National 

Endowment 

for the Arts

2000 ANNUAL REPORT
M ISS ION STATEMENT

The National Endowment for the Arts, an investment in America’s living cultural heritage,

serves the public good by nurturing human creativity, supporting community spirit, and fostering appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation’s artistic accomplishments.
The President

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

It is my pleasure to transmit the Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2000 of the

National Endowment for the Arts.

Over the last 35 years, the National Endowment for the Arts has brought

the arts to thousands of communities throughout the nation, awarding

more than 115,000 grants in all 50 states and the six U.S. jurisdictions.

This year saw the launching of the new Creative Links program, which

provides arts instruction for at-risk youth. This program, together with the

ArtsREACH community arts development initiative, will be important

components of the Challenge America initiative to begin in Fiscal Year 2001.

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

commitment to making high quality art available to all Americans.

Bill Ivey

Chairman
With support from an

NEA Heritage & Preservation grant, Newband of

Nyack, New York restored

and retuned Harry

Partch’s Bamboo Marimba

II for use in concerts and

recordings. Harry Partch

is one of America’s most

inventive composers, creating his own instruments

(such as the Bamboo

Marimba) to perform his

unique compositions.

(Photo by Steve Hockstein)
Chairman’s Statement 4

National Council on the Arts 7

Grants to Organizations 8

Creation & Presentation 9

Education 14

Access 17

Heritage & Preservation 20

Planning & Stabilization 23

Arts on Radio and Television 25

Individual Fellowships 27

Literature Fellowships 27

American Jazz Masters Fellowships 31

National Heritage Fellowships 32

Contents

State & Regional Partnerships 33

Leadership Initiatives 35

National Millennium Projects 35

Creative Links 37

ArtsREACH 38

Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure 39

Initiative

International Exchanges 40

Interagency Partnerships 41

AccessAbility 42

Other Initiatives 43

– JazzNet 43

– New Public Works 44

– Theater Arts Residencies/Career 45

Development Programs

– Arts Education Partnership 46

Save America’s Treasures 47

Policy Research & Analysis 48

National Medal of Arts 49

Financial Summary 50

Appropriations History 51
4 Chairman’s Statement

tended dance programs across the nation. This

overwhelming increase in audiences for the arts

is yet another indication of the importance of

art in American life.

It is through our grantmaking function that

we provide the most direct assistance to America’s communities. Total appropriated funds for

fy 2000 were $97,627,600, with more than

1,900 grants awarded in the areas of Grants to

Organizations, Individual Fellowships, Partnership Agreements, and Leadership Initiatives,

totaling $83,482,942. Grantees must match each

grant dollar with a dollar from other sources,

which means that the nea’s support helps leverage other arts funding, both public and private.

Two grant programs begun in 2000 illustrate

the nea’s commitment to communities. The

New Public Works initiative provided nearly

$500,000 to help fund national design competitions for a range of public projects from schools

to housing to parks. The initiative will make

available high-quality design for these community facilities. The Creative Links pilot program

provided $1,435,000 to support partnerships between arts organizations and other community

groups for artists’ residencies in after-school

or summer programs for youth. Artists act as

mentors as well as teachers and instill valuable

life skills in the students, often from lowincome communities, in addition to increased

knowledge of and ability in the arts.

Commitment to Communities

The year 2000 was an important one for the

National Endowment for the Arts: it marked

the 35th anniversary of the nea, as well as the

beginning of a new millennium. It is appropriate, then, to examine not only the Endowment’s activities over the past fiscal year—as

this Annual Report documents—but how the

nea continues to forward its mission: fostering

creativity, strengthening communities through

the arts, promoting arts education, and nurturing the nation’s cultural heritage.

The legacy of the nea over the last 35 years is

impressive and lasting. In the early 1960s, there

were fewer than ten state arts agencies. Today

every state, the District of Columbia and the

Commonwealths of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands have arts

agencies, in addition to the seven regional arts

organizations. To increase access to the arts for

all Americans through support for artists and

arts organizations, 40 percent of nea funds—

more than $33 million—were allocated to these

state and regional arts agencies in fy 2000. In

addition, we have seen a more-than-tenfold increase in the number of cultural nonprofit organizations over the last three decades, leading

to more arts activities and programs throughout

the country. As the number of arts agencies and

organizations has grown, so has the size of arts

audiences. For example, in 1965 roughly one

million people bought tickets for dance performances, mostly in New York City; by the

late 1990s, more than 35 million people atChairman’

s 

Statement
Looking at 2000...

In 2000, the nea celebrated its 35th anniversary,

and to highlight some of the Endowment’s

significant achievements we published A Legacy

of Leadership: Investing in America’s Living Cultural Heritage since 1965. The publication features

more than fifty nea projects that have made a

lasting di∑erence to communities, individuals,

and organizations over the last 35 years. Although

they constitute a small sampling of the important

projects nea has funded over the years, these

stories speak to the lasting value of a modest

federal investment in America’s cultural life.

As part of our anniversary celebration, a Harvard University nea Forum on America’s Creative Legacy examined the state of the arts in

America today, and the nea’s role in maintaining and building the arts in our communities.

Joining me in discussing these important issues

were the last four chairs of the nea: Jane

Alexander, John Frohnmayer, Frank Hodsoll,

and Livingston Biddle.

The nea celebrated the leap into the new millennium with the continuation of its National

Millennium Projects, supporting activities in all

50 states and involving local communities in the

creation and preservation of artistic works. For

example, the nea worked with the American 

Library Association on “LIVE at the Library

2000: Building Cultural Communities,” which

featured readings and performances by artists

and writers at libraries nationwide. The project

showcased libraries as cultural resources that,

through the interaction of artists and audience,

bring communities together. In a similar vein, the

Favorite Poem Project, a National Millennium

Fostering Arts Education

Arts education, as the Creative Links program

demonstrates, is one of the nea’s primary focuses. In addition to granting millions of dollars

each year to support arts education programs,

the nea also partners with other federal agencies

on arts education initiatives, such as those with

the U.S. Department of Education on media literacy, and with federal advisory committees, such

as the President’s Committee on the Arts and the

Humanities on the Coming Up Taller awards.

In fy 2000, a collaboration linking the nea

and the U.S. Department of Education awarded

nearly $1 million in grants to improve media literacy in young people. The grants were awarded

to school districts to help students better understand and interpret the artistic content of electronic media images, especially those containing

violence, and to use the media arts to communicate their ideas creatively.

For the third year, the nea, the National

Endowment for the Humanities, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities presented the Coming Up Taller awards,

honoring excellence in after-school, weekend,

and summer arts and humanities programs for

children. These awards focus national attention

on programs that are making a real di∑erence in

children’s lives, such as the People’s Light &

Theatre Company of Malvern, Pennsylvania,

which brings together professional theater

artists and children from impoverished areas to

use the theater arts for self-expression.

These are just two examples of the many arts

education activities the nea undertakes. Additional detailed examples are found in this report

under Grants to Organizations in Education,

the Creative Links program, and the Arts Education Partnership.

Chairman’s Statement 5

Marcus Green performs in

the final rehearsals of

Three Animal Kings as part

of the People’s Light &

Theatre Company’s program that won a 2000

Coming Up Taller award.

(Photo by Mark Garvin)

From left to right: 

Chairman Bill Ivey with former chairs Jane Alexander,

John Frohnmayer, Livingston Biddle, and Frank

Hodsoll at the NEA Forum

on America’s Creative

Legacy at Harvard 

University. (Photo by 

Mark Morelli)
lion in fy 2001 to begin the program.

Challenge America enables the nea to expand its important work fostering the arts

throughout the nation, working with partners

both large and small, and serving citizens

through the arts. To advance our national conversation about the importance of living cultural heritage to our families and communities,

I recently proposed a Cultural Bill of Rights.

The rights of all Americans include:

Heritage. The right to fully explore America’s

artistic traditions that define us as families,

communities, ethnicities, and regions.

A Creative Life. The right to learn the

processes and traditions of art, and the right to

create art.

Artists and Their Work. The right to engage

the work and knowledge of a healthy community of creative artists.

Performances, Exhibitions, and Programs.

The right to be able to choose among a broad

range of experiences and services provided by a

well-supported community of cultural organizations.

Art and Diplomacy. The right to have the rich

diversity of our nation’s creative life made available to those outside of the United States.

Understanding Quality. The right to engage

and share in art that embodies overarching

values and ideas that have lasted through the

centuries.

As we move into a new millennium, the nea

is committed to citizen service, and to bringing

the benefits of engagement in art, creativity,

and America’s living cultural heritage to communities and families throughout the nation.

The activities described in this report demonstrate the nea’s commitment to these goals.

Bill Ivey

Chairman

Project in partnership with Boston University,

the Library of Congress, and the New England

Foundation for the Arts, celebrated poetry and

the important place it holds in the lives of

Americans. The project assembled an audio and

video archive of hundreds of Americans from

all walks of life reading their favorite poems. A

premiere public screening of the video recordings was held at the Library of Congress in

March 2000. These are just two examples of the

special projects that touched American lives as

we celebrated the beginning of a new century.

...And Beyond

As we move into the 21st century, technology

becomes more and more important to our programs. To expand the resources available on our

Web site, the nea added a new feature, Cultural Funding: Federal Opportunities. This online guide helps nonprofit arts organizations locate potential federal support for cultural

programs by identifying more than 100 federal

programs and related project examples. By engaging the power of the Internet, we help the

arts community better access the resources necessary to develop quality arts activities.

Today, the nea enjoys bipartisan Congressional support, and again we are seeing the Endowment’s budget grow. In this time of transition, the future holds many exciting

opportunities. One of the major initiatives the

nea is undertaking is Challenge America, an

innovative initiative designed to strengthen

America’s communities through the unique

power of the arts. Challenge America will carry

forward both the Creative Links program described earlier and the Artsreach program that

ended in 2000, a three-year pilot program targeting the 20 states most underrepresented

among the nea’s direct grantees. In its first

year, Challenge America will focus on arts education, access to the arts, and community development projects. Congress appropriated $7 mil6 Chairman’s Statement
Member whose term

expired in 1998*

Judith O. Rubin

Patron/Trustee

New York, NY

Members whose terms 

expired in 2000*

Patrick Davidson

Television Producer

Chatsworth, CA

Terry Evans

Photographer

Chicago, IL

Ronnie F. Heyman

Patron/Trustee

New York, NY

Richard J. Stern

Patron/Trustee

Chicago, IL

Luis Valdez

Theater Company Director

San Juan Bautista, CA

Townsend D. Wolfe III

Museum Director

Little Rock, AR

Member whose term

expires in 2001

Hsin-Ming Fung

Architect

Los Angeles, CA

Members whose terms 

expire in 2002

Joy Harjo

Poet/Musician

Honolulu, HI

Nathan Leventhal

Patron/Trustee

New York, NY

Marsha Mason

Actor/Director

Santa Fe, NM

Joan Specter

Patron/Trustee

Philadelphia, PA

Members whose terms 

expire in 2004

Gordon Davidson

Theater Center Director/

Producer

Los Angeles, CA

Cleo Parker Robinson

Dance Company Director/

Choreographer

Denver, CO

Ex o≈cio members 

(terms expire in 2002)

Mike DeWine

United States Senator

(R-Ohio)

Richard J. Durbin

United States Senator

(D-Illinois)

Je∑ Sessions

United States Senator

(R-Alabama)

(three vacancies)

U.S. House of Representatives

National Council on the Arts 7

National 

Council on the Arts

Bill Ivey, Chairman

*Continue to serve 

until a successor takes o≈ce.
The National Endowment for the Arts o∑ers assistance to a wide range of nonprofit organizations

to support their arts programming. These Grants to Organizations account for more than 45 percent of the Endowment’s annual budget. The NEA funds exemplary projects in all artistic disciplines, including dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, media arts, music, musical theater, opera, theater, and visual arts in addition to supporting arts education, museums, and

multidisciplinary projects. All grants must be matched at least equally by non-federal sources of

funds. Multistate grants are those that are awarded to projects that tour or are distributed across

state lines, broadening the impact of federal investment.

Panels made up of private citizens review grant applications and recommend proposals for

funding. NEA sta∑ selects artists, arts administrators, arts patrons, and at least one layperson not

employed in the arts to serve on each panel, ensuring diverse aesthetic, cultural, ethnic, and geographic perspectives. To avoid conflicts of interest, panelists do not consider applications from organizations with which they are a≈liated. Panel recommendations for funding are forwarded to

the National Council on the Arts for further review. Applications approved by the Council are

then forwarded to the Chairman, who has final authority on all funding decisions.

The following pages contain examples of some of the projects that the NEA supported during

FY 2000. Complete listings of FY 2000 grants and panelists are posted on the Endowment’s Web

site at www.arts.gov.

Grants to 

Organizations

8 Grants to Organizations

FISCAL YEAR 2000 

FACTS AND FIGURES

Grants to Organizations

Number of Grant

Applications Received:

2,599

Number of Grants

Awarded: 1,487

Dollar Amount of Grants

Awarded: $36,573,121

APPLICATIONS GRANTS MULTISTATE GRANTS

Grant Category Number Amount Number Amount Number Amount 

Received Requested Awarded Awarded Awarded Awarded

Creation & Presentation 1,183 $73,128,978 708 $16,855,670 187 $5,404,400

Access 400 $25,497,361 209 $4,462,500 61 $1,491,500

Education 543 $35,967,500 247 $6,274,250 45 $1,370,250

Heritage & Preservation 368 $20,034,369 207 $3,743,172 71 $1,500,050

Planning & Stabilization 105 $7,748,243 72 $2,237,529 34 $1,258,000

Arts on Radio and Television * * 44 $3,000,000 44 $3,000,000

*Applications received and amount requested for Arts on Radio and Television grants were included in Creation & Presentation, Access, and Heritage & Preservation totals.
Bridging the Century activities went beyond

the actual concerts. To engage the community

in the importance of the music, the project included open rehearsals, pre-concert discussions,

master classes, and a composer-soloist panel. In

addition, the Orchestra’s adult education programs and “Scholars on the Circle,” a six-week

continuing education course, incorporated discussions about 20th century string repertoire

and the featured works into the curriculum. All

performances were broadcast locally, reaching

approximately 120,000 regional listeners. The

joy of this music was shared by people outside

the Cleveland area as well: the works by Rathbun, Bartók, and Berg were broadcast nationally on public and commercial radio, and were

projected to reach more than 2 million people

across the country.

Cleveland Orchestra Examines 

the Influence of 20th Century String 

Compositions

At the dawn of the 21st century, the Cleveland

Orchestra and its music director, Christoph von

Dohnányi, examined how the 20th century

influenced compositions for string instruments,

focusing on the continuing evolution of new

string performance techniques. The Bridging

the Century project, supported by an nea

Creation & Presentation grant, consisted of

eight programs featuring works by composers

Dmitri Shostakovich, Edward Elgar, Alban

Berg, Leonard Bernstein, Sergei Prokofiev, and

Samuel Adler, as well as a rare performance of

Béla Bartók’s revolutionary Music for Strings,

Percussion, and Celesta. An internationally

renowned collection of guest conductors and

musicians contributed their talents to the project, including violinists Gil Shaham and

William Preucil and cellists Truls Mørk and

Stephen Geber. In addition, to highlight the

continued importance of string instruments in

the new millennium, the Orchestra commissioned Je∑rey Rathbun to compose a work featuring its cello section. The Orchestra performed the world premiere of the work, entitled

Motions for Cellos, to glowing reviews. More

than 40,000 people attended the 25 performances, which ran from December 1999 through

November 2000.

Grants to Organizations/Creation & Presentation 9

Musical director Christoph

von Dohnányi conducting

the Cleveland Orchestra

in Rathbun’s Motions for

Cellos. (Photo by Roger

Mastroianni)

CREAT ION & PRESENTAT ION

The nea’s Creation & Presentation grants support the broad spectrum of American creativity, assisting in the creation of artistic works and encouraging the public presentation of art forms from all cultures and time periods. Creation & Presentation is by far the largest of the Grants to Organization

categories, awarding 708 grants in fy 2000 across all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and

Puerto Rico. Of these, 50 were awarded in states previously underrepresented by direct nea grants.
Mark Taper Forum Produces YearLong Salute to the Millennium

The Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, with support from an nea Creation &

Presentation grant, developed the Millennium

Project, designed to create a meaningful theatrical response to the end of the 20th century

and the start of the 21st. Rather than celebrate

the year 2000 with a one-time festival or retrospective, the Mark Taper Forum used the occasion to create a new annual series of plays, “Taper, Too,” which reaches an expanded audience

by developing artists whose unique perspectives

reflect the diversity of Los Angeles’ communities. In its first year, the Millennium Project

presented a series of four new plays from three

of the Taper’s playwright development laboratories—the Asian Theatre Workshop, Latino

Theatre Initiative, and Other Voices Project.

One of the new plays produced as part of the

Millennium Project was Weights by playwright

Lynn Manning. Manning was a visual artist

until age 23, when he was shot and blinded by

an unknown assailant. Since then, Manning has

turned to writing as a way of expressing his art

and exploring his disability. Manning used

Weights to examine his physical loss and the

many ways his identity have evolved since the

gunshot blinded him. Presented as a one-man

show, Manning traced his life from an impoverished childhood through his blinding to the

present, without resorting to pity or bitterness,

and demonstrated the power of art in overcoming adversity. The Taper, with the assistance of

the Braille Institute and League for the Junior

Blind, provided Braille programs and live audio

descriptions to blind and visually impaired theater-goers who attended the play.

1 0 Grants to Organizations/Creation & Presentation

Lynn Manning in Mark Taper Forum’s production of

Weights, written and performed by Manning and directed by Robert Egan.

(Photo by Craig Schwartz)
JAZZDANCE Celebrates the 

Hundredth Birthday of American 

Composer Copland

Marking the centennial celebration of the birth

of American composer Aaron Copland, choreographer Danny Buraczeski created his first

full-length work for his Minneapolis, Minnesota-based dance company jazzdance with

the support of an nea Creation & Presentation

grant. The hour-long dance work, entitled Copland: Music and Imagination, was a collage of

movement and music in ten parts, each part

flowing into the next without pause. The work

started with an excerpt from one of Copland’s

most well known works, Billy the Kid, and proceeded to more unfamiliar territory, including

excerpts from his Four Piano Blues, Clarinet

Concerto, and Duet for Violin and Piano. Copland’s 1940 piece, Quiet City, was presented in

its entirety. By choosing a variety of Copland’s

works, many obscure or unknown to the general

public, Buraczeski e∑ectively demonstrated the

breadth of Copland’s music.

Buraczeski captured the spirit of America

that infiltrates Copland’s music with a sense of

joy and optimism in his choreography. For example, the wide open country feeling that one

gets from Copland’s use of folk music motifs in

his ballet Billy the Kid is replicated by Buraczeski’s pantomime of a cowboy examining

the big sky of the West. Buraczeski’s choice of

interpretative rather than programmatic dance

steps for the Copland pieces allows the dancers

the opportunity to highlight the mood and

spirit of the music. The eight performances of

the work drew more than 1,000 people, presenting a di∑erent view of Copland’s music

through the prism of jazzdance’s intricate performances.

Grants to Organizations/Creation & Presentation 1 1

JAZZDANCE’s production of

Copland: Music and Imagination, a dance work by

Danny Buraczeski, celebrated the centennial

birthday of composer

Aaron Copland. (Photo by

Erik Saulitis)
presentations, instead using his experience to

demonstrate how poetry had helped him turn

his life around. Not poetry alone however; Rodriguez also emphasized the importance of

family and culture in making a community

strong and its members successful. With an

ever-growing Hispanic population in North

Carolina—jumping by 100 percent from 1990

to 1998—Rodriguez presented a new awareness

of this ethnic group, both to people who still

see Latin American populations as “the other”

and to the Hispanic community itself.

“The greatest accomplishment of this program in our area was the number of people who

were reached and excited by Luis’s basic message—that writing and creativity can truly save

a life,” said site coordinator Susan Winberg in

Boone, North Carolina. “In addition, I think a

number of people in our fairly isolated mountain area became much more aware of the Chicano/Latino culture and of educational and equity issues in society as a whole.”

The Power of Poetry Is Brought to

Rural North Carolina

Luis Rodriguez believes in the power of poetry.

Poetry helped him escape the gang life he was a

part of while growing up in South Central Los

Angeles, as documented in his memoir Always

Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His

belief that poetry could change lives led him to

start “Youth Struggling for Survival,” a movement that strives to turn young people away

from violence and help them find meaning in

life. The North Carolina Literary Consortium

(nclc) chose to bring the passion, expertise,

and experience of Luis Rodriguez to North

Carolina for 10 one-week residencies in 2000 as

part of Word Wide: Writers of the Americas.

Word Wide, supported in part by an nea Creation & Presentation grant and the North

Carolina Arts Council, included readings and

discussions, hands-on class sessions, and

workshops at such diverse locations as public

libraries, schools and colleges, homes for battered women and at-risk children, and correctional facilities. nclc estimates that nearly

8,000 persons, more than half of them under 18

years of age, attended Rodriguez’s sessions, and

another 20,000 were reached through radio and

television broadcasts.

By focusing on Latin American poetry and

literature, Word Wide broadened local communities’ understanding of the diverse cultures in

their midst. In addition, Rodriguez’ success as a

writer encouraged aspiring writers in all the areas he visited, often helping them to see how

they can use art to better understand themselves and their environments. Rodriguez never

shied away from his violent past during his

1 2 Grants to Organizations/Creation & Presentation

Poet Luis Rodriguez. 

(Photo courtesy of the North

Carolina Arts Council)
tor, longtime Glass collaborator, JoAnne

Akalaitis. Glass’s score, written for a string

quartet plus double bass, used his familiar driving, hypnotic features to good e∑ect, resembling the sound of a relentless machine.

The opera met great success as it traveled

throughout the country. The Seattle Weekly commented that “Glass’ great strength as an opera

composer is his skill in text setting. Not a syllable was unclear, with the naturalistic speech

rhythms of the vocal lines bouncing o∑ the

neutral, chugging accompaniment.” The New

York Times stated that “Mr. Glass’s signature

technique of ravishment by repetition lends itself well to the story’s dreamlike state of unbroken suspense.”

Commissioned by A Contemporary Theatre in

Seattle, Washington and supported by an nea

Creation & Presentation grant, preeminent

composer Philip Glass turned to one of the

century’s most highly regarded writers, Franz

Kafka. Taking one of Kafka’s darkest and most

disturbing tales, In the Penal Colony, as his

source material, Glass collaborated with noted

librettist Rudolph Wurlitzer to create what he

refers to as a ‘pocket opera’—more compact

than a typical opera, with a smaller cast and

shorter length. In addition, it can travel more

easily, and after its debut in Seattle, the show

has traveled across the country.

Since his breakthrough theatrical pieces—

Einstein on the Beach, created in 1976 in collaboration with Robert Wilson, and Satyagraha in

collaboration with Constance DeJong in

1980—Glass has acquired a reputation as one of

the country’s leading contemporary composers,

with more than 15 scores, as well as symphonies,

string quartets, and pop recordings, to his

name.

For In the Penal Colony, Glass used the two

main characters of the story—a foreign visitor

who has come to witness an execution and an

o≈cer attempting to maintain the brutal traditions of a former commander—as the principal

singers in the piece. Most of the action and dialogue revolve around an execution machine,

which gruesomely tortures the victims before

killing them. In an unusual twist, Kafka himself

was one of the characters in the opera, writing

furiously and commenting on the action onstage. The dialogue for the Kafka character was

taken from his journals and letters by the direcGrants to Organizations/Creation & Presentation

The Officer (Herbert

Perry) with the execution

machine during A Contemporary Theatre’s

world premiere production of In the Penal Colony,

a new theater work by

Philip Glass. (Photo by

Chris Bennion)

Philip Glass Makes Opera out of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony

1 3
trators throughout the region who want to emphasize media arts and media literacy to their

students attend the sessions, which combine

theory and practice on subjects such as integrating media arts with other academic subjects, applying media literacy concepts, and

gaining confidence in media technologies and

processes.

Understanding the media and new technologies is especially important nowadays since

much of the information youth receive, and entertainment they enjoy, is through television,

film, and the Internet. This involves not only

understanding and interpreting images that

youth encounter through electronic media, but

also engaging them in the process of creating

their own media-based products to communicate their ideas. The Media Arts Academy

helps teachers better educate youth in the media arts, giving them a vocabulary to discuss

and evaluate the media and the knowledge and

means to create their own works.

Northwest Film Center Teaches the

Teachers in the Media Arts

The Portland Art Museum’s Northwest Film

Center is a regional media arts resource and

service organization based in Portland, Oregon.

To encourage the study and appreciation of the

media arts, the Center provides not only exhibitions of quality work in film and video, but

also educational and informational programs to

residents in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. One of those programs, supported by an nea Education grant, is the Media

Arts Academy for Teachers. The Academy is an

annual six-day professional development institute devoted to supporting educators interested

in using the media arts in the classroom. Teachers, guidance counselors, and school adminisOregon teachers participating in the Northwest

Film Center’s annual 

Media Arts Academy for

Teachers in Portland, Oregon practice videography

skills as part of a six-day

immersion into the world

of independent filmmaking

for educators. (Photo by

Beth Nicewonger)

1 4

EDUCAT ION

In fy 2000, the previously single Education and Access category was split into separate budget allocations. For Education, organizations applying proposed projects beyond the one-time, lecture/demonstration model of teaching. Many applications proposed long-term residency programs, providing

significant engagement for young people with professional artists. Other applications proposed programs forwarding the process of lifelong learning, teaching audiences of all ages about artistic traditions.

More than 500 applications were reviewed in fy 2000 for Education grants, and 247 were awarded

in 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands. Twenty-nine of the projects focus solely

on K-12 curriculum-based activities.

Grants to Organizations/Education
1 5

its strong partnership with the Milwaukee

school system, both unique among arts education programs of arts organizations. Data compiled by the Orchestra suggest that ace is having a significant impact on the educational lives

of both the children and the teachers, including

increased inter- and intrapersonal skills, increased conceptual understanding, and improved communication skills. The case study

will help the Orchestra better understand why

these outcomes occur, and what aspects of the

program lead to success. The study is being

conducted during the 2000–2001 school year.

Once the research is completed, the findings

will be disseminated nationally.

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Integrates the Arts with School Curriculum

Since 1996, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra has received nea Education grants to support its Arts in Community Education (ace)

program, which brings musicians and other

artists into the local schools to not only teach

the arts, but to show how they can be integrated with other subject areas. ace focuses not

just on elementary-level but also on middleschool-level students, beginning with kindergarten and following students sequentially

through eighth grade, integrating music study

with math, science, and the language arts. For

instance, ace’s fifth-grade curriculum combines

music with science, with activities including using musical instruments to demonstrate harmony and pitch, and using singing to discuss

how we hear and how we produce sound. The

ace program is currently in 24 public and private schools in eight school districts in the

greater Milwaukee area, with more than 8,000

students, their parents, and 500 teachers participating.

With the fy 2000 nea Education grant, the

Orchestra is undertaking a comprehensive case

study of the ace program to identify way in

which the program can be replicated in other

communities. The Orchestra’s program has long

attracted national attention, including a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, for its integration of the arts into the school curriculum and

The Milwaukee Symphony

Orchestra’s Principal Tuba

Alan Baer uses his garden

hose to impress Parkway

Elementary School (Glendale, Wisconsin) kindergarteners with how far his

brass instrument’s tubing

would reach if uncoiled as

part of the Orchestra’s

Arts in Community Education program. (Photo by

B. Artin Haig)

Grants to Organizations/Education
Elders Share the Arts Provides Training

to Create Arts Programs for the Elderly

It is irrefutable that America’s population is aging. By the year 2030, 28 percent of the population is expected to be over 60 years old, and the

number of those over 85 will have tripled. With

Americans living longer than ever before, there

will be nearly twice as many older adults in

2030 than there are today. Elders Share the Arts

(esta), a nationally recognized community arts

organization located in Brooklyn, New York,

draws on the wealth of resources in this growing population to help elderly persons share

their stories and arts with the younger generations. The sta∑ of professional artists works

with elders and youth to create inter-generational arts programming, transforming life stories into dramatic, literary, and visual presentations. Elderly individuals learn new skills, share

their wisdom, and encounter personal growth,

helping to reduce the sense of loss and isolation

that older adults sometimes experience.

To assist other organizations that wish to

create similar types of programming, esta created a national training program, the Center for

Creative Aging, through a partnership with the

American Society on Aging’s National Learning Center. The Center for Creative Aging,

supported by an nea Education grant, provides

training for professionals in gerontology, education, and the arts in the skills required to create

oral history and arts programs for seniors as

well as for youth. The training provides participants with theoretical and practical professional

development that will assist in creating intergenerational arts education programs and

building community arts partnerships. Centers

have been piloted in New York, San Francisco,

and Philadelphia and are planned for Boston

and Miami.

1 6 Grants to Organizations/Education

A participant at Elders

Share the Arts’ Center for

Creative Aging learns

about creating a “Memory

Box,” one of the many 

creative arts approaches

taught at the Center.

(Photo by Terry Scott)
In 2001, Maria-Theresa Fernandes will collaborate with the Indo-American community in

Wilmington on a project exploring cultural

identity through handmade paper production

and bookmaking. Brian Moss’ project will include a photography class in hand-made cameras in which the participants, cancer patients

from the Wellness Community Center, will

take a series of portraits and self-portraits to

examine issues such as self-image, loss, memory, interaction, and self-expression.

A catalogue will be published documenting

all residencies, including samples of the artwork, essays and interviews regarding the residencies, statements by the artists, biographical

information about the artists, and responses of

the community and participants to the projects.

Visual Artists Take A CommunityBased Approach in Delaware

Since 1992, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts (dcca) has provided visual artists’

residencies to infuse innovative, challenging art

into the local region. The artist-in-residence

works with a community group on a collaborative project designed to actively involve the participants in a thought-provoking, art-making

process.

Supported by an nea Access grant, dcca is

bringing four artists to Wilmington to work

with the city’s underserved populations. Two of

the residencies were completed in 2000 and two

will be completed in 2001. Benjamin Schulman,

an installation artist working with found and

recycled objects, worked with youth in the Boys

and Girls Club on a site-specific installation

that incorporated materials from the local urban

landscape. Schulman led the group in an exploration of the history of the shipbuilding industry in Wilmington and the relationship it has to

the formation of the city’s neighborhoods. The

youth then worked with the artist to create ceramic boats and a sail-shaped quilt with imagery that related to the theme of home and

neighborhood. Visual artist Kim Mayhorn

worked with youth from the Christina Cultural

Arts Center, an African American cultural center, using mixed media to create an installation

reflecting the diversity and history of the

African American community.

Grants to Organizations/Access 1 7

A young participant from

the Clarence Fraim

Branch of the Boys and

Girls Club of Delaware

sculpts a clay boat as part

of the Delaware Center

for the Contemporary

Art’s residency project

with artist Benjamin

Schulman. (Photo courtesy

of the Delaware Center for

the Contemporary Arts)

ACCESS

The nea’s Access grants perform a vital community service by taking the arts to people and places

where few opportunities exist. Disseminating the arts is accomplished in several ways: through regional touring of performances or exhibitions, radio and television broadcasts, publication of books

and magazines, and distribution on the Internet. Of the 400 Access applications received, 209 were

awarded grants in 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Sixty-one of these grants were

multistate.
The University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks

is the primary repository of the state’s cultural

and natural history, containing more than a

million objects of art, archeology, and ethnology. The Museum’s particular emphasis is on

research and education, using the collection to

provide visitors a wealth of information on the

great land to the north.

To serve even greater populations, the Museum is undergoing a massive expansion, doubling in size and enhancing its research and education programs. The expansion includes the

creation of a new Research Center with stateof-the-art laboratories; a new Learning Center

that includes a Pre-College Education Center,

a “Smart Classroom” for university students,

and an Art Study Room; and the Rose Berry

Alaska Art Gallery, which will bring the Museum’s art treasures out of storage and into

public view. Altogether, the expansion will give

Alaskans and visitors to the state a deeper understanding of artistic creation, history, and geology in Alaska.

With support from an nea Access grant, the

Museum is involving the local community in

the planning of the expansion. A community

1 8 Grants to Organizations/Access

advisory group was formed, including representatives from Alaska Native organizations, the

Literacy Council, local schools, public libraries,

university sta∑, and other community advisors.

This group will work with Museum sta∑ on developing the collection, education initiatives,

research projects, and other aspects of the new

expansion. By working with the community, the

Museum is ensuring that it meets the needs of

the local population.

(Left) A computer rending

by GDM/HGA Rendering of

the expanded University of

Alaska Museum; the Rose

Berry Alaska Art Gallery,

the centerpiece of the expansion, will present the

full range of Alaska’s artistic creations, from ancient

ivory carvings to contemporary paintings. (Photo by

Barry McWayne)

(Right) The University of

Alaska Museum plan for

the new Rose Berry Alaska

Art Gallery is to feature

Native American-made

objects, like these moccasins and mukluks, side

by side with pieces from

the Museum’s Fine Arts

collection to present the

full range of Alaskan artistic creations. (Photo by

Barry McWayne)

University of Alaska Museum Expansion Responds to Needs of Community
tional texts and melodies for sacred and secular

celebrations; and Alexander H. Moore, the first

African American in Texas to receive a National Heritage Award, displaying his improvisatory piano style that includes elements of

blues, ragtime, stride, and boogie-woogie.

The series, supported by an nea Access

grant, has been broadcast on 150 radio stations

across the country, and is currently available to

stations interested in rebroadcast at no charge.

Texas Arts Organization Creates 

Radio Program to Feature American

Folk Artists

Documentary Arts, based in Dallas, Texas, was

founded in 1985 to broaden public knowledge

and appreciation of American arts of di∑erent

ethnic cultures through the use of film, video,

and radio. One of the programs Documentary

Arts developed was Masters of Traditional

Music, a 52-part series that explored the complexity of American life, culture, and society

by showcasing the talents of nea National

Heritage Fellowship recipients. Each fiveminute segment features extraordinary performances and interviews with these master

folk artists, and shares the talent and diversity

of some of America’s best artists working in 

traditional styles.

Musical styles highlighted in the series range

from the blues of Mississippi and North Carolina to Hawaiian cowboys to Armenian oud

players in the central valley of California. National Heritage Fellowship recipients featured

include Kevin Locke, singing in the Lakota

Sioux language and expressing the Plains Indian world view; Antonio de la Rosa, who is

credited with shaping the current sound of

Texan-Mexican conjunto tejano music by amplifying the sound and freeing up the button accordion to develop more individualistic stylistic

nuances; Bua Xou Mua, a musician and spiritual leader of the Hmong, who performs tradiGrants to Organizations/Access 1 9

1985 NEA National Heritage Fellowship recipient

Bua Xou Mua, who 

performs sacred Hmong

songs, is featured in 

Documentary Arts’ Masters of Traditional Music

radio series. (Photo courtesy of Documentary Arts)
With the support of an nea Heritage &

Preservation grant, Ballet West included a revival of Nothing Doing Bar in its 2000–01 season, staging the ballet with the same style of

costumes and sets as the original premiere in

San Francisco. Blending vaudeville skits with

the precision of ballet choreography, Christensen

created a work that required the company members to act as well as dance. Although the characters are archetypes, they require the dancers to

accent and develop their roles in order for the

light tone of the ballet to work. The revival of

one of Christensen’s more nostalgic works provides Ballet West the opportunity to pay fitting

tribute to the man who created the company.

Reviving Ballet West Founder Willam

Christensen’s 1950 Tribute to Vaudeville

Willam Christensen, founder of Ballet West in

Salt Lake City, Utah (as well as the Portland

Ballet and San Francisco Ballet) and creator of

the first university degree program in ballet in

the United States, did not start out in ballet.

Instead, he and his brothers Harold and Lew

started their dancing careers on the vaudeville

circuit. In 1950, Christensen celebrated his days

in vaudeville with the ballet Nothing Doing Bar,

set in a speakeasy in the 1920s and featuring the

types of characters he had met in his travels,

such as the drunk who fancies himself a ladies

man, Weasel; the gangster Pay-o∑ Mo; the party

girl Fanny Flapper and her date, Joe College;

Punchy the prizefighter; and the single woman,

Shady Sadie.

2 0 NEA 2000 Annual Report

Ballet West’s production

of Willam Christensen’s

Nothing Doing Bar, featuring Donna Patzius as

Shady Sadie, Jeff F. Herbig

as Punchy, and Jeffrey

Rogers as Weazel. (Photo

by Quinn Farley)

HER ITAGE & PRESERVAT ION

The nea’s Heritage & Preservation category embraces the twin concepts of preserving our nation’s

evolving, multicultural heritage and conserving important works of art that are products and symbols of this heritage. This category supports the presentation and conservation projects in both performing and visual arts. In fy 2000, 368 applications were received for Heritage & Preservation

grants, of which 207 were funded. These projects represent 41 states, the District of Columbia,

Puerto Rico, and American Samoa, with 71 having multistate impact.
cately tied to the region in which they live. So

far, there have been more than 30 graduates of

the program, which is supported by an nea

Heritage & Preservation grant.

The Mississippi Delta region is the poorest

in the United States, with poverty rates of more

than 20 percent. It also has one of the richest

traditions of blues music in the country, from

Son House, Robert Johnson, and John Lee

Hooker to R. L. Burnside, Big Jack Johnson,

and Jessie Mae Hemphill. By teaching at-risk

youth an important aspect of their culture, and

instilling in them qualities that go beyond music, the Delta Blues Education Fund is providing these kids a framework for bettering their

lives and increasing self-worth. An immediate

benefit can be seen in family incomes: the

young musicians are paid for their performances that the Fund sets up. The bigger benefit

can be seen on the faces of the youth as they

tear into another blues song.

In Lambert, Mississippi, they are proving the

old axiom wrong: as it turns out, the blues can

be taught, and the Delta Blues Education Fund

is doing the teaching. Under the tutelage of

Johnnie “Mr. Johnnie” Billington, students enter an apprenticeship program, which includes

classes, performances, and residencies by master

Delta blues musicians. The classes take place

after school and use no textbooks, instead relying on the oral tradition of instruction that has

sustained blues music for generations. The students, usually nine to fourteen years old, learn

to sing and play bass, lead guitar, drums, keyboards, harmonica, saxophone, and trumpet.

Many of the students are impoverished and

many of the instruments are borrowed, but

Billington ensures that they learn important

things that go beyond just music: discipline,

self-esteem, and confidence. Billington does not

allow fighting or cursing, and ensures that they

learn how to work together by playing together.

Just as important, they learn to carry on an important American musical tradition, one intriGrants to Organizations/Heritage & Presentation 2 1

The group Blues Prodigy

(back row: Sherika Hudson, Trent Calvin, Paula

Thompson, and Travis

Calvin. front row: Sarah

Metcalf, Chenika Hudson,

and Kristen Hines), made

up of a group of graduates

in 2000 from the Delta

Blues Education Fund.

(Photo by Panny Mayfield)

Teaching Youth the Blues in Mississippi
sionism and romantic symbolism. He fled Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, eventually

moving to the United States in 1941, where he

established a successful practice.

The coca exhibition on Mendelsohn, supported by an nea Heritage & Preservation

grant, presented original research on the synagogue; photographs and drawings of Mendelsohn’s work; and educational programs on topics such as religious architecture in Weimar

Germany, Mendelsohn’s significance to the

modern architectural movement, and the current adaptive re-use of the original synagogue

space by coca. In addition to the exhibit, coca

produced a catalogue of the architect’s work

with an essay by Kathleen James, a leading

Mendelsohn scholar at the University of California at Berkeley.

COCA in St. Louis Pays Tribute to the

Architecture of Eric Mendelsohn

The Center of Contemporary Arts (coca) in

St. Louis, Missouri, had good cause to celebrate

the architecture of Eric Mendelsohn: he designed the building in which the Center exhibits. Designed in 1946 as the B’nai Amoona

Synagogue, Mendelsohn’s first commission in

the United States, the building was completed

in 1950 and renovated in 1985, when it became

the present home of coca. The ideas he expressed in the design of the building radically

changed thinking about religious architecture in

contemporary society.

One of most widely imitated and prolific

leaders of architectural modernism, Mendelsohn was one of the formulators of the basic

principles of modern architecture in postWorld War I Germany, as demonstrated by the

Einstein tower in Potsdam. Mendelsohn did

not rely on historical precedents in formulating

his designs, instead deriving ideas from expres2 2 Grants to Organizations/Heritage & Presentation

The Center of Contemporary Art in St. Louis’s exhibition, Architect of Form

and Spirit: Eric Mendelsohn,

featuring photographs and

drawings of his work 

as well as educational and

historical programs.

(Photo by Ray Marklin)
Broward County, Florida Looks at

New Ways to Promote the Arts

Broward County’s Cultural A∑airs Division

partnered with the Broward Center for the Performing Arts to create a marketing campaign to

expand radio, television, and Internet promotion of local arts organizations. By making it

easier for the public to access information on

and tickets to local arts and cultural events, the

County hopes to enhance local arts organizations’ ability to increase income. Supported by

an nea Planning & Stabilization grant,

Broward County hired a professional advertising agency to assist local arts groups in developing and implementing a marketing plan for

their events and programs.

In addition, a new Web site was created to

promote arts events throughout the county,

with a searchable calendar, recent art news (including art exhibitions, award ceremonies, research, and conferences), a cultural directory

database searchable by discipline, and various

artistic attractions throughout the county. The

Web site allows visitors to find specific information on arts education, available grants, and

public art and design in the county. Interactive

features include a virtual art tour of the county’s

attractions, and access to Cultural Quarterly, the

county’s magazine about its cultural community. The Web site also allows online ticketing

capacities, a crucial feature that will make it

even easier for the public to attend local arts

events.

Grants to Organizations/Planning & Stabilization 2 3

The home page of the

Broward County 

Cultural Affairs Office

(www.browardarts.net),

which offers online ticketing, an events calendar, 

information about grants

and arts education, and

arts news.

PLANN ING & STAB IL IZAT ION

Through Planning & Stabilization grants, the Endowment supports the activities of national arts

service organizations and local arts agencies in their provision of services to the arts field. Services

funded by the nea include assistance with strategic planning, new technology marketing, feasibility

studies, and other activities that strengthen the capacity of arts providers to carry out their work.

Funded projects help organizations and agencies assess their strengths and weaknesses in bringing

the arts to communities throughout the country. The Endowment received 105 applications for

Planning & Stabilization grants, of which 72 were funded in 24 states and the District of Columbia.
Liebovitz Steinman from Oakland, California,

are working with the local community on a

project encouraging the townspeople to make

short biographical videos, which then will be

shown on front porches during a celebratory

promenade. In addition, they are examining the

possibility of creating exhibits from the surrounding landscape, such as abandoned buses

and materials pulled from the Russell Fork

River, which winds through the town. The goal

of the project is to help the small coal town

look at itself in a di∑erent light.

This technique of immersing artists into local communities was duplicated in eastern Tennessee, with similar success. The project, known

as the Knoxville American Festival Project and

led by the Carpetbag Theatre, connected artistic expression with community issues in

Knoxville with programs such as the Mobility

Project, which involves community members

and artists discussing public access for people

with disabilities.

American Festival Project—a≈liated with the

nonprofit media arts and cultural center Appalshop—used the support of an nea Planning &

Stabilization grant to arrange a conference to

assist local arts agencies in remote Central Appalachia. Artists stayed with local hosts in

southeastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia for the four days of the conference, working with local leaders on strategic planning for

arts activities that will help revitalize the communities.

The conference resulted in a proposal of a

range of collaborative artistic events over the

next five years. For example, in Elkhorn City,

Kentucky, visual artists Suzanne Lacy and Susan

2 4 Grants to Organizations/Planning & Stabilization

Visiting artists Amira

Haqq and Shannon Hummel listen as Evarts, Kentucky resident Danielle

Burke (center) shows them

a strip-mining site in Harlan County. Both artists

stayed with Danielle and

her family for a week during American Festival Project’s Central Appalachia

conference. (Photo by Nic

Paget-Clarke)

National Arts Group Assists Community Arts Agencies in Central Appalachia
record and keep as part of the series’ feature,

Quest for Sound, curated by independent producer Jay Allison. Hundreds of listeners responded. These included a 1938 78 rpm recording of a person who, as a nine-year-old boy,

watched Abraham Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address in 1863 and the reel-to-reel tape

machine recordings of Lance Corporal Michael

A. Baronowski from his 1967 tour of duty in the

Vietnam War, from which he never returned.

To provide more access to the general public,

an archive of the program was created on their

Web site (www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound).

Also, a compilation was made of the best of the

Lost and Found Sound broadcasts, available on

compact disc.

Radio Program Examines the 20th

Century Through Sound

Every Friday afternoon throughout 1999–2000,

as part of National Public Radio’s All Things

Considered, radio listeners heard sounds that

they hadn’t heard before. They were listening to

Lost and Found Sound, a millennium radio series

that chronicled, reflected, and celebrated the

20th century through sound. Each segment of

the program, created and produced by Davia

Nelson and Nikki Silva (known as the Kitchen

Sisters) with the support of an nea Arts on Radio and Television grant, featured previously

unheard recorded sounds, such as Thomas Edison’s earliest sound recordings and recordings

made by playwright Tennessee Williams in 1947

on cardboard acetate discs in New Orleans, as

well as the sound of northern lights and the call

of the loon. Historical events were captured in

surprising ways, such as the uncovering of 60-

year-old tapes that were made as part of a New

Deal program to document in sound Dust

Bowl refugees’ migration to California from the

Great Plains.

Lost and Found Sound also invited listeners to

submit their own recordings to capture what

ordinary Americans thought important to

Grants to Organizations/Arts on Radio and Television 2 5

(Logo courtesy of the

Kitchen Sisters)

ARTS ON RADIO AND TELEVISION

The nea, throughout its history, has strived to make the excellence and diversity of the arts widely

available to all Americans, and has been a major supporter of making the arts available through radio and television since the 1970s—reaching audiences in the millions. In fy 2000, the nea reestablished a separate grant category to focus on those activities, Arts on Radio and Television. Investing

$3 million for 44 projects, the nea supported the creation and presentation of 2,300 hours of arts programming, providing Americans in every state with access to art forms from folk music and Native

American storytelling to cultural history and artist interviews. The 85 hours of television programming is estimated to have reached between 200 and 230 million viewers, with more than 2,200 hours

of radio programs having reached 10 to 12 million listeners per week. More than half of those projects

had specific plans for interactive Web sites, and several projects included educator’s guides, companion

books, and videos for use in home, schools, libraries, community groups, and arts organizations.
ture technology, and its e∑ect on the creation

and popularization of American music, will also

be explored.

Some of the most important musicians who

shaped American music will be featured, such

as Jimmie Rodgers, Muddy Waters, Woody

Guthrie, Mahalia Jackson, and Louis Armstrong, to name just a few. Rarely seen performance footage of these musicians will be included

in the segments, as well as newly filmed performances by such luminaries as Doc Watson,

Flaco Jimenez, Kitty Wells, Odetta, Bob Dylan,

and B.B. King. The series will weave rare

archival performance and documentary footage

(some dating back as far as 1910), recordings,

and photographs with newly created interviews

with contemporary musicians like Bruce

Springsteen and Steve Earle and music producers such as Marshall Chess and Sam Phillips.

American Roots Music will document the pertinent musical innovations of the last century,

with each segment exploring a particular time

period. The series as a whole will chronicle how

the music genres evolved, merged, and transformed throughout the century, resulting in the

rich tapestry of today’s American music, from

rhythm and blues to country, from rock to rap.

The series will be accompanied by a dvd

boxed set, book, compact disc, and home video.

In addition, a Web site is being developed to

provide more access to the history of our nation’s music. The series was developed through

the collaborative e∑orts of the nea, the New

York Foundation for the Arts, Ginger Group

Productions, the Smithsonian Institution, the

Library of Congress, the Country Music Foundation, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

America has long been considered the birthplace of many traditions of music: blues, jazz,

country and western, Cajun and zydeco, TexMex and Native American. Yet how did this diverse collection of musical styles all originate in

one country? Ginger Group Productions, in

collaboration with the New York Foundation

for the Arts, is using an nea Arts on Radio and

Television grant to explore that question. American Roots Music is a four-part primetime television series, scheduled to air in 2001, which will

examine the origins of American music during

the 20th century. The development of publishing, recording, broadcasting, and motion pic2 6 Grants to Organizations/Arts on Radio and Television

The American Roots Music

four-part television series,

exploring how the many

American musical traditions evolved, merged and

transformed through the

century, will use rare

archival footage and new

performances, such as this

one that includes Earl

Scruggs (banjo), Ricky Skaggs (guitar), James Cotton (harmonica), and Marc

(accordion) and Anne

Savoy (guitar). (Photo

courtesy of Ginger Group

Productions).

Television Series To Explore the Genesis of American Traditional Music
L ITERATURE FELLOWSH IPS

To keep our nation’s literary heritage strong and vibrant, the nea has supported American authors

for the past 33 years with $36 million in Literature Fellowships to more than 2,300 writers. These

grants provide crucial financial assistance that allows emerging writers the time to focus on their

writing at critical early stages of their careers. Simultaneously, they give writers national recognition

and validation of their talent. Past winners of Literature Fellowships have included such awardwinning writers as John Irving, Richard Ford, Alice Walker, and Jane Hamilton.

The success of the Literature Fellowships is impressive: 34 of the 44 recipients of the National

Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Fiction since

1990 have received nea fellowships. All but two received their Literature Fellowships before these

major national awards, usually 10 to 20 years earlier.

This year’s Literature Fellowships are for Prose (Prose and Poetry fellowships alternate years). Of

the 908 applications received, 35 writers from 20 states and the District of Columbia were awarded

$20,000 grants. In addition to the creative writing fellowships, every year Literature Fellowships are

awarded for translation projects to translate literary works written in foreign languages into English

(alternating between fiction and poetry to coincide with the creative writing fellowships). The art of

literary translation has made available to the American public some of the most important literature in the world, from the ancient poetry of Ovid to the present-day fiction of Gabriel García

Márquez. In 2000, 36 applications for Translation in Prose grants were received, of which six translators in five states were awarded grants.

Individual Fellowships/Literature Fellowships 2 7

Individual 

Fellowships

The National Endowment for the Arts funds individual artists through its fellowship programs:

Literature, American Jazz Masters, and National Heritage Fellowships. All fellowship recipients

must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Literature Fellowships in poetry, prose, and translation are awarded competitively to writers of exceptional promise. The American Jazz Masters

and National Heritage Fellowships are awarded, based on nominations, to master artists with distinguished careers.

FISCAL YEAR 2000

FACTS AND FIGURES

Individual Fellowships

LITERATURE FELLOWSHIPS

Number of Grants

Awarded: 41

Dollar Amount of Grants

Awarded: $820,000

AMERICAN JAZZ MASTERS

FELLOWSHIPS

Number of Grants

Awarded: 3

Dollar Amount of Grants

Awarded: $60,000

NATIONAL HERITAGE

FELLOWSHIPS

Number of Grants

Awarded: 13

Dollar Amount of Grants

Awarded: $130,000
Samuel J. Atlee

Lancaster, PA

Pinckney Benedict

Roanoke, VA

Jane Bernstein

Pittsburgh, PA

Mark Thomas Brazaitis

Washington, DC

Wendy Brenner

Wilmington, NC

Susan Choi

Brooklyn, NY

Charlotte M. Choyt

Lee, NH

Lawrence Coates

Cedar City, UT

Sharon Dilworth

Pittsburgh, PA

Alyson Hagy

Laramie, WY

Gary W. Hawkes

Williamsport, PA

Rachel Kadish

Cambridge, MA

Timothy G. Keane

Mt. Vernon, NY

Nora O. Keller

Waipahn, HI

Marilyn Krysl

Boulder, CO

Linda Mannheim

Miami, FL

Ben Marcus

Providence, RI

Stephen Daniel Marion

Dandridge, TN

Lee Martin

Denton, TX

Nicola Faith Mason

Baton Rouge, LA

Wendell Mayo Jr.

Haskins, OH

Christina L. Mazza

Elmhurst, IL

Peter Najarian

Berkeley, CA

Karen Palmer

Boulder, CO

Peter Rock

Philadelphia, PA

Heather Laurie Sellers

Holland, MI

Rosa Shand

Spartanburg, SC

Cynthia Sabin Shearer

Oxford, MS

Mark Slouka

New York, NY

Lynn M. Stegner

Santa Cruz, CA

Beth K. Sulit

Devon, PA

Joan Tollifson

Oakland, CA

Brady Udall

Lancaster, PA

Curtis Keith White

Normal, IL

Liza Wieland

Fresno, CA

2 8 Individual Fellowships/Literature Fellowships

Creative Writing Fellowships—Prose
From The Foreign Student (a novel)

by Susan Choi

Used with permission of the author

Mrs. Wade, the Strake House Mother, asked if he knew

how to ride a bicycle and when he said yes she presented

him with a blue three-speed Schwinn. It had been left

behind in the basement one year. On the first day of

classes he rode it to the quad with the tails of his jacket

flapping behind and his hair sticking up o∑ his head in

the wind like a cock’s comb. If you had asked him one

month earlier whether or not he could imagine himself

arriving for his first actual day as an American student

with twin sweat stains under his arms, and the cu∑s of

his pants crumpled up where he’d had them stu∑ed into

his socks, and his notebooks tied onto the rack of a rattly blue bicycle, he would have been dumbfounded. But

for that past month he had been alone, and exploratory.

He took an English grammar with him but he never really opened it. Instead he watched the mist from the

sprinklers scattering small rainbows over the quad, or

the groundskeepers trundling wheelbarrows. He learned

the layout of buildings by heart. There was always the

whine of a lawnmower coming from somewhere on

campus. Wandering through the woods where they were

wild he would just start to think himself lost when the

faint lawnmower sound would be carried to him like a

beacon. A deserted university in August can feel like a

paradise. He grew tired of anticipating his various arrivals and dating his life from a moment that would not

stop receding further into the future. And so by the time

the term finally began he had acquired an odd proprietary arrogance. He was dirty and in love with everything and in possession of secrets, and when he came up

the flagstone walk pushing his Schwinn he did not care

what anyone thought of him.

Individual Fellowships/Literature Fellowships 2 9

Susan Choi. (Photo by Marion Ettlinger)

From “About Breakfast” (short story)

by Nicola Mason

Used with permission of the author

What if she found a dead body in the woods? Maeve asked herself. What must it be

like to find a Dead Body in the Woods? Besides awful, of course. But the awfulness

might be tempered by certain things. For one, how long the corpse had been there,

Maeve thought, lingering on the idea of corpse. How long it had been there Steaming

in the Sweltering Heat. Then it would just be disgusting, maybe not recognizable as a

human corpse at all, maybe just a nasty mess, an Ungodly Melt Of Smelly Mess.

Maeve was on her third beer, and she was a one-beer woman, a social-beer woman

who always had to stop herself from making a little moue at the first taste of her first

and only social beer. Little moues were fine when you were sixteen and on a date.

When you didn’t want the boy to know you’d had plenty of beers because that would

imply you’d had plenty of dates and then he’d think you a different kind of girl altogether, a backseat sort of girl, and then you’d miss out on the movie. Maeve had never

missed out on a movie. But now she was fifty. Five-Oh. And moues seemed silly indeed, especially to four-beer men like Jim, her husband, who thought her moues disingenuous, who thought them unbecomingly coy for a woman of Five-Oh.

But if the corpse were fresh. That would be different. If it were warm, even, not

from the sun aiming its Dead-Body Spotlight through the trees, but from the life’s

blood not yet finished cruising its familiar throughways, the blood cells still circling

the body’s various parking decks, or maybe idling, but the ignition still on, the air running, the radio burbling but indistinct. That would be different.

What would she do then? Well, it would depend, Maeve decided. She was sitting on

her porch steps, gazing out at her prosperous street, at her neighbors lodging their lawn

implements in garages for the night, at her garden blowsy with late-summer blooms that

suddenly sickened her, paired with the thought of the corpse. Bloom. Corpse. Blooming corpse. But it was. Blooming. The idea of it. A corpse ripe for the picking. She

made a moue. But she was surprised at herself. That she could think such things. And

surprise brought pleasure. And with this came the stirrings of understanding.

(Photo courtesy of

Nicola Mason)
“Don’t bother your grandfather. Let him sleep,” his

grandmother said softly as she walked past him. She

went over to a mirrored closet door next to the metalframe bed, which was where the child slept at night.

The boy lowered his head and kept on digging.

The woman took an armful of clothing from the

closet and turned back. The light from the hallway

filtered in through the half-opened door and outlined

the figures of the old man and the boy. The season of

most oppressive heat had not yet arrived, but the

woman’s husband had already sought out the coolness of

that mud-walled, thatch-roofed room at the back at the

house next to the kitchen. The siesta was in part a compensation for his nights of unrelenting insomnia. There

was a slight movement from the man in the chair and

the boy began digging with more determination.

The woman leaned back against the closet door and

looked down at the boy. He sensed her gaze and moved

his body slightly, hiding from her view the pile of dirt

that he had dug up. The woman smiled tenderly and experienced again the things she felt whenever her attention lingered on him—pity, sympathy. Less on the

child’s account, in truth, than for herself and her husband. This was their grandson, a creature with teary eyes

who still soiled himself and had saliva constantly forming at the corners of his mouth. A kind of animal almost, the product of the whim of a passing stranger and

the fear of spinsterhood of a simple country girl, her

daughter. What is more, a daughter from whom they

had heard nothing for years until she suddenly reappeared to leave them with the fatherless child, which no

school would ever accept.

From “The Siesta” (short story) by Edgar Brau

Translated from Spanish by Donald A. Yates

Used with permission of the author

Seated on the dirt floor, the young boy wiped away the

saliva from his lips and looked up at his grandfather,

who was dozing in a hammock chair facing the doorway. The sounds of the clucking hens in the back yard

and the rattle of dishes that his grandmother was washing in the next room were clearly carried on the hot, humid air. The noise and the heat easily penetrated into

the room through the loosely fitted slats of the door,

making the old man’s slumber seem imperturbable. The

boy decided to try raising his voice a little.

“Grampa, tell me where you put the ball. Can you

hear me, Grampa?” he repeated wearily, his gaze cast

down on the stick he was using to dig at the earthen

floor.

A deep sigh was the only response from the grandfather, who finally relaxed completely as his head tilted

forward.

“Don’t make me think you’re sleeping, Grampa,” the

boy said in his louder voice as he reached towards the

chair.

But unexpectedly the door opened and the sudden

light forced him to close his eyes.

(Photo courtesy of Donald A. Yates)

3 0 Individual Fellowships/Literature Fellowships

Translation Fellowships 

Wanda Johanna Boeke

Iowa City, IA

Margaret E. W. Jones

Lexington, KY

Richard N. Philcox

New York, NY

Sergio Gabriel Waisman

San Francisco, CA

Willard L. Wood

Norfolk, CT

Donald A. Yates

St. Helena, CA
Individual Fellowships/American Jazz Master Fellowships 3 1

Connecticut in 1970, a cultural center that

serves inner-city youth. He also teaches at the

Hartt College of Music at the University of

Hartford, developing the jazz degree program.

Randy Weston,

Pianist/ComposerArranger

Starting his career

working with the

rhythm and blues

bands of Bull Moose

Jackson and Eddie

Vinson, Randy Weston has become one

of the premier pianists and composers

in jazz. His strong interest in African culture and music led to hybrids of jazz with

African rhythms and instrumentations. “For

me, the most compelling aspect of African culture is its music,” said Weston, “magnificent in

its power and diversity with drums—African

rhythms—always at the heart.” Many of Weston’s compositions, such as Berkshire Blues and

Hi-Fly, have become indelible jazz standards.

John Lewis, Pianist/Composer-Arranger

John Lewis played jazz for more than 55 years,

but made his most important contributions as

musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet,

formed in 1952. mjq’s unique mix of jazz with

European classical sensibilities quickly made

the group one of the most popular in jazz. mjq’s

success revolved around Lewis’ compositions,

such as Django, his tribute to jazz guitarist

Django Reinhardt. In addition, Lewis composed for films, ballets, stage plays, and television documentaries, with a discography of more

than 100 recordings. Since the mid-1970s, when

mjq disbanded, Lewis had held teaching positions at City College of New York and Harvard

University.

Jackie McLean, Alto Saxophonist/

Jazz Educator

Throughout the 1950s, Jackie McLean performed and recorded with a number of leading

jazzmen, including Charles Mingus and Art

Blakey, honing his talents to become one of the

masters of the free jazz sound evolving from

bebop. “When I was receiving the mantle from

all the musicians I had idolized,” McLean said,

“I didn’t realize that what they were doing was

making sure the music was put into the hands

of younger people so it can be carried on.”

McLean continued that tradition by establishing the Artists Collective, Inc. in Hartford,

John Lewis.

(Photo courtesy of the 

International Association 

of Jazz Educators)

AMERICAN JAZZ MASTERS FELLOWSHIPS

Jazz is one of the great American artistic inventions of the 20th century, continuing to enrich our

cultural heritage into the new millennium. The nea recognizes the importance of this musical tradition with the American Jazz Masters Fellowships. These fellowships honor living jazz masters for

their artistic excellence and impact on the music field. American Jazz Masters, named each year

since 1982, form a veritable jazz hall of fame, including such luminous past members as Dizzy

Gillespie, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, and David Brubeck. This year’s recipients of the $20,000

awards, presented by Chairman Ivey at the annual International Association of Jazz Educators conference, were pianist and composer-arranger John Lewis, alto saxophonist and jazz educator Jackie

McLean, and pianist and composer-arranger Randy Weston.

Jackie McLean. 

(Photo by Pierre DuFour)

Randy Weston. 

(Photo by Carol Friedman)
Bounxou Chanthraphone

Laotian Weaver

Brooklyn Park, MN

Dixie Hummingbirds

Gospel Quartet

Philadelphia, PA

Felipe Garcia Villamil

Afro-Cuban Drummer

Los Angeles, CA

Jose Gonzalez

Hammock Weaver

San Sebastian, Puerto Rico

Nettie Jackson

Klickitat Basketmaker

White Swan, WA

Santiago Jimenez, Jr.

Tejano Accordionist/ Singer

San Antonio, TX

Genoa Keawe

Native Hawaiian

Singer/Ukulele Player

Honolulu, HI

Frankie Manning

Lindy Hop Dancer/

Choreographer

Corona, NY

Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins

Blues Piano Player

La Porte, IN

Konstantinos Pilarinos

Orthodox Byzantine Icon 

Woodcarver

Astoria, NY

Chris Strachwitz

Record Producer/Label Founder

El Cerrito, CA

Dorothy Thompson Weaver

Davis, WV

Don Walser

Western Singer/Guitarist

Royal doors of Temple of Austin, TX

Koimisis Tis Theotokou in

Erie, Pennsylvania, carved

by National Heritage Fellow Konstantinos Pilarinos. (Photo courtesy of

Konstantinos Pilarinos)

3 2 Individual Fellowships/National Heritage Fellowships

NAT IONAL HER ITAGE FELLOWSH IPS

“The Arts Endowment’s National Heritage Fellows,” Chairman Ivey has

stated, “are extraordinary artists who have dedicated their lives to revitalizing, celebrating, and preserving this country’s living cultural heritage.”

The 2000 National Heritage Fellowships, the country’s most prestigious

honor in the folk and traditional arts, were awarded to 12 artists from nine

states and Puerto Rico. Artists ranged from the sweet, soulful singing of

the gospel quartet the Dixie Hummingbirds to the Byzantine icon woodcarving of Konstantinos Pilarinos, from the Puerto Rican craft of hammock weaving by Jose Gonzalez to the Delta blues piano playing of Pinetop Perkins. The nea honors these performers and craftspeople,

representing a rich cross-section of America’s many diverse cultures, for

their achievements as artists, teachers, innovators, and guardians of traditional art forms.

In 2000, a new fellowship was created, the Bess Lomax Hawes Award.

Named for the esteemed folklorist who created the National Heritage

Fellowship program, it recognizes 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. The first such award was given to record producer and founder

of Arhoolie Records, Chris Strachwitz.

Chairman Bill Ivey presents Konstantinos Pilarinos with a National Heritage Fellowship. (Photo by

John Harrington)

National Heritage Fellows
State and Regional Partnerships 3 3

The National Endowment for the Arts greatly extends its impact through its partnerships with the

56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies and seven multistate regional organizations. In FY 2000,

Partnership Agreements helped support local, state, and regional arts activities for children and

adults across the nation. A complete listing of Partnership Agreements is available online at

www.arts.gov.

State arts agencies used their federal and state appropriated funds in 2000—totaling nearly

$400 million—to provide more than 27,000 grants to more than 5,600 communities. NEA funds

helped promote community development through the arts by supporting assistance to arts groups,

artist residencies, preservation of cultural heritage, development of arts in education, assistance

to artists, and cultural tourism initiatives, among other projects.

State and Regional Partnerships

FISCAL YEAR 2000 

FACTS AND FIGURES

Partnership Agreements

Dollar Amount of State

Partnership Agreements:

$27,934,954

Dollar Amount of

Regional Partnership

Agreements: $4,832,915

Oklahoma Arts Council Uses Art to 

Address Local Issues

State arts agencies do more than just make

grants—they become involved with the community. The Oklahoma Arts Council, which received nearly $500,000 through an nea Partnership Agreement in fy 2000, is a good example.

One of the projects for which the Council used

its state and federal funding was the Youth Arts

After-School Program. This program, a partnership between the Council and the State Department of Human Services, supports longterm artist residencies to provide arts

experiences for low-income children in childcare centers. In 2000, the program provided

funding to four arts and community organizations, which have trained and placed resident

artists in 150 childcare centers around the state

to conduct after-school arts programs. Artists

have involved children in creating murals and

producing plays, a significant alternative to passive activities, like watching videotapes, which

occur in some daycare settings. Childcare centers reported that they have seen a decrease in

negative behavior, and increases in children’s attendance, attention span, and respect for one

another.

The Oklahoma Arts Council also helped preserve the state’s cultural heritage through an apprenticeship program in mandolin making. Oklahoma has been home to some of the most

significant figures in American music, from

Woody Guthrie to Bob Wills. Large parts of the

state’s population are actively involved in traditional American music, as well as traditional

Celtic music, in which the mandolin plays a vital

role. Master artist Nick Richardson, making

mandolins since 1985, participated in the apprenticeship program to share his knowledge

and continue the tradition of building acoustic

stringed instruments in Oklahoma. Richardson’s work with apprentice Matthew Hill will

provide a source of handcrafted instruments to

keep traditional music styles alive. Richardson

and Hill will give a presentation at the library

on the art of mandolin building, and perform

on the instruments they have built.

Master mandolin maker

Nicholas Richardson at

work as part of the Oklahoma Arts Council’s apprenticeship program in

mandolin-making. (Photo

courtesy of the Oklahoma

Arts Council)
Randy Reyes as Puck,

Alvin J. Keith as Lysander,

Cheyenne Casebier as Helena, and Rafael Oliveira

as Demetrius in a scene

from the Guthrie Theater’s touring production

of A Midsummer Night’s

Dream, directed by Joe

Dowling. (Photo by Michal

Daniel)

3 4 State and Regional Partnerships

In 1998, the regional arts organizations Arts

Midwest and Mid-America Arts Alliance collaborated to form the Heartland Arts Fund,

with support from the nea Regional Partnership Agreements. The Heartland Arts Fund

supports and initiates tours in 15 Midwestern

states, giving communities access to artists and

companies in dance, music, and theater. The collaboration between the two regional organizations broadens their geographic reach and

streamlines administrative costs to help them realize the goal of connecting the arts to audiences.

The Heartland Arts Fund includes both a

Community Connections component and opportunities for special projects. Community

Connections helps support performing artists’

fees for presenters from the 15-state region.

Close to half of all Heartland events occur in

rural communities. Presenters can choose from

a catalog of almost 400 performers or request

support for a performer they have chosen. Presenters receiving grants must include at least

one educational activity in the event.

The Heartland Arts Fund also periodically

launches special tours of select artists, such as

the 17-site tour in 2000 by the Minneapolisbased Guthrie Theater, presenting William

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The

tour visited both metropolitan and rural communities in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and North and South

Dakota with performances and carefully crafted

educational sessions. Performing in areas rarely

visited by a major theatrical company, the

Guthrie Theater was met in every community

with enthusiastic standing ovations and many

sold-out shows. In all, more than 50,000 people

experienced the Guthrie Theater in performance—including 20,277 students. In Minnesota

alone, schools from 68 communities attended

matinee performances of the play. In addition,

Guthrie Theater actors and technical sta∑

o∑ered 87 workshops to nearly 4,000 students

and artists in 30 communities.

Partnership of Regional Arts Organizations Enhances Regional Touring Program

The NEA also awarded Partnership Agreements to seven regional arts organizations, created to

transcend state boundaries and provide access to a greater variety of arts experiences, especially in

underserved areas. One of the ways the NEA works with the regional arts organizations is through

the Regional Touring Program, which provides assistance—through federal, state, and private

funds—to performing artists and companies for interstate touring, giving priority to underserved

communities. Virtually all grants awarded supplement touring performances with other community activities, such as working in schools and making presentations to civic organizations.
Leadership Initiatives/National Millennium Projects 3 5

Through its Leadership Initiatives, the National Endowment for the Arts complements its principal grantmaking activity by developing and implementing projects of major significance that advance the arts in American life. These initiatives are frequently undertaken in collaboration with

nonprofit organizations or other federal agencies. Initiatives funded this year include continuations

of projects funded in previous years, such as the National Millennium Projects and ArtsREACH,

and others that are new, such as Creative Links and JazzNet. A complete listing of the year’s Leadership Initiatives is available online at www.arts.gov.

Leadership 

Initiatives

Connecticut Millennium Trail 

Celebrates American Impressionism

Arts on Millennium Trails, which is administered by the National Assembly of State Arts

Agencies, supports the creation of communitycentered public art projects along the 50 Millennium Legacy Trails that the U.S. Department of Transportation designated in 47 states,

Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. Millennium Legacy Trails

include historic trails, cultural routes, scenic byways, hiking trails, neighborhood paths, rail

trails, and urban bikeways.

Although still in its infancy, Arts on Millennium Trails is already making remarkable

progress. Among the participating sites is the

Connecticut Impressionist Art Trail. This trail

celebrates the sites and landscapes of American

Impressionism, a school of art championed by

NAT IONAL M ILLENN IUM PRO JECTS

The nea joined the nation in celebrating the year 2000 through its National Millennium Projects,

which support activities in all 50 states and involve local communities in the creation and preservation of artistic works, increasing public awareness of the nation’s cultural life. Three new Millennium Projects were funded in 2000: LIVE at the Library 2000, in collaboration with the American

Library Association, the National College Choreography Initiative, in collaboration with national

dance service organization Dance/USA, and Arts on Millennium Trails, a collaboration among the

nea, U.S. Department of Transportation, the White House Millennium Council, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and national arts, environmental, and trails-related organizations.

FISCAL YEAR 2000

FACTS AND FIGURES

In FY 2000, funding for

Leadership Initiatives

totaled $10,177,772.
rently exhibited. As part of the trail, five outdoor exhibits featuring color reproductions of

American Impressionist paintings will be installed near the sites depicted in the works, including information about the artists, paintings,

and significance of the sites. The project includes a host of partners, including the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, ten museums, and a corporate sponsor.

American artists such as Childe Hassam,

Theodore Robinson, Dawson Dawson-Watson,

and J. Alden Weir, who painted many of their

pieces in the Connecticut countryside. Located

close to New York City and accessible by train,

the rustic villages and picturesque shorelines of

Connecticut were ideal subjects for these

artists. The trail includes several historic sites

where American Impressionists once lived and

worked, and museums where their work is curThe Farmington River, 

depicted in DawsonWatson's painting, has

been named a national

Wild and Scenic River by

the U.S. Department of

the Interior, ensuring that

the public will continue to

have access to the same vistas that inspired DawsonWatson almost a century

ago. (Photo by An-Ming

Truxes)

3 6 Leadership Initiatives/National Millennium Projects

Dawson Dawson-Watson's

Early Morning on the Farmington will be reproduced

for the wayside exhibit at

the Farmington River, one

of five such exhibits on the

Connecticut Impressionist

Art Trail. (Photo courtesy of

the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut)
Leadership Initiatives/Creative Links 3 7

and cultural organizations, providing easy access for field trips and o∑-site classes. Plans are

underway to encourage arts education and art

therapy students from Wayne State University

to use the artsjam Detroit! program for their

practicum.

Bringing varied and committed partners together to undertake a project is a key element of

the Creative Links program. For their artsjam

Detroit! Gallery and Studio project, vsa arts of

Michigan brought together the Arc Detroit,

Great Lakes Center for Independent Living,

Detroit Institute of Arts, Wayne State University, Michigan Rehabilitation Services, Detroit

Public Schools, and the Center for Creative

Studies. The goal of the project was to provide

disabled teens with after-school vocational

training and creative opportunities in the visual

arts conducted by professional artists.

Studies done of the special education population in Michigan revealed that even students

with learning and/or emotional disabilities who

did well on achievements tests were at high risk

of dropping out of school. vsa arts of Michigan

identified professional artists who could teach

and mentor these types of students through the

full range of the creative process, from the concept of a work to its exhibition and sale. Twelve

students and two mentors participated in the

program along with twelve adults who joined

on a fee-for-service basis.

In addition to the two six-week sessions, students were involved in preparing a workshop

space near the vsa facilities, located within

walking distance of all of Detroit’s major arts

Artist Richard Perez of

Ann Arbor, Michigan 

mentors apprentice artist

Shafee Mohammed in a

clay workshop as part of

the artsJAM Detroit! 

project. (Photo by Ilene

Flanagan)

CREAT IVE L INKS

Creative Links: Positive Alternatives for Youth was a one-year pilot program initiated in fy 2000 to

support partnerships between arts organizations and other community groups for artists’ residencies

that serve youth. The nea awarded 156 grants for $1,435,000 to organizations in 48 states and the

District of Columbia. The youth, primarily from low-income neighborhoods, attend after-school

and summer arts classes led by an artist-in-residence. These classes not only allow youth the opportunity to learn about arts disciplines, but also to gain valuable life skills. Creative Links served as a

pilot for the new Challenge America program, for which Congress appropriated funds in fy 2001 to

support projects such as these throughout the United States.

Detroit Visual Arts Project Provides Disabled Youth with New Opportunities
ing and interviewing local residents, the consultants identified the community’s cultural facility needs and the issues surrounding the development of a new venue. They also developed

a comprehensive program outlining specific

types of spaces within a proposed facility.

The study provided vital information for this

important community undertaking and the integration of the proposed project into a larger

development plan called the Riverfront Renaissance. The study concluded that a significant

portion of the area population was likely to participate in or attend performing arts activities.

In addition, the city attracts a significant number of tourists due to its location on the Mississippi and the local riverboat gambling boats.

The consultants recommended a mid-sized

performing arts space with additional space for

rehearsal, production and teaching of electronic

media, and arts education. The new facilities,

the study concluded, have the potential to improve the quality of life in the region, provide

education opportunities, and promote economic

development and tourism.

Bettendorf, Iowa Examines Feasibility

of Creating New Performing Arts Center

Critical to a community’s artistic vitality is the

availability of venues for performances, rehearsals, outreach activities, and classes.

Through an ArtsREACH grant, the city of

Bettendorf, Iowa, and Quad City Arts—the

area arts presenter—hired two consultants to

conduct a feasibility study for a performing arts

center in downtown Bettendorf. Other partners

in the project included the Bettendorf Public

Library, Chamber of Commerce, and the Family Museum of Arts & Sciences.

A critical part of the study was research on

the center’s potential uses and users. By surveyThe Bettendorf Public 

Library (left) and Family

Museum of Arts & Science

(right) were partners in 

a project, supported by an

ArtsREACH grant, to

study the feasibility of

building a new performing

arts center in town.

Presently, space at both

facilities is not large

enough to accompany the

demand of local arts performances and classes.

(Photos courtesy of the City

of Bettendorf)

3 8 Leadership Initiatives/ArtsREACH

ARTSREACH

ArtsREACH: Community Arts Development was initiated as a three-year pilot program in 1998 to

foster arts activities in the 20 states most underrepresented among the nea’s direct grantees. Over the

three years of the program, which ended in 2000, ArtsREACH e∑orts contributed to a more than 350

percent increase in nea-supported projects within these states. More than 1,000 diverse organizations

were involved in activities that ranged from creating specifications for civic design initiatives to facility

feasibility studies to research for creating directories of local artists. The program encouraged partnerships among local organizations through these cultural planning activities. In fy 2000, 56 grants were

awarded, totaling $496,895. ArtsREACH served as a pilot for the new Challenge America program, for

which Congress appropriated funds in fy 2001 to support projects such as these in underserved areas in

all 50 states.
Leadership Initiatives/Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure Initiative 3 9

ars, and arts and history organizations. This

database, once completed, will be available to

educators and nonprofit organizations for use in

their programming activities. The program, in

partnership with the American Folklife Center

at the Library of Congress, has also held a

three-week residential field school in cultural

documentation for teachers, museum professionals, park interpreters, and other cultural

specialists. Working with the Perry County

Museum and the Tell City Historical Society,

the program is creating an oral history project

entitled Work and Life: Voices of Perry County.

Researchers and volunteers are interviewing

Perry County residents about their work traditions, and the final product will eventually be

made into a radio series.

Traditional Arts Indiana is a statewide folk arts

program created in 1998 by the Indiana Arts

Commission and Indiana University Folklore

Institute to document, support, promote, and

present traditional arts and artists of Indiana.

With an nea Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure Initiative grant, Traditional Arts Indiana is able to attract partners from across the

state—including local and regional arts agencies, small museums, and state and local historical societies—to identify public education and

marketing strategies for artists and to create

support for folk arts among a broad range of

audiences.

Traditional Arts is compiling a comprehensive searchable database, which so far contains

more than 300 artists and 150 educators, scholClifford Gunn, woodworker and 33-year veteran of the Tell City Chair

Company in southern 

Indiana, holds an exact

replica of a popular chair

he made while working for

the company. Gunn was

interviewed by Erin Roth

of Traditional Arts Indiana

for an oral history project,

Work and Life: Voices of

Perry County. (Photo by

Erin Roth)

FOLK & TRAD IT IONAL ARTS INFRASTRUCTURE IN IT IAT IVE

For more than 20 years, the nea has helped to sustain folk and traditional arts programs, many of

which are housed in state and regional arts agencies. The Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure

Initiative, now in its third year, addresses the need to strengthen an infrastructure of support for

these art forms, which reflect the rich culture and heritage of the United States. In fy 2000, 32

grants were awarded to organizations in 29 states as well as Guam and the District of Columbia for

a total of $827,500.

Indiana Partnership Promotes the State’s Traditional Arts
Kosovo theaters in which the companies performed carried reminders of the war: one was

shot full of bullet holes and had only one working light, another had neither electricity nor a

generator. The tour was the first time an American company had played at the six theaters,

and audiences, some of whom had not seen live

theater performed before, responded enthusiastically. In addition, the two companies gave

performances and workshops for Albanian, Serbian, and Roma children in rural areas throughout Kosovo in coordination with the Emergency Operations O≈ce of unicef. The

companies also conducted workshops and open

rehearsals for Kosovo theater artists and students to discuss their production of the play.

INTERNAT IONAL EXCHANGES

To share the excellence and diversity of American arts, the nea supports international activities

that showcase our nation’s arts abroad and also enrich the artists’ work through new experiences

with di∑erent cultures. The nea works with cec International Partners on ArtsLink, an exchange

program with Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Newly Independent States, and the Baltics.

American artists work with their counterparts abroad on ArtsLink Collaborative Projects, and U.S.

arts organizations host visiting artists or arts managers for five weeks through ArtsLink Residencies. In fy 2000, nearly 20 projects were funded through this program. The Fund for U.S. Artists

at International Festivals and Exhibitions, administered by Arts International, supported the participation of more than 100 American performing artists in international festivals in 2000. The

nea’s partners in the Fund are the U.S. Department of State, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the

Pew Charitable Trusts. The nea also works with the Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission on the

U.S./Japan Creative Artists’ Program, which provided five six-month residencies in Japan in 2000

for American artists in a variety of disciplines to work on projects of their choice.

The Bond Street Theatre

of New York and the Theatre Tsvete of Sofia, Bulgaria performing a scene

from Shakespeare’s Romeo

and Juliet for audiences in

Kosovo. (Photo by Marko

Georgiev)

4 0 Leadership Initiatives/International Exchanges

American and Bulgarian Theaters

Collaborate on Bringing Shakespeare

to Kosovo

The tragedy of the 1999 Kosovo war was accented by the horrific violence of neighbor turning against neighbor. Through the ArtsLink

program, the Bond Street Theatre of New York

collaborated with the Theatre Tsvete of Sofia,

Bulgaria to address the legacy of regional violence with a positive artistic statement, dramatizing people’s di∑erences and commonalities.

The two theaters presented a non-verbal version of Romeo and Juliet, which toured to six

theaters throughout Kosovo.

Creating a non-verbal version of a heavily

text-oriented play was a challenge for the theater companies, forcing them to use symbolic

actions and overlapping time sequencing to explain the story. For example, their version of the

play included the wedding of Romeo and Juliet

happening on stage simultaneously with the

duel between Mercutio and Tybalt—demonstrating Romeo’s struggle between his loyalty to

his family and his love for Juliet, a struggle that

resonated with Kosovo audiences.

After the well-received premiere in Plovdiv,

Bulgaria, the play began its tour of Kosovo. The
Leadership Initiatives/Interagency Partnerships 4 1

promote both its culture and history through

the arts.

The tribe commissioned two artists, supported by the nea/Forest Service grant, to create a large series of metal sculptures depicting

the Blackfeet creation story and the tribe’s history. The work, sitting on a base of local river

stone, features a metal image of the Napi (“Old

Man”) surrounded by metal sculptures portraying significant elements of the creation story,

such as animals, tribal lodges, and Chief

Mountain—a nearby mountain named by the

Blackfeet, which is often featured in tribe stories. The site for the sculptures is the entrance

to the Museum of the Northern Plains Indian,

located on the main route to Glacier National

Park. With more than 2 million visitors passing

through Browning on the way to the park, the

sculptures are one way of promoting the

Blackfeet culture to a larger audience, and attracting visitors to stop and experience what

the Blackfeet Tribe—and town of Browning—

have to o∑er.

The nea teamed up with the U.S. Department

of Agriculture’s Forest Service to support the

Arts and Rural Community Assistance Initiative, a program that provides grants for arts

projects in rural communities dependent upon

the surrounding natural resources. One of the

projects supported under this initiative is the

Blackfeet Tribe’s Napi Creation Story Project

in Montana. The project developed out of a

feasibility study, funded by the Montana Arts

Council and Travel Montana, to create a community vision for the town of Browning and

the surrounding Blackfeet reservation. The

study recommended that the Blackfeet Nation

Through the Arts and

Rural Community Assistance Initiative, a series of

metal sculptures representing the Napi Creation

Story, which depicts the

Blackfeet Tribe's history

and culture, was created

and will be installed at the

entrance to the Museum of

the Northern Plains Indian

in Browning, Montana.

(Photo by Alex Gladstone)

INTERAGENCY PARTNERSH IPS

The nea works with more than 20 other federal agencies on projects that integrate the arts more

fully into the lives of communities and families nationwide. These partnerships help to expand the

reach and impact of federal arts dollars, and provide a national model for the types of partnerships

the nea encourages at the state and local levels. These federal partnership programs range from

after-school and in-school arts education for youth to arts initiatives in rural communities. Federal

partners include the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of

Housing and Urban Development, and the National Park Service.

Federal Initiative Assists In Promoting Montana’s Blackfeet Tribe Culture
fusing the arts into health care, including hospitals, hospices, and drug treatment centers.

The AccessAbility O≈ce participated on a 26-

member interagency committee on Healthcare

Environments that convened a conference on

the “E∑ect of Working Conditions on Quality

of Care” that took place October 12–13, 1999, in

Washington, DC. Chairman Ivey was the

keynote speaker for the conference, highlighting the important role that the arts can play in

the health care experience. The AccessAbility

O≈ce organized and chaired presentations on

how to develop professional arts programs in

medical centers and hospices.

NEA Tackles Accessibility Issues in 

Design and Health Care

Since 1990, the nea has conducted a leadership

initiative on universal design, the design process

that make products and spaces functional for all

people, disabled and non-disabled, children and

older adults. In January 2000, a Universal Design Working Group was formed—composed

of sta∑ from the nea, U.S. Department of

Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Aging, American Association

of Retired Persons, Association of Collegiate

Schools of Architecture, Industrial Design Society, American Institute of Architects, and

Adaptive Environments, Inc.—to discuss possible collaborative projects that would advance

the concept of universal design, such as a student design competitions.

In addition, the nea’s AccessAbility O≈ce

has continued to play an important role in inThe National Building Museum in Washington, DC,

used universal design features to create its exhibition, “Capitol Sights Not

Always Seen,” which includes miniature threedimensional models of major DC structures for visitors with and without sight

to enjoy, and pedestals

with recessed bases to provide clear floor space for

persons in wheelchairs to

approach the exhibits.

(Photos courtesy of the Center for Universal Design)

4 2 Leadership Initiatives/AccessAbility

A CCESS A BILITY

The AccessAbility O≈ce serves as the advocacy and technical assistance arm of the nea for older

Americans and those who are disabled or living in institutions and long-term care settings. The

O≈ce works in a myriad of ways to assist sta∑, grantees, and applicants in making arts programs

available to these important segments of our citizenry. A broad range of cooperative e∑orts was developed in fy 2000 to assist in achieving the nea’s goal of increased access to the arts for all Americans. The focus of these e∑orts is inclusion, opening up existing programs and outreach to citizens

who would not otherwise have opportunities to be involved in the arts.
Leadership Initiatives/Accessability 4 3

Joshua Redman and Jacky Terrasson to national

attention.

The Institute received a grant through JazzNet

to support the artist-in-residence component of

its jazz performance educational program at the

University of Southern California in Los Angeles. This unique two-year college-level jazz program brings in master jazz musicians to work

with young musicians who have shown promise

in the field. The program works much as an apprenticeship, just as jazz elders in the past—

such as Thelonious Monk—would take young

musicians under their wings and help them develop their talents. Admission to the program is

rigorous, with only seven students accepted

each year. Participants receive full scholarships

as well as stipends to cover living expenses.

Such jazz luminaries as Clark Terry, Herbie

Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Jackie McLean

have been artists-in-residence in the program,

and have led the students on international tours

(once playing before 34 heads of state at the

Summit of the Americas). Artists-in-residence

also teach master classes through the country as

part of the program, helping to keep this important indigenous American art form alive.

JazzNet The nea collaborated with the

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the

Nonprofit Facilities Fund to create JazzNet, a

national program to further jazz creation, presentation, and education. In fy 2000, the nea

provided $150,000 in grants to 12 regional organizations for assistance in commissioning new

works, supporting artists’ residencies, and building endowments to sponsor jazz programming.

Jazz Institute Brings Master 

Musicians to Teach Promising Young 

Students

The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, working out of Washington, DC on the East Coast

and Los Angeles, California on the West

Coast, was founded in 1986 by the Monk family

to o∑er tuition-free college-level training and

public-school-based jazz education programs.

The Institute also launched an Internet-based

jazz curriculum for fifth, eighth, and eleventh

grade public school students throughout the

United States. It is best known for sponsoring

the annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz

Competition, which brought such jazz stars as

Artist-in-residence Herbie

Hancock explains musical

technique to members of

the Miami-Hialeah Lakes

High School jazz band 

as part of the Thelonious

Monk Institute of Jazz’s

master class program.

(Photo courtesy of the 

Thelonious Monk Institute

of Jazz)

OTHER IN IT IAT IVES

In addition to the Leadership Initiatives described above, the nea also supported other Leadership

Initiatives during fy 2000, such as the following:
schools (a maximum of 350 students in K-8) optimize student learning, retention, and safety.

However, with student populations growing, it

becomes more di≈cult to keep schools small.

One solution is to create schools-withinschools, basically several small, connected

school buildings. The competition helped spotlight these important design concepts so that

they might be duplicated in the design and construction of other schools and public buildings.

The first stage of the competition began in

August 2000 with a national open call for entries, from which four designers were selected.

In the second stage, the four finalists competed

with four invited architects. The winning designers, chosen by a panel of architecture experts, were KoningEizenberg Architecture of

Santa Monica, California for the North side

site and Marble-Fairbanks Architects from

New York, New York for the South side site.

The competition involved much community

involvement, including workshops and forums

on the concepts of small schools and universal

design, and community meetings with the finalists. These meetings provided the competitors

with a sense of the community’s needs and gave

community members an opportunity to provide

feedback to the finalists on their designs.

New Public Works The New Public

Works initiative provided $498,400 in grants to

ten organizations to help fund national design

competitions for a range of public projects from

schools to housing to parks. The nea’s support

helps to defray the costs of running these competitions, including honoraria for participating

designers and jurors. The winning projects will

develop the highest quality of design for these

community structures, involving the fields of

architecture as well as landscape design, urban

planning, and industrial design.

Business and Professional People for the Public

Interest in Chicago, Illinois, a nonprofit law

and public policy center, received an nea New

Public Works grant to support a national twostage design competition for two new Chicago

public schools. The schools chosen for the design competition are located on the North and

South sides of Chicago, and serve approximately 800 disabled and non-disabled students

in pre-kindergarten to eighth grade.

The competition for the elementary schools

involves two innovative design models: universal design and small schools. The universal design prototype integrates sound design with the

concept of accessibility so that disabled students,

who comprise up to 20 percent of the student

population in the two schools, can share the facilities easily with non-disabled students. The

small schools philosophy suggests that small

4 4

Marble-Fairbanks Architects’ winning design for

the public school to be located in the Roseland

neighborhood on the

South side of Chicago, a

two-story structure utilizing a system of ramps that

allows easy movement

throughout the school and

creates easy access to a

communal courtyard. (Design provided by the Business

and Professional People for

the Public Interest)

KoningEizenberg Architecture’s winning design for

the public school to be located in the Irving Park

neighborhood on the

North side of Chicago, a

single-level building housing clusters of classrooms,

each creating a neighborhood environment for the

students and staff. (Design

provided by the Business and

Professional People for the

Public Interest)

Design Competition in Chicago Promotes Universal Design for Public Schools

Leadership Initiatives/Other Initiatives
Leadership Initiatives/Other Initiatives 4 5

on theater direction to the two nonprofit theaters. Her direction of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder for the American Repertory Theatre

was considered a major breakthrough, using

elaborate staging and lighting to accent the

characters’ psychological states. By bringing a

new sensibility to the play, Whoriskey presented the theater with a di∑erent approach to

staging the classics and gave audiences an opportunity to see the well-known Ibsen play in a

new light.

Working with the set and lighting designers

at the Intiman Theatre, Whoriskey staged Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs in a surrealistic studio

apartment, using the set to underscore the text.

Her adventurous approach of integrating the

design of the set with the language of the play

appealed to audiences and reviewers alike. The

production also impressed the sta∑ of the Intiman Theatre, who invited Whoriskey back to

work on another classic play, Ibsen’s Lady from

the Sea, in the fall of 2001.

Theater Arts Residencies/Career 

Development Programs Through a cooperative agreement with Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for the American theater, the nea supports

competitive residency programs for playwrights, directors, and designers working with

professional theaters, artists, and communities.

The Residency Program for playwrights is designed to add artistic depth to theater institutions, placing playwrights at the center of the

creative process, and bringing writers and communities together. The Career Development

Programs for directors and designers partner

nonprofit theaters with early career theater

artists to both provide creative opportunities for

the artists and help build the artistic resources

available to the theaters.

Career Development Program Helps

Develop New Directors for Nonprofit

Theaters

Kate Whoriskey’s participation in the Career

Development Program during 1998–2000 led

her across the country and to Europe, accumulating valuable experience to enhance her skills

and developing new techniques to bring to the

theaters with which she works. With the goal

of expanding her vocabulary through metaphor,

movement, and design, Whoriskey spent time

in Juneau, Alaska, observing the work of the

Perseverance Theatre, and collaborated with

German director Uli Rasche and American director Robert Wilson. In addition, she observed

rehearsals of Robert Woodru∑’s work at Columbia University and choreographer Pina

Bausch’s work at Theatre de la Ville in Paris.

Whoriskey used the skills and knowledge acquired during her residency activities in productions of classic plays at the American

Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington in 1999–2000, providing fresh insights

Larry Block and Anne 

O’Sullivan in Eugene

Ionesco’s The Chairs, directed by Kate Whoriskey

at the Intiman Theatre in

Seattle, Washington.

(Photo by Chris Bennion)
Arts Education Partnership Provides

New Report on Arts Education 

Programs

The Arts Education Partnership serves as a national forum for arts education issues, and

therefore much of the Partnership’s work is related to information gathering and sharing. Using this information, organizations can collectively work to increase public support and

funding for arts education programs in their

communities. In 2000, the Partnership released

a follow-up report to its publication, Gaining

the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts

That Value Arts Education, the first national

study to examine the strategies of school districts in building and sustaining arts education

programs.

The report, More Lessons from School Districts

That Value Arts Education, presents the challenges and successes that representatives from

32 school districts profiled in Gaining the Arts

Advantage have faced since that publication was

written. The report details how many school

districts attribute their success to such factors as

developing e∑ective, long-term collaborations

and partnerships with local leaders and organizations for planning and implementation purposes, creating an array of events and activities

to share the arts experience with families and

communities, and documenting and publicizing

their successes in order to strengthen the case

for arts education.

Success does not come without challenges,

however. The report presents such challenges to

providing arts education programs as population changes, new state or local accountability

systems, and finding and retaining competent

teachers. School districts have risen to the occasion and in some cases were able to use the

challenges to acquire support and resources.

The new report is available on the Arts Education Partnership Web site.

Arts Education Partnership The Arts

Education Partnership is a coalition of education, arts, business, philanthropic, and government organizations that demonstrates and promotes the essential role of arts education in

enabling students to succeed in life, school, and

work. Formed in 1995 by the nea, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Assembly

of State Arts Agencies, and the Council of

Chief State School O≈cers, the Partnership

now includes more than 100 national organizations committed to promoting and improving

arts education in elementary and secondary

schools throughout the country. In addition,

the Partnership has created a Web site

(http://aep-arts.org) that includes a directory

of participating organizations, a list of state arts

education contacts, and arts education advocacy

resources among other materials.

4 6 Leadership Initiatives/Other Initiatives
Save America’s Treasures 4 7

Save America’s Treasures was launched in 1998 as a program of the White House Millennium

Council, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the National Park Service to protect

the nation’s threatened cultural resources. Congressional appropriations for the program began

in FY 2000, the same year that the National Endowment for the Arts joined the partnership. Congress appropriated $15 million for Save America’s Treasures grants to nonprofit organizations

working on preservation or conservation of nationally significant cultural artifacts—such as documents, works of art, maps, and journals—and historic structures and sites that illuminate the

history and culture of the United States. Forty-seven projects in 31 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including six federal sites in various parts of the country, received grants.

Save America’s 

Treasures

In 1936, artist Barry Faulkner completed work

on the Charter Murals in the National

Archives Rotunda. Located above the Charter

Documents of Freedom—the Declaration of

Independence and the Constitution—the murals depict the Declaration of Independence being presented to John Hancock, president of

the Continental Congress, and the final draft of

the U.S. Constitution being presented by James

Madison to George Washington. These two

murals are viewed by millions of visitors each

year, providing an inspiring visual representation of the origins of American democracy. A

Save America’s Treasures grant of $500,000 was

awarded to conserve the two murals, which

have deteriorated over the years.

The large canvas paintings, measuring approximately 12 feet high by 35 feet in length,

have separated from the Rotunda walls due to

deteriorating plaster caused by humid air. Protruding bulges from fallen plaster marred the

murals, and years of dirt build-up have dulled

the colors. The conservation of the murals will

coincide with a complete renovation of the

Archives Rotunda exhibit area—including new,

easier-to-view encasement for the charter documents—which will be take place from 2001 to

2003. The mural conservation process, beginning in July 2001, will take place in three

phases: first, the extremely delicate process of

removing the canvasses from the circular walls;

second, the examination, restoration, and cleaning of the murals; and third, the reinstallation

in time for the reopening of the newly renovated Rotunda exhibit area.

The National Archives Rotunda with the Charter

Murals, which will be conserved with the support of

a Save America’s Treasures grant during the

renovation of the Rotunda. (Photo courtesy of

the National Archives)

Charter Murals at National Archives

Undergo Comprehensive Conservation

FISCAL YEAR 2000

FACTS AND FIGURES

In FY 2000 NEA 

funding for Save

America’s Treasures

totaled $2,278,952.
Bureau of Economic Analysis show that consumers spent $9.4 billion on admissions to performing arts events in 1998. This total was $2.6

billion more than consumers spent at movie

theaters and $1.8 billion more than spending at

spectator sports events.

Note #76: Artist Employment in 1999. Data

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that

more than 2 million people were employed (in

primary jobs) as artists in 1999—a gain of

76,000 workers over the 1998 figure.

In fy 2000, the Research Division partnered

with the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the National Assembly of State Arts

Agencies to develop the Unified Database of

Arts Organizations (udao). Grant makers,

policy analysts, researchers, and arts organizations can use the udao to gain critical information such as economic impact studies and

studies of revenue sources.

In 2000, opra’s Research Division published

the following reports and notes:

Report #40: More than Once in a Blue Moon:

Multiple Job Holding by American Artists. This

report examines artists’ employment,

specifically multiple jobholding or moonlighting, over three decades with comparisons to

other professional occupations.

Report #41: The Geography of Participation in

the Arts and Culture. This report uses data from

the 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the

Arts to investigate geographic variations in participation rates in arts and culture.

Report #42: Age and Arts Participation,

1982–1997. Based on the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts conducted in 1982, 1992, and

1997, this study examines the aging of arts audiences and the role that age plays in predicting arts attendance.

Note #75: The Arts in the GDP. Data from the

4 8 Policy Research and Analysis

Policy Research and Analysis

The O≈ce of Policy Research & Analysis (OPRA) supports the Chairman and NEA sta∑ with statistical and other information about the agency’s applications and awards, including grantee and

applicant profiles, the distribution of awards by state and artistic discipline, and analysis of overall

trends in NEA funding.The O≈ce’s Research Division issues periodic reports on larger issues a∑ecting artists and arts organizations that are distributed to Congress, the arts community, and the public. These reports and analyses help shape changes in the NEA’s grantmaking policies.

One of OPRA’s major projects is a geographic database that provides a comprehensive picture

of the broad reach of NEA-supported activities. In FY 2000, NEA’s 1,900 grants and awards resulted

in an additional 7,600 indirect activities via touring, education, and outreach programs. In all,

more than 3,600 di∑erent cities and towns throughout the country benefited from NEA grants

through activities such as dance company tours, symphony and opera presentations in schools, poetry readings in libraries, and traveling exhibitions of works by major visual artists.
National Medal of Arts 4 9

Created by Congress in 1984, the National Medal of Arts is conferred annually by the President to

honor persons and organizations who 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.

The National Endowment for the Arts solicits nominations for the award, which are reviewed

by the National Council on the Arts and then forwarded 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.

National 

Medal of Arts

Maya Angelou

Poet and Writer

Eddy Arnold

Country Singer

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Dancer and Director

Benny Carter

Jazz Musician

Chuck Close

Painter

Horton Foote

Playwright and Screenwriter

Lewis Manilow

Arts Patron

National Public Radio, Cultural 

Programming Division

Broadcaster

Claes Oldenburg

Sculptor

Itzhak Perlman

Violinist

Harold Prince

Theater Director and Producer

Barbra Streisand

Entertainer and Filmmaker

Dancer and director

Mikhail Baryshnikov receiving the National Medal

of Arts. (Photo by Jocelyn

Augustino)

National Medalists for 2000
SUMMARY OF FUNDS AVAILABLE 1 FY 2000

Program and State Grant Funds2 $66,601,947

Matching Grant Funds (3:1 match) 12,950,600

Total Federal Appropriations 79,552,547

Nonfederal Gifts3 233,081

Interagency Transfers3 2,644,952

Unobligated Balance, Prior Year3 2,814,485

Total Funds Available $85,245,065

SUMMARY OF FUNDS OBL IGATED 

Grants to Organizations

Creation & Presentation $16,855,670

Education 6,274,250

Access 4,462,500

Heritage & Preservation 3,743,172

Planning & Stabilization 2,237,529

Arts on Radio and Television 3,000,000

Individual Fellowships

Literature Fellowships 820,000

American Jazz Masters Fellowships 60,000

National Heritage Fellowships 130,000

State & Regional Partnership Agreements4 33,373,097

Leadership Initiatives

National Millennium Projects 1,326,553

Creative Links 1,435,000

Artsreach 496,895

Folk & Traditional Arts Infrastructure Initiative 827,500

International Exchanges 782,500

AccessAbility 62,000

Other Initiatives (including Interagency Partnerships) 5,247,324

Save America’s Treasures 2,278,952

Policy Research & Analysis 70,000

Total Funds Obligated5 $83,482,942

5 0 Financial Summary

Financial 

Summary

1 Excludes salaries and expenses

and program support funds.

2 The FY 2000 appropriation 

includes $25,001,248 for support

of state arts agencies and regional arts organizations and

$6,819,771 for support through

the underserved communities

set-aside.

3 Only grantmaking funds,

including unobligated commitments totaling $1,342,799.

4 Includes three awards to the

National Assembly of State Arts

Agencies for activities providing

services to the field.

5 Program obligations reflect 

FY 2000 transactions and in

some cases may di∑er from final

allocations due to variations in

the obligations of prior year

funds or receipts of gifts and

funds from other agencies.
Appropriations History 5 1

Appropriations History

FISCAL YEARS 1966 –2000

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

1979 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 149,585,000

1980 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 154,610,000

1981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 158,795,000

1982 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 143,456,000

1983 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ 143,875,000

Fiscal Year . . . . . . . . . . .Total Funds

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

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

* 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

2000 Annual Report published by:

National Endowment for the Arts

O≈ce of Communications

Mark D. Weinberg, Director

Katherine L. Wood, Media and Publications 

Manager

Don Ball, Editor

With thanks to Endowment sta∑ for their assistance, and to grantees for their photographs

and information.

Cover Photos:

Front: Deanne Brown of the Jo∑rey Ballet of

Chicago performing in Gerald Arpino’s Birthday Variations. The Jo∑rey Ballet of Chicago,

Illinois received an nea Creation & Presentation grant in FY 2000. (Photo by Migdoll)

Back: Idris Ackamoor performing in Ackamoor’s

Horn. Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey of

San Francisco, California received an nea Access

grant in fy 2000. (Photo by Capparell/Speyer)

Voice/tyy: (202) 682-5496

For individuals who are deaf or hardof-hearing.

Individuals who do not use conventional print may contact the Arts 

Endowment’s O≈ce for AccessAbility to obtain this publication in an alternate format.

Telephone: (202) 682-5532

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20506-0001

(202) 682-5400

This annual report, as well as all grant and

panel information for fy 2000, can be accessed

electronically at the nea Web site:

www.arts.gov.

Designed by: Meadows Design Office, Inc.

This publication was printed on recycled 

paper. r

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20506-0001