Yorick focuses 

on reaching those in need,

performing for children in

hospitals and senior citizens in

senior centers and nursing homes.

Between July 2006 and April 2007,

Yorick traveled to 20 senior

centers in the northeast region. At

each center, Yorick presented a

performance designed around

music popular in the 1940s and

1950s, chosen in particular to

appeal to their audience. Following

the performance, 

Yorick provided 

a short lecture

demonstration on the

history of marionettes

and puppetry in the

United States.

Participants were

then given the

opportunity to handle

the marionettes and

create their own 

short dialogues with

them. The activities

concluded with

participants making

their own puppets out of a

variety of materials.

The Young at Heart tour was

designed as a way for residents to

both recall memories of their

youth in the 1940s and 1950s and

also express themselves artistically

by manipulating the marionettes,

singing along with the production’s

songs, and creating their own work

of art. In total, approximately 700

people participated in Yorick’s

workshops, and in some

communities, it provided an

activity for the seniors and their

grandchildren to participate in

together.

104 National Endowment for the Arts

Rhode Island

A resident at Adult Day Center in

Waterford, Connecticut, displays her 

own hand-made puppet during the

Yorick’s Productions presentation. 

Photo by Dusan Petran
Grant Highlights

Community

Musicworks 

PROVIDENCE

Building the community

around music is one of the

goals of Community

Musicworks (CMW), in which the

members of the Providence String

Quartet teach, perform, and

organize community events in the

inner-city neighborhood in which

they reside. Operating in areas of

Providence that have the highest

percentage of at-risk youth, CMW

provides students ages 7-18 with

instrument lessons, educational

workshops, public performances,

and exposure to concerts.

In FY 2006, CMW received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $10,000 for their music

education and performance

programs from September 2006

through June 2007. These

activities included weekly

instrument lessons, held both

individually and in small groups;

monthly musical workshops about

diverse musical traditions;

bimonthly performance parties,

designed to bring together parents,

students, neighbors, and

musicians for performances and

demonstrations; and bimonthly

youth salons, a less formal venue

for teens to perform. 

CMW also organized Phase II, an

opportunity for teen musicians to

improve their skills in a close-knit

peer group. Students in Phase II

participated in weekend retreats

and group discussions and were

trained to teach as teaching

assistants for beginning students.

Lastly, CMW’s string quartet

performed at least once a month,

at both community venues, such as

schools, libraries, and even soup

kitchens, and traditional

performance spaces, where they

put on full-length concerts. 

Approximately 100 students

participated in CMW’s programs

and approximately a thousand

people attended the string

quartet’s concerts. All of these

components are offered free of

charge and are designed to both

grow an appreciation for music

and build a community through

arts education. 

2006 Annual Report 105

Providence String Quartet member Sebastian Ruth teaching 17-year-old viola student

Fatima Johnson. 

Photo by Patrick Roberts
Grant Highlights

City of Charleston

Office of Cultural Affairs

CHARLESTON

The annual Spoleto Festival

USA is internationally

known as one of the

premiere arts festivals, but not as

well known is the Piccolo Spoleto

Festival created by the City of

Charleston Office of Cultural

Affairs (OCA) in 1979. Taking

place during the 17 days of the

Spoleto Festival USA, Piccolo

Spoleto is a series of free events

featuring local and regional artists,

complementing the international

flavor of its parent festival. OCA’s

work with local arts organizations—

as well as its management of two

contemporary art galleries in the

city—make it the perfect

organization to produce the festival

program.

In FY 2006, OCA received an NEA

Access to Artistic Excellence grant

of $50,000 to support Opera is For

Everyone: Piccolo Spoleto Takes

Two Favorite Operas on the Road to

Rural S.C. From May 26-June 1,

2006, the project toured free and

discount-priced concert versions

of Hansel and Gretel and Amahl and

the Night Visitors to several venues,

including area schools, a church on

Johns Island, a large factory in

Dorchester County, and a migrant

farm workers camp in the Sea

Islands. In order to connect to

local communities, at each staging

a community leader was invited to

perform as narrator.

Accompanying educational

activities included in-school

workshops for children, preparing

them to attend the performances,

and the chance for local children 

to audition for and perform in 

the performances. 

More than 2,700 children and

youth benefited from the

education activities and

performances. The total audience

for the productions was more than

6,000 individuals of all ages and

ethnic backgrounds. 

Island School Council

for the Arts 

HILTON HEAD ISLAND

Creating large outdoor

sculptures out of tree

saplings is North

Carolinian visual artist Patrick

Dougherty’s specialty. “My affinity

for trees as a material seems to

come from a childhood spent

wandering the forest around

Southern Pines, North Carolina,”

he said.He creates his work for 

the specific location where it will

reside, trying to make a work that

will fit organically with its

surroundings. 

106 National Endowment for the Arts

South Carolina

Suzanne Fleming-Atwood and Sarah

Williams performthe title roles of Hansel

and Gretel—accompanied by the

Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Ashley

River Creative Arts Elementary School

Unichorus, and Charleston Children’s

Chorus—at St. John’s High School on 

John’s Island, South Carolina. 

Photo by Charleston Picture Company
Grant Highlights

In FY 2006, South Carolina’s

Island School Council for the Arts

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 to

support the installation of a sitespecific outdoor sculpture by

Dougherty. Sited at Palmetto Bluff,

South Carolina—a 20,000-acre

tract of land containing 150

archaeological and historical

sites—the original work of woven

and twisted tree saplings was

installed during a month-long

residency by the artist. The

residency, which took place from

March 5-25, 2007, included two

public lectures by the artist and

seven hands-on workshops with

middle and high school students. 

The Island School Council—an

organization of parents, teachers,

principals, and other supporters—

is committed to academic

achievement through arts

presentations and education

programs in the visual,

performing, and literary arts, so an

educational component to the

project was important. The project

included a series of field trips to

the active project site by students

from the Beaufort County Public

School District, during which

students could ask questions of

Dougherty, make comments, and

participate in the construction

process. More than 829 students

benefited from the workshops and

field trips. The temporary

sculpture, Home Sweet Home, was

completed on March 23, 2007, and

will be on view to the public

through November 2007. 

2006 Annual Report 107

The outdoor installation, Home Sweet

Home, by environmental sculptor Patrick

Dougherty at Palmetto Bluff in South

Carolina. 

Photograph by Kristin Goode, courtesy of THE ISLAND PACKET
Grant Highlights

South Dakota Arts

Council 

SIOUX FALLS

Created by the National

Endowment for the Arts

and the Poetry Foundation

to promote the study and

appreciation of great poetry, Poetry

Out Loud encourages

high school students to

learn about poetry

through memorization,

performance, and

competition. In FY 2006,

state arts agencies in all

50 states and the District

of Columbia received

NEA Poetry Out Loud

grants of $8,000 each to

carry out the program in

their state capitals. 

In Sioux Falls, South

Dakota, the South Dakota

Arts Council chose to

broaden its program

outside of the state

capital by targeting the state’s

largest high schools. Each high

school held its own Poetry Out

Loud competition with 500

students throughout South Dakota

participating in the program. 

On April 12, 2006, the ten school

champions competed in the Senate

Chambers at the State Capitol

Building in Sioux Falls, each

reciting three poems for judges

David Allan Evans, South Dakota’s

Poet Laureate, and Ray Peterson

and Kim Bartling, theater artists at

South Dakota State University and

the University of Sioux Falls,

respectively. Kayla Jackmon, a

senior at Sioux Falls’s Washington

High School became South

Dakota’s first state champion,

receiving a $200 prize, $500 for

her school to purchase poetry

books, and an all-expense-paid

trip to Washington, DC. 

On May 16 at the Lincoln Theatre

in Washington, DC, Jackmon

recited Yone Noguchi’s “The Poet”

and Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”,

and out of the 51 participants was

selected as one of12 to advance to

the final round of competition. As

a finalist, she received a $1,000

college scholarship prize and her

school received $500 for the

purchase of poetry books. 

108 National Endowment for the Arts

Kayla Jackmon, South Dakota’s

champion, performs at the Poetry

Out Loud national finals in

Washington, DC, in May 2006. 

Photo by James Kegley
Grant Highlights

South Dakota Center

for the Book 

BROOKINGS/SIOUX FALLS

S

outh Dakotans got a chance

to climb into Scout Finch’s

skin and walk around in it

as they participated in NEA’s Big

Read initiative, choosing To Kill a

Mockingbird for their community

read. The Big Read is restoring

reading to the heart of American

life by providing funding to

support community-reads of a

single book. 

In FY 2006 the Big Read selected

ten organizations out of 45

applicants to participate in the

pilot phase of the program. The

South Dakota Center for the

Book, part of the South

Dakota Humanities

Council, received a grant

of $25,000 to create a series of

events around Harper Lee’s classic

novel.

HarperCollins donated 450 copies

of To Kill a Mockingbird to the

Center for the Book, aiding the

organizers in making the novel

accessible throughout their

community. To promote the

program, the Center for the Book

created posters of local officials,

community leaders, and South

Dakota’s U.S. congressional

delegation reading the book. 

Sioux Falls’s Big Read program

encompassed more than 15 unique

activities, including writing

contests for high school students

and adults, discussion groups, and

three separate events with Mary

Badham, the actress who portrayed

Scout in the 1962 film To Kill a

Mockingbird. A community troupe

presented a Readers’ Theatre

production of the play, focusing on

the novel’s court scene with many

members of Sioux Falls becoming

involved. A panel on race relations

followed the performance,

allowing participants to discuss 

an issue central to the novel and

their community.

By developing activities around

this work of literature, Big Read

organizers in Sioux Falls

discovered a new way of not only

promoting literacy, but also

engaging residents in their

community.

2006 Annual Report 109

Residents performed with a

community theater troupe in a

dramatic reading of the trial in 

ToKill a Mockingbirdas part of

Sioux Falls’s Big Read. 

Photo by Jayne Erickson

South Dakota
Grant Highlights

VSA Arts Tennessee 

GALLATIN

For aspiring musicians

growing up in Tennessee,

there is no loftier dream

than performing onstage at Ryman

Auditorium, the original Grand

Ole Opry.

In 2006, VSA Arts Tennessee gave

disabled performers from across

the state a chance to fulfill that

dream. The organization received

an NEA Challenge America grant

of $10,000 to fund its first-ever

Night at the Ryman gala. Lori

Kissinger, founder and executive

director of VSA Arts Tennessee,

deemed the event “a huge success.”

Kissinger founded VSA Arts

Tennessee after moving to

Nashville in 2001 and discovering

that the national organization had

no state chapter. She has since

organized many events, including

educational programs, a

singer/songwriter cabaret, and

several competitions—but nothing

as big and splashy as Night at the

Ryman.

Country singers T.G. Shepherd and

Kelly Lang served as emcees for the

evening. Ginny Owens, a wellknown blind contemporary

Christian artist, was the headline

act. Other performers included

local disabled artists and the four

finalists in VSA Arts state Young

Soloist competition. The audience

must have included a few talent

scouts, because two of those

students, pianist Angela Mosley

and gospel singer Daniel Janvrin,

have since been offered additional

performing gigs. 

More than 1,000 people—about

half from the general public, half

from the disabled community—

attended the evening performance

at Nashville’s opulent and historic

theater. During the day, 2,000

special education students from 25

schools came to the Ryman. Many

of those schools have since become

involved in VSA Arts.

110 National Endowment for the Arts

Tennessee

Laura Dodd, past winner of VSA

Arts National Young Soloists

contest, sings at VSA Arts

Tennessee’s Night at the Ryman,

a gala concert that put a spotlight

on disabled performers. 

Photo by Evan Dickert
Grant Highlights

Arts Center of

Cannon County 

WOODBURY

We’re looking at a

visionary,” said Evan

Hatch, a folklorist at

the Arts Center of Cannon County,

about John Wesley Work III. “Work

was a European-trained conductor

who valued folk culture at a time

when other black intellectuals were

running as far away from it as

possible.” 

Work traveled with Alan Lomax,

commissioned by the Library of

Congress to record the music of

African-American folk singers in

the Mississippi delta region,

introducing him to African

Americans who might otherwise

have been wary of a white man and

his disc-cutting machine. Together

they recorded blues singer Muddy

Waters, the gospel quartet the

Fairfield Four, and many other

musicians whose talents may never

have spread north had Work and

Lomax not preserved their music

for posterity. 

Within the decade, Lomax would be

winning wide praise for collecting

and cataloging recordings of oldtime music. Few Americans,

however, ever learned the name of

his collaborator. With help from an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $20,000, the Arts Center

of Cannon County aims to bring

Work out of obscurity.

On the side, Work made a few

scratchy glass-disc recordings of

his own. A dozen of those songs,

now digitally remastered, will be

made available to the public on the

Cannon County Arts Center’s own

label, Spring Fed Records, in

November 2007. The CD’s release

will complement a traveling

exhibit, John Work III: Recording

Black Culture. The exhibit began its

Southern tour at Fisk University,

where Work was once chair of the

music department. “We are going

to make our audience aware that it

was not strictly a white, upperclass endeavor to preserve folk

culture,” Hatch said. 

2006 Annual Report 111

“

Son Sims and Muddy Waters make music on a porch in Clarksdale, Mississippi. John

Wesley Work III most likely took this photo while traveling with Alan Lomax in 1942. 

Photo courtesy of the collections of the Center for Popular Music,

Middle Tennessee State University
Grant Highlights

Symphony of

Southeast Texas 

BEAUMONT

After surviving the

battering winds of

Hurricane Rita, a breezy

new suite from the Alturas Duo was

just what residents of Beaumont,

Texas, needed to hear. “They were

fabulous, they were amazing, and

they cheered us up like a breath of

fresh air,” said Galen Wixson,

executive director of the Symphony

of Southeast Texas.

After receiving an NEA Challenge

America grant of $10,000, the

symphony brought the Alturas

Duo—Canadian guitarist Scott Hill

and Chilean multi-instrumentalist

Carlos Boltes—to Texas so they

could present the American

premiere of Danzas Peregrinas, a

suite for guitar, charango, and pan

flute by Horacio Salinas. The

concert was originally scheduled

for Beaumont’s Julie Rogers

Theatre, but Rita’s winds and water

damaged the hall. The symphony

spent the 2005-2006 season

playing in high school auditoriums

and other venues across southeast

Texas. The season finale, held at

Silsbee High School, featured the

Alturas Duo.

Christopher Zimmerman, music

director of the symphony, had

heard the duo perform before and

was impressed with their classical

virtuosity and world-music

panache. Zimmerman proposed

that Hill, Boltes, and their friend,

wind-player Gonzalo Cortes, play

with the symphony and perform

assemblies at local elementary

schools. 

Texas

112 National Endowment for the Arts

Carlos Boltes and Scott Hill—the

Alturas Duo—performed the

American premiere of Horacio

Salinas’s Danzas Peregrinaswith

the Symphony of Southeast Texas. 

Photo by Thomas Giroir Photography
Grant Highlights

“This was totally unique for us,”

Wixson said. “It was truly a risk.”

The risk paid off. Students at four

schools were fascinated by the

multicultural musicians, and more

than 1,000 people drove to Silsbee,

15 miles north of Beaumont, to

attend the Alturas Duo concert

with the symphony. Danzas

Peregrinas literally translates as “a

dancing pilgrimage.” Salinas’s

meandering, rhythmic music

proved just that, the perfect finale

to an orchestra’s wayfaring season.

Dallas Museum 

of Art

DALLAS

S

ince its founding in 1903,

the Dallas Museum of Art

has evolved from an art

association primarily concerned

with Texan art to a renowned

museum with a comprehensive

collection comprising 23,000

objects spanning 5,000 years.

Significant exhibitions previously

curated by the Dallas Museum of

Art include Henry Moore, Sculpting

the 20th Century, which toured to

the Fine Arts Museums of San

Francisco and the National Gallery

of Art in Washington, DC, and

Sigmar Polke: New Paintings and

Drawings, which toured to

London’s Tate Modern. 

The Dallas Museum of Art received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $60,000 to

support the exhibition Matisse:

Painter as Sculptor, in consortium

with the Baltimore Museum of Art.

The touring exhibit of

approximately 160 works

investigates Matisse’s sculpture in

the context of his paintings,

drawings, and prints. Matisse’s

sculpture is also exhibited with

works by other major 19th- and

20th-century artists—such as

Alberto Giacometti, Auguste

Rodin, and Pablo Picasso—in 

order to highlight Matisse’s unique

style and explore Matisse’s

engagement with the work of his

contemporaries. 

The exhibition is accompanied by

educational materials, including

an audio tour, Web-accessible

interpretive materials, and a fully

illustrated catalog. After its

premiere at the Dallas Museum of

Art (January 21 - April 29, 2007),

Matisse: Painter as Sculptor will

travel to the Baltimore Museum of

Art (June 10 - September 2, 2007)

and the San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art (October 7, 2007 -

January 13, 2008), giving more

than 500,000 individuals access to

the exhibit.

2006 Annual Report 113

Henri Matisse’s oil painting Blue Nude:

Memory ofBiskra,1907, (above) and bronze

sculpture Reclining Nude I(Aurora), 1907,

were featured in the Dallas Museum of Art’s

exhibition Matisse: Painter as Sculptor. 

Images courtesy of the Baltimore

Museum of Art, The Cone Collection, ©

2007 Succession H. Matisse, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Grant Highlights

Spy Hop Productions 

SALT LAKE CITY

An overwhelming majority

of teenagers own at least

one personal media

device, yet most do not know the

basics of what is involved in

producing the media arts. Spy Hop

Productions—a youth media arts

and educational enrichment center

serving Salt Lake City—is trying to

do something about that. 

In FY 2006, Spy Hop Productions

received an NEA Learning in the

Arts grant of $60,000 for its Youth

Documentary Arts Program

(YDAP), a free program for

students ages 14-18. In 2006,

approximately 50 students learned

the aesthetics, skills, and

techniques of documentary

production while exploring stories

and issues that relate to both youth

and adults. YDAP is made up of

three core collaborative programs:

Reel Stories, Documenting

Communities, and Loud and Clear.

Produced by both Spy Hop

Productions and the Sundance

Film Institute, Reel Stories was

held from June 15-July 31, 2006.

This free intensive workshop gave

students the opportunity to work

with the country’s best

documentary filmmakers. The

program guides the students

through the entire process of

making a documentary, including

story development, camera

operation, and editing raw footage. 

Documenting Communities, a

collaboration with the University

of Utah College of Humanities, was

held from January 1, 2006-May 30,

2007. This project allowed high

school students to explore their

local community through the

process of creating, shooting, and

editing documentary videos.

The third branch of YDAP, Loud

and Clear, is a weekly all-youth

radio program airing live on KRCL

90.9 FM and reaching an audience

of more than 80,000. The first and

only youth-produced radio

broadcast in Utah, Loud and Clear

trains students in all aspects of

designing and implementing a

radio show. 

114 National Endowment for the Arts

A student in Spy Hop Productions’ Youth

Documentary Arts Program checks to make

sure her shot is set. 

Photo by Matt Bradley
Grant Highlights

Southern Utah

University 

Utah Shakespearean

Festival

CEDAR CITY

I

n 1961 the Utah

Shakespearean Festival (USF)

was founded, in partnership

with Southern Utah University, 

as a way of providing evening

entertainment for visitors

attracted to Cedar City by the area’s

six national parks. Recipient of the

2000 Tony Award for America’s

Outstanding Regional Theatre,

today USF has become a

destination event, attracting an

audience of more than 127,000

from around the United States and

abroad. 

For four years, USF has

participated in the NEA’s

Shakespeare for a New Generation

initiative, presenting an

abbreviated Shakespeare play in

schools in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada,

and Utah.In addition to its

production, USF also provides a

post-show discussion with the

actors and workshops in stage

combat, performing Shakespeare’s

text, and developing character

through improvisation. 

In FY 2006, Southern Utah

University received an NEA Access

to Artistic Excellence grant of

$20,000 to support USF’s

production of Shakespeare’srarely

performed tragedy, Antony and

Cleopatra. The play follows the

relationship between Cleopatra

and Mark Antony from the time of

the Parthian War to Cleopatra’s

suicide. Directed by Nagle Jackson,

the tragic love story was performed

between June 22 and September 2,

2006, reaching 12,298 people. The

production ran in repertory with

Hamlet and The Merry Wives of

Windsor in USF’s Adams

Shakespearean Theatre, an

outdoor theater patterned after

London’s Globe Theatre. Patrons

also were invited to participate in

free literary, acting, costume, and

prop seminars, introducing them

to all the various aspects that make

up a USF production.

2006 Annual Report 115

Utah

Bill Christ as Antony and Jacqueline

Antaramian as Cleopatra in the Utah

Shakespearean Festival’s 2006 production

of Antony and Cleopatra. 

Photo by Karl Hugh
Grant Highlights

Yellow Barn 

PUTNEY

With more and more

schools cutting back

on arts and music

education, today’s youth have

fewer opportunities to hone their

artistic skills. Yellow Barn Music

School and Festival, founded in

1969, provides those opportunities

through a summer training and

performance program in chamber

music for outstanding preprofessional musicians and a

summer training program for high

school students. In addition,

Yellow Barn also presents a

summer festival and seasonal

concert tours that include master

classes and workshops.

In FY 2006, Yellow Barn received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $7,500 to

support professional development

in chamber music for emerging

musicians during its annual

summer music festival. From July

2 to August 6, 2006, 38 young

musicians—selected from an

audition pool of nearly 500

applicants—were immersed in an

intensive schedule of coaching,

rehearsals, classes, lessons, and

public performances. Held on the

grounds of Amherst College in

Amherst, Massachusetts, the

program’sfaculty included Yellow

Barn Artistic Director Seth Knopp,

New England Conservatory faculty

member Roger Tapping, and

composer-in-residence

Menachem Zur, among others.

Participating students presented

33 public concerts in Amherst and

in Putney, Vermont, including a

series of community outreach

concerts for at-risk children and

seniors. More than 4,000

116 National Endowment for the Arts

Vermont

New England Conservatory faculty

member Roger Tapping participated in

Yellow Barn’s summer professional

development sessions.

Photo courtesy of Roger Tapping
Grant Highlights

individuals, including 250

children and youth, benefited

from the concerts. An additional

audience of10,000 was reached

through broadcasts of the

performances on WGBH. 

Violist Jessica Oudin, a 2006

participant, raved, “It is so rare 

to find an environment that at

once commands excellence in

performance, as well as

camaraderie, warmth, and support

among peers, and Yellow Barn

does just that! I had an incredible

summer, and there is nowhere I

would rather have been.”

Pentangle Council

on the Arts 

WOODSTOCK

Founded in 1768,

Woodstock, Vermont, has

been called the

“quintessential New England

village.” The Pentangle Council on

the Arts (PCA), which serves this

rural community, wanted to

showcase some arts and traditions

that the population might not

ordinarily see, and put on a twoday Asian arts festival, supported

by an NEA Challenge America

grant of $10,000.

Pentangle Council on the Arts

presents arts programming to the

community at its historic Town

Hall Theatre, serving more than

10,000 people annually. PCA has

brought international artists to the

community in the past, and

produced a Latin Caribbean

festival in 2002-03. 

The Asian arts festival was

presented, in partnership with the

University of Vermont Asian

Studies department, at the

Woodstock Town Hall Theater and

on the Woodstock Union High

School campus on March 29 and

30, 2006. The university provided

resources for kimono and tea

ceremonies as well as displays of

Asian masks and artwork. 

The festival immersed the

community in Asian culture, from

the dance and drumming of

Portland Taiko to the folktales of

award-winning Japanese storyteller

Motoko. Other festival activities

included demonstrations of Asian

traditional dance, cooking, flower

arranging, bamboo stick fighting,

calligraphy, and poetry. Nearly 800

students and 40 teachers from 10

schools participated in the festival.

Approximately 400 adult residents

of the community also participated.

2006 Annual Report 117

Children in traditional costumes during

Pentangle Council on the Arts’s Asian

arts festival.

Photo courtesy of Pentangle

Council on the Arts
Grant Highlights

University of

Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE

William D. Williams,

associate professor of

architecture at the

University of Virginia, first came

up with the idea for the Dresser

Trunk Project after coming to an

important realization. “I was

working with Project Row Houses,

an arts organization in Houston,

on renovating the El Dorado

ballroom. The El Dorado is where

Elvis reportedly heard Big Mama

Thornton sing ‘Hound Dog.’ I

realized while trying to bring it

back to its original glory that there

were hundreds of venues like the

musicians who traveled along the

Southern Crescent train line. The

trunks contain stories,

photographs, maps, and

computer-generated models to

document the clubs, hotels, and

other places musicians stayed in

eleven cities along the train line,

from New York to New Orleans. 

Each trunk and its contents

symbolically and architecturally

represents a now-forgotten place

of refuge for African-American

musicians during the Jim Crow

era. In fall 2007, the exhibition

will tour to each of the sites by

train, the passengers being a more

diverse audience than might see

the works in museums or

universities. 

El Dorado in cities all over the

country, and that many of them

had been lost or forgotten. I

started the Dresser Trunk Project

as a way of giving a voice to these

important places of refuge for

black travelers, and to use art as a

way of reminding people of the

importance of black business

districts during segregation.”

In FY 2006, the University of

Virginia received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$44,000 to support the traveling

exhibition and catalogue. Eleven

artists/architects each designed a

box based on a dresser trunk—the

case in which a musician carried

his gear—to tell the stories of

Artist Lisa Henry-Benham

created a dresser trunk for

the Carver Inn in

Charlottesville, Virginia—

later demolished for the

expansion of Preston

Avenue—which was the only

hotel listed for black travelers

in the “Negro Motorist”

Travelers Guide.

Photos by Lisa HenryBenham

Virginia

118
Grant Highlights

George

Washington’s

Fredericksburg

Foundation 

FREDERICKSBURG

I

n Fredericksburg, when they

say “George Washington slept

here,” it is more than likely

true. George Washington’s

Fredericksburg Foundation

(GWFF) owns and operates three

Washington family properties in

Virginia: Historic Kenmore, the

1775 plantation home of

Revolutionary War patriots

Fielding and Betty Washington

Lewis; Ferry Farm, where George

Washington and his siblings grew

up; and Accokeek Furnace,

Augustine Washington’s(George’s

father) iron mine. They are open

to the public, and at Kenmore

alone, more than 16,000 people

visit annually.

In FY 2006, GWFF received an

NEA Challenge America grant of

$10,000 to restore two period

frames for important portraits in

Historic Kenmore’s permanent

collection and to clean and

conserve three major portraits in

the collection. The restoration

included repairing damage to the

frames’ surfaces and removing

unwanted overpaint. The two

portraits to be framed are among

the most significant holdings in

the Kenmore’s permanent

collection: a 1796 miniature

portrait by John Trumbell of Nellie

Custis Lewis, the Washingtons’

granddaughter, and a circa 1810

panel portrait of John Lewis,

Fielding Lewis’s eldest son, by

Francis Cezeron. After

conservation, both portraits have

been displayed as part of the core

exhibition in Kenmore’s

Crowninshield Museum.

The portraits to be conserved are

the John Lewis portrait (which has

been completed) and the 1841

portraits by John Beale Bordley, a

highly respected portrait painter,

of Nellie Custis Lewis and her

husband, Lawrence Lewis (whose

frames were conserved with a FY

2005 NEA grant). Conservation

includes cleaning and removing

discolored varnish from the

portraits. The conservation of the

Bordley portraits was completed in

August 2007. 

John Beale Bordley’s

portraits of Nelly

Custis Lewis (left)

and Lawrence Lewis

(right), circa 1841,

are being conserved

with NEA support. 

Photos courtesy

of George

Washington’s

Fredericksburg

Foundation

2006 Annual Report 119
Grant Highlights

Seattle International

Children’s Festival

SEATTLE

Founded in 1986, the

Seattle International

Children’s Festival (SICF)

is Washington’s only major global

cultural event that focuses

primarily on young people in

grades K-12. Presented annually,

SICF educates young audiences

about international cultures while

also providing international artists

with exposure and the opportunity

to connect with other artists. SICF

also encourages teachers to

incorporate world arts and culture

into the classroom through teacher

training programs and free

curricular resources. 

SICF presented its 21st annual

festival in Seattle May 14-19, 2007,

and its 8th annual one-day festival

in Tacoma on May 21st. SICF

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $30,000 in

support of the festival and related

educational and outreach

activities. Twelve national and

international companies of artists

participated, providing

performances in traditional and

contemporary music, dance,

theater, puppetry, and storytelling.

The festival’s diverse acts included

a demonstration of the drumming

tradition of taiko, a play designed

especially for toddlers by Canada’s

Le Théâtre de Quartier, and

performances in Afro-pop by

H’Sao, a music group from Chad.

In addition, each year SICF

commissions at least one work

especially for the festival. In 2007

SICF presented the world

premiere of Share This Place by

Mirah and Spectratone

International, featuring animation

by Britta Johnson. Using stopmotion animation and live music,

the artists explored the life of

insects through the writing of

Jean-Henri Fabré, known as the

“father of entomology.”

Nearly 1,500 teachers received free

educational materials to

incorporate into their curricula,

introducing their students to

120 National Endowment for the Arts

Chinese Theatre Works performs Birth

of the Monkey King, a comical

shadow puppet adaptation of the

Chinese classic Journey to the West.

Photo courtesy of Chinese

Theatre Works

Washington
global arts in anticipation of the

2007 festival. More than 30,000

students, teachers, and families

attended the festival and SICF

ensured access for all students

through subsidized tickets to

disadvantaged students.

Museum of

Glass 

TACOMA

Although

glassmaking

might often be

thought of more as a craft

than an art form, the Museum

of Glass, which opened in July

2002, celebrates the contribution

glass artists have made to

contemporary art.In its three

galleries and surrounding outdoor

space, the museum presents

exhibitions and installations in

glass, mixed media with glass, and

in other media by internationally

recognized artists, bringing in

more than 170,000 people

annually. The museum also houses

the world’s largest hot shop

amphitheater, which allows

visitors to watch as many

renowned and emerging guest

artists create their artworks.

In FY 2006, the Museum of Glass

received an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $35,000 for its

2006 Visiting Artist Program in

which 20 artists from both the

United States and around the

world participated in five-day

residencies at the museum.

Celebrated Czech artist René

Roubícek’sresidency from April

12-16 coincided with the

exhibition, Czech Glass, 1945 –

1980: Design in an Age of Adversity.

During his residency, Roubícek

worked with fellow Czech artists

Petr Novotny and Jirí Pacinek in

the museum’s hot shop, creating

bowls and vases, glass clarinets,

and 10-foot-tall glass columns. All

three artists participated in a panel

discussion on their experiences

working in the changing Czech

political environment. 

During another artist residency in

August 2006, Mitchell Gaudet

created a series of bowls and house

forms with shapes, colors, and

textures inspired by the ruined

areas of New Orleans, his

hometown. His personal

photographs taken of both the

destruction and recovery efforts in

New Orleans were displayed on a

big screen in the hot shop while he

worked.

2006 Annual Report 121

Above:Artist Mitchell Gaudet applies the

finishing touches to a sculpture in the Museum

of Glass hot shop. 

Photo courtesy of the Museum of Glass

Left:Mitchell Gaudet, Myth ofRomance

(detail), 2006. 

Photo courtesy of Mitchell Gaudet and

the Museum of Glass

 ̆

 ́

 ̆
Grant Highlights

West Virginia Public

Theatre 

MORGANTOWN

The hills of Morgantown

came alive in 2006 when

West Virginia Public

Theatre staged an NEA-funded

production of The Sound of Music.

An NEA Challenge America grant

of $10,000 enabled the theater to

offer deeply discounted student

tickets for Rodgers and

Hammerstein’s classic musical,

which takes place in Austria on the

eve of World War II. More than

7,000 children traveled up to 90

minutes by bus so they could see

the show during the 2006 holiday

season. The performances featured

professional actors in the lead

roles and children from West

Virginia filling the ranks of the von

Trapp family. Teachers were

provided with a study guide in

advance so they could discuss

World War II issues with their

students. 

“That grant was a special grant,”

said Ron Iannone, executive

producer at the theater. “We

produced The Sound of Music and

made it available to students who

would normally not ever see

professional theater.”

The Public Theatre has been

presenting summer stock drama in

Morgantown since 1985. Back

then, the shows were staged in a

small tent theater in a hotel

West Virginia

122 National Endowment for the Arts

Captain von Trapp (Ray Lutters) and Maria (Laura Hughes) sing along with the von Trapp

children in the West Virginia Public Theatre’s 2006 production of The Sound of Music. 

Photo by Sue Amos/Infinite Lens Studio
Grant Highlights

parking lot. Today, the Public

Theatre presents plays and

musicals at a theater on West

Virginia University’s campus.

Future plans call for the Public

Theatre to share a new event space

in Morgantown’s Wharf District.

The theater serves as both an

artistic ambassador and as an

economic generator to the region.

Theater patrons pump more than

$3.5 million into the Morgantown

economy each year.

Davis & Elkins

College 

Augusta Heritage Center

ELKINS

The traditional arts of West

Virginia, as Gerald Milnes

proudly points out, are

quilting, basket-making, and

banjo-picking. Milnes serves as

folk arts coordinator at the Augusta

Heritage Center, a nonprofit

organization based at Davis &

Elkins College in central West

Virginia. Since 1972, the center has

been promoting and preserving

the music, dance, crafts, and

folklore of Appalachia. 

“Given the rural character of West

Virginia, folk arts have a strong

influence on our regional identity,”

Milnes said.

In 2006, the college received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $25,000 for the center to

continue offering apprenticeships

and scholarships to West

Virginians looking to learn an 

old-fashioned trade.

The Augusta Heritage Center

began offering scholarships and

apprenticeships in 1989.

Recipients chose to study a variety

of folk art skills, including

fiddling, guitar making, white oak

basketry, traditional wood joinery,

and herbal medicine. Six up-andcoming craftspeople traveled

across the state to study at the

homes of established artists like

fiddler Elmer Rich and quilter

Carroll Barlow, who was once an

apprentice herself. Many more

novices received scholarships to

attend a weeklong workshop at the

Augusta Heritage Center. 

In addition, the Center used some

of its grant money to provide travel

stipends for about two dozen

musicians, age 60 and over, who

performed at the 2006 Old-Time

Fiddler’s Reunion. About 10,000

people converge on Elkins each

autumn to celebrate traditional

music at this three-day festival. 

2006 Annual Report 123

Background:Master Quilter

Carroll Barlow of Pocahontas

County, West Virginia, and four

apprentices created crazy quilts

during a summer folk arts school

funded by the NEA. 

Photo courtesy of Augusta

Heritage Center, Davis & Elkins College
Grant Highlights

Opera for the Young 

MADISON

With only four singers

and one pianist, Opera

for the Young (OFY)

has brought professional, specially

adapted opera productions to

elementary school audiences since

1970, reaching more than 90,000

students each year. OFY’s

performances, however, are only

one part of its effort to interest

students in opera. Months before

OFY begins its tour, students

submit costume and set design

drawings, and OFY selects its

favorite ideas and incorporates

them into the final set and

costume designs. In addition to the

performance, schools have the

option of participating in an

“Opera by Design” residency, led

by OFY’s production designer. 

OFY developed the opera Orpheus

Returns(or The Case of the

Underworld Zoo) during their 1993-

94 season and chose to revive it for

their 2006-07 tour. They received

an NEA Access to Artistic

Excellence grant of $10,000 to

support this tour in approximately

170 elementary schools across

Illinois, Iowa, Michigan,

Minnesota, and Wisconsin. 

Adapted from the Greek myth,

Orpheus Returns emphasizes the

power of music and the

importance of caring for

endangered animals and the

environment. One of OFY’s unique

practices is the integration of the

students into the performances.

Wisconsin

124 National Endowment for the Arts

Marc Petrocci in Milwaukee Ballet Company’s

production of Lila York’s Coronach. 

Photo by Rick Brodzeller

Orpheus’s Harp encourages him to use his

magical voice to help save the environment

in Opera for the Young’s production of

Orpheus Returns. 

Photo courtesy of Opera for the Young
Grant Highlights

All schools that book an OFY

performance receive teaching

materials for music classes—this

allows the students to learn the

chorus parts. For Orpheus Returns, a

group of students at each school

joined the singers on stage by

playing the endangered animals. 

The success of OFY’s performances

is due to its focus on collaboration

and participation; by learning the

chorus music, submitting design

ideas, and interacting with the

artists, students become much

more engaged and involved in the

production, and therefore, in the

world of opera.

Milwaukee Ballet

Company 

MILWAUKEE

Founded in 1970, the

Milwaukee Ballet

Company is currently one

of the nation’s premiere dance

companies, presenting

approximately 45 programs each

year for an audience of more than

70,000. The Milwaukee Ballet

School, opened in 1974 by the

Milwaukee Ballet, is one of the top

ballet schools in the nation and is

the only professional ballet school

in the state of Wisconsin. In 2002,

Milwaukee Ballet hosted the first

Milwaukee International

Choreographer’s Competition,

part of Milwaukee Ballet’s

dedication to new works. 

Commissioning new work has

become a major part of Milwaukee

Ballet’s mission, a practice that has

benefited its dancers by giving

them the opportunity to work with

diverse choreographers, but also

has benefited the dance world 

by providing professional

choreographers the

chance to create new and exciting

pieces. In FY 2006, Milwaukee

Ballet received an NEA Access to

Artistic Excellence grant of

$10,000 for the commission and

presentation of a new work by

choreographer Lila York. 

Over a five-week period, Lila York

worked with Milwaukee Ballet’s

company to create Coronach, a 30-

minute modern piece, set to a

violin concerto by composer Ross

Edwards. Paired with Kathryn

Posin’s Scheherazade, Coronach ran

from February 16-19, 2006, and

was attended by more than 8,000

individuals.

While staging her new work, Lila

York also held a master class for

Milwaukee Ballet dancers-intraining and participated in a

panel on the state of dance at

the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. In addition, a

behind-the-scenes event gave

the choreographer the

opportunity to discuss with

Milwaukee Ballet subscribers her

motivation in creating Coronach.

2006 Annual Report 125

David Hovhannisyan and Karisa

Stich in Milwaukee Ballet Company’s

production of Coronach. 

Photo by Rick Brodzeller
Grant Highlights

Devils Tower Natural

History Association 

DEVILS TOWER

Although it is known as

Devils Tower to most, to

several Northern Plains

Indian Tribes the 1,267-foot

mountain is known as Bear’s Lodge

or Bear’s Tipi, a sacred site for

Native Americans and an

important landmark in many tribal

narratives. In response to a

mandate that designated Devils

Tower as a protected sacred site,

the Devils Tower Natural History

Association (DTNHA) created a

Native-American heritage

weekend to educate visitors,

participants, area residents, and

others who use the site about the

culture of the Northern Plains

Indian Tribes and the significance

of Devils Tower to that culture. The

heritage weekend is part of the

organization’s Cultural and Natural

History Program Series, which

runs from Memorial Day through

Labor Day and comprises

approximately 15 presentations on

topics ranging from technical rock

climbing to western history,

culminating with the Cowboy Poet

Festival.

In FY 2006, DTNHA received an

NEA Access to Artistic Excellence

grant of $10,000 to support the

heritage weekend, which took

place August 25-27, 2006.

Activities included presentations,

performances, and ongoing arts

and culture demonstrations by

Native-American craftspeople,

musicians, dancers, and

historians. Crafts demonstrated

during the weekend included

beadwork, star blanket weaving,

pipe carving, the making of

traditional powwow regalia, flute

carving, and the making of burden

baskets. Speakers and performers

included the Northern Cheyenne

Tribal Dancers, flute player and

educator David Wolfs Robe,

musician and hoop dancer Kevin

Locke (1990 NEA National

Heritage Fellow), and songwriter

and storyteller Jack Gladstone.

More than 400 visitors attended

the heritage weekend, despite

inclement weather.

Wyoming

126 National Endowment for the Arts

Background: The American Indian

Heritage Weekend took place in the

picnic area and outdoor amphitheatre

at Devils Tower National Monument. 

Photo courtesy of Devils Tower

National Monument
Grant Highlights

Central Wyoming

College 

RIVERTON

The Robert A. Peck Gallery

on the campus of Central

Wyoming College is a

nontraditional, educational

teaching gallery and the site for

approximately ten exhibitions each

year by regional, national, and

international artists. Besides its

growing collection of outdoor

sculptures, which is making the

college a must-see for those

passing through the region, the

gallery’s exhibitions display a wide

array of contemporary artwork in

all media. 

Central Wyoming College received

an NEA Challenge America grant

of $10,000 to support a sitespecific installation at the Robert

A. Peck Gallery of Trappings: Stories

of Women, Power, and Clothing by

artists Two Girls Working: Tiffany

Ludwig and Renee Piechocki. The

artists describe their project as “a

dialogue about the complicated

landscape of power and its

relationship to personal identity by

asking women to respond to the

question: ‘What do you wear that

makes you feel powerful?’” 

The Trappings project has multiple

parts: a site-specific exhibition

with audio, print, and video

components; interview sessions

with local residents; a Web site

with an archive of all the

interviews; and a book on the

project. The installation at the

Peck Gallery, from November 1-

December 13, 2006, featured a

series of interviews by the artists

with the community’s women

residents, including a

multigenerational group of

Shoshone women. The artists also

gave a lecture on the exhibition

and their examination of people’s

assumptions based on appearance

and image. Approximately 1,500

individuals viewed the exhibit, and

an excerpt from the Peck Gallery

installation will be featured in the

book on Trappings, forthcoming

from Rutgers University Press in

October 2007.

2006 Annual Report 127

An audience member views one of the

videos at the Trappings: Stories of

Women, Power, and Clothing

installation at Central Wyoming College. 

Photo © Two Girls Working
NEA Literature Fellows David Kirby and Kim

Addonizio at the National Book Festival’s

Poetry Pavilion, sponsored by the NEA. 

Photo by Steve Purcell
Literature Fellowships

2006 Annual Report 129

T he NEA provides support to individual creative writers to pursue writing projects through NEA Literature

Fellowships. Among the writers who have benefited from an NEA Literature Fellowship are 21 U.S. Poet

Laureates, 41 Pulitzer Prize winners, one Nobel Laureate, and six recipients of the National Medal of

Arts, the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the federal government. Many of these writers have

received the fellowships during the early stages of their careers, as they have struggled to write, given the

demands of work and family. The fellowships offer a temporary abatement to chasing a paycheck, thus allowing

the writer the time to concentrate on writing. More important than the financial support, many writers credit the

receipt of the Literature Fellowship with giving them the fortitude to keep working at their craft. In all, 3,060

prose writers and poets have benefited from NEA Literature Fellowships since the program was formally

inaugurated in 1967.

Noted novelist Ernest J. Gaines received an NEA Literature Fellowship in 1968, 25 years before he received the

National Book Critics Circle Award for A Lesson Before Dying. He has said, “The NEA grant—a thousand dollars

at that time—encouraged me to keep writing. . . . The young writer needs that. He needs the money, yes—but

he also needs a little recognition now and then to keep pushing himself.”

Although artistic merit always has been at the heart of the fellowship awards, today it is the sole basis on which

the grants are given. Over several months, a diverse panel of readers, composed of distinguished American

writers and two knowledgeable laypersons, read through the blind submissions. All applicants must be U.S.

citizens. Panelists do not know the identities of the writers, their publishing histories, academic achievements, or

previous awards. The highest ranked applications are recommended to the National Council on the Arts and the

NEA Chairman as meriting individual writing fellowships.

Literature Fellowships
Literature Fellowships

130 National Endowment for the Arts

In FY 2006, 50 fiction and nonfiction writers from 25 states, out of an applicant pool of 915, received NEA

Literature Fellowships of $20,000 each for a total federal investment of $1,000,000.

Literature Fellowships also are awarded for the translation into English of literary works written in foreign

languages. Unlike the creative writing fellowships, translation fellowships are awarded for specific projects, and

the panelists are aware of the identity of each applicant. The art of literary translation facilitates the international

exchange of fiction and poetry among cultures. Without translation, most Americans would not be able to enjoy

Virgil, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Natalia Ginzburg, or Naguib Mahfouz. In 2006, 48 applications for Translation

Fellowships were received, of which 13 translators in eight states and one living abroad were awarded grants

totaling $200,000. Translators receive grants of either $10,000 or $20,000 depending on the translation project.

CREATIVE WRITING

FELLOWSHIPS—

PROSE:

All grants are $20,000

Bay Anapol’s writing has

appeared in Laurel Review, Story

Magazine, Michigan Quarterly

Review, Gulf Coast, Manoa, and

the 2001 Pushcart Prize Collection.

Formerly a Stegner Fellow at

Stanford University, she teaches at

the College of Santa Fe. 

Dean Bakopoulos’s novel Please

Don’t Come Back from the Moon

was named a New York Times 100

Notable Books of 2005. Currently,

he is the executive director of the

Wisconsin Humanities Council. His

second novel, Harmony, will be

published in fall 2007.

Joshua Barkan has taught

writing at Harvard and Boston

University. He is the author of the

collection of stories Before

Hiroshima.

Emily Barton won the Bard

Fiction prize for her novel The

Testament of Yves Gundron. She

earned her MFA from the

University of Iowa Writers’

Workshop and currently teaches

writing at the New School. Her

work has appeared in Story,

American Short Fiction, and

Conjunctions.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

graduated from Brown University

and the University of Iowa Writers’

Workshop. She teaches at UC San

Diego. Her first novel, Madeleine is

Sleeping, was a finalist for the

National Book Award.

Shannon Cain is the author of a

story collection, The Necessity of

Certain Behaviors, and her work

has appeared in The Massachusetts

Review, The Florida Review, and

Other Voices.

Oscar Casares graduated from

the University of Iowa Writers’

Workshop, and received a James

Michener Fellowship in 2002. He

teaches at the University of Texas

at Austin. Book magazine named

him one of “10 Writers to Watch”

in 2003.

May-Lee Chai’s second book,

The Girl from Purple Mountain,

was nominated for a National

Book Award in 2001. Her fiction

and essays have been published in

such places as the San Francisco

Chronicle and Missouri Review. 

Terrence Cheng is the author of

two novels: Sons of Heaven and

Deep in the Mountains. He was a

James Michener Fellow at the

University of Miami and currently

teaches English and Creative

Writing at Lehman College. 

Jonathan Dee is the author of

four novels, a staff writer for The

New York Times Magazine, a

frequent contributor to Harper’s,

and a former senior editor of The

Paris Review. He teaches at

Columbia University and the New

School University.
Literature Fellowships

2006 Annual Report 131

J. D. Dolan’s writing has

appeared in Esquire, Shenandoah,

The Antioch Review, The

Mississippi Review, New Stories

from the South, and Best

American Sports Writing. He

teaches in the graduate creative

writing program at Western

Michigan University. 

Michael Downs’s fiction has

appeared in The Gettysburg

Review, The Georgia Review,

Michigan Quarterly Review, and

Five Points. He lives in Missoula,

Montana, where he teaches

journalism.

Tony D’Souza’s fiction has

appeared in The New Yorker, Tin

House, and Iron Horse. In 2000,

he was chosen as one of seven

fiction writers to represent the

United States at the first U. S.-

Cuba Writers Conference since 

the Cuban Revolution.

Debra Magpie Earling earned

her MFA from Cornell University.

Her work has appeared in

Ploughshares, Northeast Indian

Quarterly, and multiple

anthologies.

Christina Fitzpatrick received

her MFA from Sarah Lawrence

College. She is the author of the

short story collection Where We

Lived and the novel What’s the

Girl Worth?

Diana George was born in

Washington, DC. After studying

comparative literature at SUNY

Buffalo, she earned her MFA from

Brown University. She works as a

technical editor. 

Rigoberto González won a

Guggenheim Fellowship and is a

contributing editor for Poets and

Writers Magazine. He has

published poetry, fiction, two

bilingual children’s books, and a

memoir. 

Paul Greenberg’s essays and

fiction have appeared in The New

York Times Magazine, GQ, and on

NPR’s All Things Considered. In the

1990s, he trained journalists in

Siberia, and created Bosnia’s most

popular current affairs news

magazine. 

Andrew Sean Greer is the

recipient of both the Northern

California Book Award and the

California Book Award. Author of

three books, Greer’s work has

appeared in Esquire, The Paris

Review, and The New Yorker.

Cary Holladay, winner of the O.

Henry Prize, has authored a novel

and three story collections. Her

work has appeared in New Stories

From the South: The Year’s Best

2005, The Florida Review, and The

Southern Review.

Bret Anthony Johnston is the

author of Corpus Christi: Stories.

His work has appeared in The Paris

Review and Tin House, and in

numerous anthologies, including

New Stories from the South: The

Year’s Best 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Brad Kessler is the author of

two novels, and several awardwinning children’s books. His work

has appeared in The New Yorker,

The Nation, and Bomb. He is a

recipient of the Lange-Taylor Prize

from Duke University’s Center for

Documentary Studies. 

Jhumpa Lahiri has been

awarded the Pulitzer Prize for

Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway

Award, and a Guggenheim

Fellowship. Her published works

include Interpreter of Maladies and

The Namesake. 

Kelly Link, winner of the World

Fantasy, Nebula, and Hugo

Awards, has published two story

collections, with work appearing in

The Best American Short Stories

2005 and McSweeney’s. She and

her husband run Small Beer Press

in Massachusetts.

William Luvaas has published

two novels: The Seductions of

Natalie Bach and Going Under. His

work has appeared in Antioch

Review, The American Fiction

Anthology (Vol. 9), Glimmer Train,
Literature Fellowships

132 National Endowment for the Arts

The Village Voice, and The

Washington Post Book World.

Rosemary Mahoney won the

Charles E. Horman Prize for Fiction

Writing as an undergraduate at

Harvard University. Her book,

Whoredom in Kimmage, was a

National Book Critics’ Circle finalist

in 1993. 

Vestal McIntyre’s stories have

appeared in Open City and Tin

House, as well as several

anthologies. His short-story

collection You Are Not the One

was a New York Times Book

Review Editors’ Choice. 

Tom McNeal has won an O.

Henry Prize, a California Book

Award, and a PEN USA award for

children’s fiction. His stories have

been anthologized in Best

American Short Stories and

Pushcart Prize Stories.

Michael Mejia received a grant

from the Ludwig Vogelstein

Foundation in 2003, and his

fiction, nonfiction, and reviews

have appeared in Agni, Denver

Quarterly, and Quarterly West. His

novel Forgetfulness was published

in 2005.

Barbara Klein Moss won a

MacDowell Colony fellowship and

two Individual Artist awards from

the Maryland State Arts Council.

Her fiction has appeared in New

England Review, Southwest

Review, and Best American Short

Stories. 

Manuel Muñoz is the author of

two short-story collections. A

graduate of Harvard University, he

received his MFA from Cornell

University. 

Lance Olsen has authored seven

novels, one hypertext, four story

collections, and also written books

of poetry and criticism. His work

has appeared in a variety of

publications, including Fiction

International and Best American

Non-Required Reading. 

In the kitchen, the Presidente-in-Exile’s egg is boiling. It ticks in a pot

of water on the range. Cook cuts a small grapefruit in two. She Saranwraps one half for the fridge, washes the other and pats it dry. A timer

goes ding. She reaches into the boiling water with her fingers, plucks

out the egg, holds it under the cold tap for five seconds, then seats it in

its special cup. Cook is a tiny woman, a Guaraní Indian of

indeterminate age with jet black hair, the hard palms of a tenant

farmer, and skin dark and smooth as burnished jatoba wood. She lays

out breakfast on a tray—soft-boiled egg, grapefruit, two pink packets of

Sweet’N Low, two tablespoons of cottage cheese on a Rye-Krisp, six

ounces of orange juice. Also, The London Financial Times. Also, three

aspirins; he was out and about late last night. An egg spoon, a grapefruit

knife, a cloth napkin. Almost ready. Cook positions a single locustwood toothpick on a tiny copper salver. She then leans over the

grapefruit, purses her lips, and releases a modest pearl of spit onto its

glistening surface. Done. Breakfast is served.

On the west patio, the Presidente-in-Exile prowls through the

newspaper. The sun has just broken the ridge high above the villa. It is

light and already warm. “Buen desayuno, patrón,” cook murmurs as she

places the tray before him. He rattles his paper. He does not speak to

cook, who came with the villa. She retreats, returns to the kitchen to

prepare luncheon. Guests are expected today—that Italian, Bettinger,

and some others from the bank. No breakfast for the mistress. A late

sleeper, Dinorah has yet to see the sun rise in Paraguay.

Daniel Orozco

excerpt from “Somoza’s Dream,” 

published in McSweeney’s, Issue 18 (2005)

Used by permission of the author
Literature Fellowships

2006 Annual Report 133

Regina Ochsner was born and

raised in Salem, Oregon, and she

graduated from Iowa State

University. Her collection of stories,

People I Wanted to Be, was

published in 2005.

Daniel Orozco was a MacDowell

Colony fellow in 2005 as well as a

Jones Lecturer in Fiction at

Stanford University. His stories

have appeared in the Best

American Short Stories, Best

American Mystery Stories, and

Pushcart Prize anthologies. 

Eric Puchner is the Marsh

McCall Lecturer at Stanford

University, where he was a 

Wallace Stegner Fellow. His stories

have appeared in The Chicago

Tribune, The Missouri Review, and

Glimmer Train. 

Emily Raboteau is an assistant

professor at the City College of

New York. Her short stories have

appeared in Callaloo, Tin House,

Best American Short Stories 2003,

and elsewhere. Her first novel, The

Professor’s Daughter, appeared 

in 2005.

Ron Rash holds the John Parris

Chair in Appalachian Studies at

Western Carolina University. In

1994 he was awarded an NEA

Literature Fellowship for his poetry.

His third novel, The World Made

Straight, was published in 2006.

Daniel Asa Rose won an O.

Henry Prize and two PEN Fiction

Awards, and has two books

published, Small Family with

Rooster and Flipping for It. The

editor of the international literary

magazine The Reading Room, he

also reviews books for New York

Magazine.

Patrick Ryan’s first novel, Send

Me, was published in 2006. His

stories have appeared in The Iowa

Review, Ontario Review, Denver

Quarterly, and other journals. He is

a graduate of the MFA Writing

Program at Bowling Green State

University in Ohio.

Matt Ruff graduated from

Cornell University. His novel, Set

This House in Order: A Romance

of Souls, won a Washington State

Book Award and was nominated

for the 2005 International IMPAC

Dublin Literary Award.

Josh Russell is the author of the

novel Yellow Jack. His stories have

appeared in Epoch, French Quarter

Fiction, New Stories from the

South, and elsewhere. He teaches

English and Creative Writing at

Georgia State University.

Margot Singer is assistant

professor in the English

Department at Denison University.

Her prose has appeared in

numerous journals, including

Shenandoah, AGNI, Third Coast,

and Ascent.

Maureen Stanton’s essays have

appeared in Creative Nonfiction,

American Literary Review, and The

Sun, and have been listed as

“notable” in Best American Essays

(1998, 2004, 2005).

Amy Stewart is the author of two

books of creative nonfiction,

including The Earth Moved: On

the Remarkable Achievements of

Earthworms. Her work has been

selected for the Barnes & Noble

“Discover Great New Authors”

Program.

Mary Ann Taylor-Hall is the

author of a short-story collection

and two novels. A recipient of

previous grants from the Kentucky

Arts Council and the NEA, Hall has

published in The Paris Review and

Ploughshares.

Lysley Tenorio’s stories have

appeared in Ploughshares, Manoa,

and The Best New American

Voices 2001. A recipient of a

Wallace Stegner Fellowship at

Stanford University and a Pushcart

Prize, he earned his MFA from the

University of Oregon.

Dawn Turner Trice is an editor

for the Chicago Tribune. Her novel

Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven

won the American Library

Association’s Alex Award. She has

also been awarded two Illinois Arts

Council grants.
Literature Fellowships

134 National Endowment for the Arts

Ashley Warlick was the

youngest-ever recipient of the

Houghton Mifflin Literary

Fellowship in 1996 for her book,

The Distance from the Heart of

Things. She graduated from

Dickinson College and now lives in

Greenville, South Carolina.

Elizabeth Wetmore graduated

from the University of Iowa

Writers’ Workshop. Her writing

has appeared in Crab Orchard

Review, Del Sol Review, and Many

Mountains Moving. 

Nancy Zafris graduated from

Columbia University. She was

awarded her first NEA Literature

Fellowship in 1993. Her novel The

Metal Shredders was a New York

Times Notable Book in 2002.

TRANSLATION

PROJECTS

Aron Aji

Indianapolis, IN • $20,000

To support the translation from

Turkish of the novel The Evening

of the Very Long Day by Bilge

Karasu. Born in Istanbul in 1930,

Karasu is the author of 11 booklength works of fiction, including

nine novels and two collections of

short stories.

Aron Aji is professor of English and

the Associate Dean of the College

of Liberal Arts and Sciences at

Butler University. His other

translations of Karasu’s work

include The Garden of the

Departed Cats in 2004, winner of

the National Translation Award

given by the American Literary

Translators Association, and Death

in Troy in 2002.

Patrick Barron 

San Francisco, CA • $20,000

To support the translation from

Italian of selected poems by

Andrea Zanzotto. Born in a small

village in northern Italy in 1921,

Zanzotto has become one of the

most important living Italian poets.

Patrick Barron is an assistant

professor of English and

Humanities at the City College of

San Francisco and managing

editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary

Studies in Literature and the

Environment. His most recent

book-length translation is Italian

Environmental Literature: An

Anthology, published by Italica

Press in 2003.

Rhonda Buchanan 

Louisville, KY • $10,000

To support the translation from

Spanish of The Secret Gardens of

Mogador: Voices of the Earth by

the Mexican author Alberto Ruy

Sánchez. Born in Mexico City in

1951, Sánchez is currently the

director of the renowned editorial

house Artes de México.

Rhonda Buchanan is a professor of

Spanish at the University of

Louisville. She has translated

Limulus: Visions of the Living Fossil

by Brian Nissen and Alberto Ruy

Sánchez, and is currently

translating the fourth book in

Sánchez’s Mogador series,

tentatively titled Dance of the Fire.

Rebecca Fanany 

Vermont South, Australia • $10,000

To support the translation from

Indonesian of the novel

Entanglement and the novella

Under the Waning Moon by Ismet

Fanany, the translator’s husband.

Born in West Sumatra in 1952,

Ismet Fanany has spent much of

his adult life in the West, namely

the United States and Australia,

affording him a unique

understanding of the differences

between two cultures. 

Rebecca Fanany is a professional

translator and lecturer in

Indonesian at Deakin University in

Melbourne, Australia. She has

lived and worked in Indonesia,

Malaysia, and Singapore

periodically since her first contact

with the region in 1981.

George Hochfield

Berkeley, CA • $10,000

To support the translation from

Italian of Songbook, a collection of

more than 400 poems, by

Umberto Saba. Hochfield will
Literature Fellowships

2006 Annual Report 135

collaborate with Leonard Nathan.

Songbook is viewed as a major

work in 20th-century Italian

literature. Begun in 1921, Saba

continued to add to this collection

until his death in 1957, thus

comprising the entirety of his work

as a poet.

George Hochfield is a retired

professor, whose career has

featured three full books of

translation, including The Officer’s

Camp by Giampiero Carocci,

numerous excerpted translations

of novels, various poem

translations, and two Fulbright

Lectureships in Italy.

William Hutchins

Todd, NC • $20,000

To support the translation from

Arabic of The Seven Veils of Seth,

a novel by Libyan author Ibrahim

al-Koni. Born in 1948, al-Koni

spent his childhood in the desert

as part of the Tuaregs, pastoral

nomads who speak Tamasheq, a

Berber language written in an

ancient alphabet and related to

ancient Egyptian.

William Hutchins is a professor in

the Philosophy and Religion

Department of Appalachian State

University. He has translated more

than a dozen book-length works

of Arabic literature, including alKoni’s Anubis. 

James G. Kates

Fitzwilliam, NH • $10,000

To support the translation from

Russian of the poetry of Mikhail

Aizenberg. Born in Moscow in

1948, Aizenberg is a crucial part

of the last generation of Russian

poets that came to maturity under

the regime of the Soviet Union.

Recipient of an NEA Literature

Fellowship in poetry in 1984,

James Kates is also the translator

of Self-Portraits and Masks by

Isaac Goldemberg and The Score

of the Game by Tatiana

Shcherbina. 

Chana Kronfeld

Berkeley, CA • $20,000

To support the translation from

Hebrew of The Selected Works of

Dahlia Ravikovitch. Kronfeld will

collaborate with Chana Bloch.

Born in 1936 in Tel Aviv, Israel,

Ravikovitch has published to date

ten volumes of poetry and two

collections of short stories, which

has won her numerous awards,

including the Israel Prize in 1998

(the highest national honor).

Chana Kronfeld is a professor of

Hebrew, Yiddish, and Comparative

Literature at the University of

California, Berkeley. Her

collaborative translations with

Chana Bloch include Yehuda

Amichai’s award-winning volume

Open Closed Open in 2000. 

William O’Daly

Auburn, CA • $10,000

To support the translation from

Spanish of two volumes of poetry

previously not translated into

English, The Hands of Day and

World’s End, by Chilean Pablo

Neruda. Born in Parral, Chile, in

1904, Neruda published his first

book of poetry in 1922 and went

on to receive the Nobel Prize for

Literature in 1971.

William O’Daly has translated six

of Pablo Neruda’s books, including

The Book of Questions, The Yellow

Heart, and The Sea and the Bells.

The Hands of Day and World’s End

would complete O’Daly’s

translations of eight volumes of

poetry from Neruda’s late and

posthumous publications. 

Gregory Pardlo, Jr.

Brooklyn, NY • $10,000

To support the translation from

Danish of the three most recent

books of poetry by Niels Lyngsoe.

Born in 1968, Lyngsoe is regarded

as one of the most original poets

working in Denmark today. 

Gregory Pardlo received an MFA in

Poetry from New York University

and currently teaches at Medgar

Evers College in Brooklyn. His

translations include a collection of

Lyngsoe’s poems titled Pencil of

Rays and Spiked Mace.
Literature Fellowships

136 National Endowment for the Arts

Mark Schafer

Cambridge, MA • $20,000

To support the translation from

Spanish of a book-length selection

of poetry by Mexican poet David

Huerta. Born in 1949, Huerta has

published 17 volumes of poetry,

though only a dozen of his poems

and fragments of poems have

been published in English.

Recipient of an NEA Literature

Fellowship for translation in 1993,

Mark Schafer has translated booklength works by Gloria Gervitz,

Jesús Gardea, Alberto Ruy

Sánchez, Eduardo Galeano, and

Virgilio Piñera. Schafer’s translations

of 12 of Huerta’s poems appeared

in Copper Canyon Press’s

anthology Reversible Monuments:

Contemporary Mexican Poetry

(2002).

Timothy Sergay

Worthington, OH • $20,000

To support the translation from

Russian of the novel A Gloom is

Cast Upon the Ancient Steps by

Aleksandr Chudakov. Born in

Soviet Northern Kazakhstan in

1938, Chudakov has published

more than 200 articles on classical

Russian authors of the 19th

century and the history of Russian

philology, as well as five books.

We already know: First we must agree

on which they are; but let us acknowledge that they exist:

they resound in all their weight and gravity

down Nievsky’s Prospekt, in the mutterings of Raskolnikov,

and Cortázar mocks them at every opportunity,

lightens them up, musses their hair, reconciles them

with the rest of the vocabulary so they may rub benignly

against each other and liberty won’t do too much harm,

with its tonnage of Greek marble

and its whiff of existentialism and its undeniable tragic greatness,

to janitor, tenedor, bibelot—although the greatness of this last one

is suspect, for which we have Mallarmé to blame,

there are also the short and decisive words: yes, no, now, never,

turbid love, clean death, rattled poetry,

other words that are like art for art’s sake: sandalwood,

for instance, and words like deoxyribonucleic, telescopic

and possessing an undeniable scientific elegance, a diffuse,

intense, and labyrinthine character, all at once, linked

to that other word, life, and of course there are the combinations,

your mouth, this letter, dozens of verbal objects

that are only important for inexplicable reasons,

spoken at night or during the day, said

or held in silence, in the velvety net

of memory, in the transparent and energetic fortress

of forgetting, that body or fabric from which

are also made the great words, time, so many things.

“Before Saying Any of the Great Words” by David Huerta

Translated from the Spanish by Mark Schafer

forthcoming in Before Saying Any of the Great Words: Selected Poetry 

of David Huerta, 1972-2003 (Copper Canyon Press)

Used by permission of the author
Literature Fellowships

2006 Annual Report 137

Timothy Sergay is the former

recipient of a PEN Translation Fund

award for his work with

Chudakov. His translations have

been featured in numerous

magazines and collections,

including the first chapter of

Chudakov’s A Gloom is Cast Upon

the Ancient Steps, published in

2004 in Words Without Borders:

The Online Magazine for

International Literature. 

Anne W. Twitty

Brooklyn, NY • $20,000

To support the translation from

Spanish of the novel Ursula’s

Dream by the Argentine author

María Negroni. Negroni has

published 11 volumes of poetry,

five collections of critical essays on

topics such as the Gothic

Imagination and Latin American

Women Poets, and one novel.

Anne Twitty has translated works

from such Hispanic writers and

artists as Torres-García, Cecilia

Vicuña, and Magali Alabau. She

has translated two other works of

Negroni’s, including Night Journey

in 2002 and Islandia in 2001.

Ya se sabe: primero tenemos que ponemos de acuerdo 

en cuáles son, pero convengamos en que existen:

se escuchan con todo su peso y gravedad 

por la Perspectiva Nievski, en el murmullo de Raskolnikov,

y Cortázar se burla de ellas a cada rato 

y las aligera, las despeina, las reconcilia

con el resto del vocabulario, para que puedan rozarse 

sin daño con las demás y libertad no lastime demasiado

con su tonelaje de mármol griego 

y su tufillo existencialista y su indudable grandeza trágica

a tenedor, a janitor, a bibelot—aunque esta última 

es sospechosa de grandeza por culpa de Mallarmé,

también están las cortas y decisivas, sí, no, ahora, nunca,

la turbia amor, la limpia muerte, la zarandeada poesía,

otras que son como el arte por el arte, sándalo,

por ejemplo, y algunas como desoxirribonucleico, telescópica

y de indudable elegancia científica, de una manera vaga 

e intensa y laberíntica, al mismo tiempo, conectada

con esa otra, vida, y están las combinaciones, claro,

tu boca, esta carta, docenas de objetos verbales 

que sólo tienen importancia por razones inexplicables,

pronunciadas en la noche o el día, dichas

o guardadas en el silencio, en la red aterciopelada 

de la memoria, en la fortaleza transparente y enérgica

del olvido, ese cuerpo o tejido del que también 

están hechas las grandes palabras, el tiempo, tantas cosas.

“Antes de decir cualquiera de las grandes palabras” 

by David Huerta

[from Lápices de antes, Guadalajara, Mexico: Toque de Poesía, 1994]

Used by permission of the author
NCA member Mark Hofflund (right) with

National Assembly of State Arts Agencies CEO

Jonathan Katz at a 2006 NCA meeting. 

Photo by Kathy Plowitz-Worden
National Council on the Arts

2006 Annual Report 139

T he National Council on the Arts advises the

Chairman of the National Endowment for the

Arts on agency policies and programs. It reviews

and makes recommendations on applications for grants,

funding guidelines, leadership initiatives, and nominations

for the National Medal of Arts. The Council meets three

times a year.

Fourteen voting members of the Council—all private

citizens—are appointed by the President and confirmed

by the Senate for six-year terms, and are selected for their

distinguished service or achieved eminence in the arts. In

1997, Congress enacted legislation that required the

appointment of six members of Congress, three from the

House of Representatives and three from the Senate, to

serve in an ex officio, non-voting capacity for two-year

terms. Current Council members can be found on the

NEA Web site at www.arts.gov. 

National Council on the Arts

NEA National Heritage Fellow Wayne

Henderson performs at the November 2005

National Council on the Arts meeting. 

Photo by Kathy Plowitz-Worden
National Council on the Arts

140 National Endowment for the Arts

James K. Ballinger

Museum Director

Phoenix, Arizona

Don V. Cogman 

Patron/Trustee

Scottsdale, Arizona

Mary Costa 

Opera Singer

Knoxville, Tennessee

Katharine Cramer DeWitt 

Patron/Trustee

Cincinnati, Ohio

Makoto Fujimura

Visual Artist

New York, New York

David H. Gelernter 

Author/Critic/Educator

Woodbridge, Connecticut

Mark Hofflund

Theater Administrator 

Boise, Idaho

Teresa Lozano Long 

Patron/Trustee

Austin, Texas

Maribeth Walton McGinley 

Art Director/Designer

Glendale, California

Jerry Pinkney

Artist/Illustrator

Croton-on-Hudson, New York

Deedie Potter Rose 

Patron/Trustee

Dallas, Texas

Gerard Schwarz 

Symphony Orchestra Conductor

Seattle, Washington

Terry Teachout

Critic/Author

New York, New York

Karen Lias Wolff

Music Educator

Ann Arbor, Michigan

The following Council members served in FY 2006: 

Ex officio members

Robert Bennett

U.S. Senate

(R-Utah)

Mike DeWine

U.S. Senate

(R-Ohio)

Patrick Leahy

U.S. Senate

(D-Vermont)

Betty McCollum

U.S. House of Representatives

(D-Minnesota)

Howard “Buck” McKeon

U.S. House of Representatives

(R-California)

Patrick Tiberi

U.S. House of Representatives

(R-Ohio)
Financial Summary

2006 Annual Report 141

SUMMARY OF FUNDS AVAILABLE FY 2006 

Appropriated Program and State/Regional Grant Funds 100,654,308

Appropriated Balance, Prior Year1 4,333,620

Nonfederal Gifts1 3,483,184

Interagency Transfers1 4,377,606

TOTAL PROGRAM FUNDS AVAILABLE 112,848,718

TOTAL PROGRAM SUPPORT FUNDS AVAILABLE2 2,298,763

TOTAL SALARY AND EXPENSE FUNDS AVAILABLE3 4 25,307,862

TOTAL FUNDS AVAILABLE 140,455,343

Financial Summary

1 Includes FY 2005 unobligated funds brought forward into FY 2006 and prior year deobligations carried forward into FY 2006.

2 Includes appropriated funds including FY 2005 unobligated funds brought forward into FY 2006 and prior year deobligations brought

forward into FY 2006.

3 Includes appropriated funds, nonfederal gifts, and interagency transfers including FY 2005 unobligated funds brought forward into FY

2006 and prior year deobligations brought forward into FY 2006.

4 Includes nonfederal gifts and interagency transfers held on behalf of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Financial Summary

142 National Endowment for the Arts

Access to Artistic Excellence

Direct Endowment Grants

Project Support2 37,416

Challenge America: Reaching Every Community 11,107

National Initiative: American Masterpieces 5,410

Total Access to Artistic Excellence 53,933

Learning in the Arts

Direct Endowment Grants

Project Support 8,913

Partnerships for the Arts 1,750

National Initiative: American Masterpieces 500

Total Learning in the Arts 11,163

Partnerships for the Arts

State Partnerships

State & Regional 23,359

Underserved 6,282

Challenge America: Reaching Every Community 7,063

National Initiative: American Masterpieces 4,730

Subtotal State Partnerships 41,434

Direct Endowment Grants 460

Total Partnerships for the Arts 41,894

Total Program Funds 106,990

Total Program Support 1,870

Total Salaries & Expenses3 23,498

TOTAL 132,358

Summary of Funds Obligated for FY 20061 FY 2006

($ in thousands)

1 Includes appropriated funds, appropriated funds balances brought forward into FY 2006, nonfederal gifts, and interagency transfers.

2 Includes $1,963K for Save America’s Treasures and $3,700K for Arts on Radio and Television.

3 Includes funds from nonfederal gifts obligated on behalf of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities of which $259K

was obligated in support of grants and cooperative agreements.
Appropriations History

2006 Annual Report 143

Fiscal Year Total Funds

1966 $ 2,898,308

1967 $ 8,475,692

1968 $ 7,774,291

1969 $ 8,456,875

1970 $ 9,055,000

1971 $ 16,420,000

1972 $ 31,480,000

1973 $ 40,857,000

1974 $ 64,025,000

1975 $ 80,142,000

1976 $ 87,455,000

1976T* $ 35,301,000

1977 $ 99,872,000

1978 $ 123,850,000

Fiscal Year Total Funds

1979 $ 149,585,000

1980 $ 154,610,000

1981 $ 158,795,000

1982 $ 143,456,000

1983 $ 143,875,000

1984 $ 162,223,000

1985 $ 163,660,000

1986 $ 158,822,240

1987 $ 165,281,000

1988 $ 167,731,000

1989 $ 169,090,000

1990 $ 171,255,000

1991 $ 174,080,737

1992 $ 175,954,680

Fiscal Year Total Funds

1993 $ 174,459,382

1994 $ 170,228,000

1995 $ 162,311,000

1996 $ 99,470,000

1997 $ 99,494,000

1998 $ 98,000,000

1999 $ 97,966,000

2000 $ 97,627,600

2001 $104,769,000

2002 $115,220,000

2003 $115,731,000

2004 $120,970,815

2005 $121,263,000

2006 $124,406,353

Appropriations History

Fiscal Years 1966 – 2006

* In 1976, the Federal government changed the beginning of the fiscal year

from July 1 to October 1, hence the 1976 Transition (T) Quarter.
CREDITS

144 National Endowment for the Arts

2006 Annual Report published by:

National Endowment for the Arts

Office of Communications

Felicia Knight, Director

Don Ball, Publications Manager/Editor

October 2007

Researched and written by Elizabeth Stark, Rebecca Ritzel, 

Paulette Beete, and Don Ball. 

With thanks to NEA staff for their assistance, and to grantees for 

their photographs and information. 

This annual report, as well as all grant and panel information for 

FY 2006, can be ordered free of charge and accessed electronically 

at the NEA Web site: www.arts.gov.

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

2006 Annual Report designed by:

Fletcher Design, Inc. 

Washington, DC

Front Cover: Rachel Gellert as Collette (far right) in Love’s Labor’s Lost at 

Taconic High School in Massachusetts, part of Shakespeare & Company’s

Shakespeare in Action program. 

Photo by Elizabeth Aspenlieder

Back Cover: Nora’s Necktie Flower Garden by Nora Ezell, part of the Montgomery

Museum of Arts’s collection of African-American quilts.

Photo by Emily Stuart Thomas

Voice/TTY: (202) 682-5496

For individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Individuals who do not use conventional print may contact the Arts Endowment’s Office 

for AccessAbility to obtain this publication in an alternate format. 

Telephone: (202) 682-5532

This publication was printed on recycled paper.
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public 

agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both

new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; 

and providing leadership in arts education. Established by

Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal

government, the Endowment is the nation’s largest annual

funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states,

including rural areas, inner cities and military bases.
A Great Nation Deserves Great Art.

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

www.arts.gov

Not for sale–Available for free at www.arts.gov