Arts Council Of Rockland Awards $28,000 In Grants

The Arts Council of Rockland (ACOR) awards 13 Community Arts Grants (CAG) to eleven Rockland County organizations and two Individual Artist Grants next month. The $28,000 of grant money is part of the 2012 Decentralization Re-grant Program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). 

The recipients of $23,000 are non-profit organizations throughout the county, which offer cultural and artistic programs or sponsor local individual artists. The Individual Artist Grants will go to professional musician/composer, Matthew Baier and painter, Sue Barrasi, who will each receive $2,500. 

A panel of professional artists and community leaders recruited by the Arts Council reviewed the grant requests. Priority for funding was given to applicants offering high quality artistic programs that would reach artistically under-served populations in Rockland. Projects funded through the Individual Artist Grants program will actively engage the community in the creation of new works of art.

2012 Community Arts Grants Recipients:

Friends of the Nyacks - for Mostly Music Concert Series ($3,010), a series of eight outdoor summer concerts featuring an array of ethnically diverse performances.

Nyack Library - for Nyack Through the Eyes of Edward Hopper ($1,125), a three-session, multi-discipline arts workshop for teens led by professional artists Bill Batson and Kristina Burns culminating in a multi-media exhibition. 

Piermont Public Library - for In Different Voices ($2,000), a series of concerts that feature the human voice as the principal instrument. Concerts will include performances of Lisa Karrer’s “Schismism: Natural Law”, a multi-media performance inspired by the life of Charles Darwin; “Ghostlight”, a vocal ensemble performing a cappella selections from classical, modern and contemporary music on the theme of water and light; and “Kleine Musik”, a program interweaving selections of works by 17th century composer Heinrich Schutz with settings of the same text by contemporary composer Ivan Moody.

Friends of the Nyacks - for Mostly Music Concert Series ($3,010), a series of eight outdoor summer concerts featuring an array of ethnically diverse performances. 

Chiku Awali African Dance, Arts & Culture - for two projects: 2012 African Dance Extravaganza ($2,835) featuring African dance and drumming and Aza, a creative African crafts market; and Me Tsror Nsem: I Write Stories ($800), a creative writing workshop led by award-winning playwright Angelo Parra ($800).

Dowling Housing Corp - for Music Where You Live ($2,010), a classical music concert/lecture series for underserved audiences featuring world class musicians coordinated by professional flutist Wendy Stern.

Haverstraw King’s Daughters Public Library - for Huan Yin: Rockland Welcomes China ($1,000), a series of two multi-discipline performances that showcase Chinese culture featuring the Butterfly Chinese Dance Ensemble and Chinese Theater Works.

Jamaican Civic & Cultural Association of Rockland, Inc. - for Moving Into the Mainstream ($2,010), a concert featuring the Ekklipse Steel Band, spoken word performers and other artists in celebration of Caribbean American Month celebrated in June.

Rockland Youth Dance Ensemble - for Dance Performances in North Rockland ($500), performances featuring ballet, tap, modern and jazz for underserved and shut-in audiences. 

Stone Lantern Films - for Haverstraw: A Documentary Film ($4,500), a documentary film of local interest written, created and filmed by the team of Sarah Mondale, Vera Aronow and Roger Grange who also were the filmmakers of the documentary “MegaMall.”  The documentary tells the story of Haverstraw, a struggling former factory town which was chosen in the 1990s as the site of a luxury waterfront-housing complex.

Suffern Free Library – for Food Imagery in Film ($500), a film discussion series led by Dr. Ann Fey focusing on the use of food as imagery in significant feature films of various cultures. Scheduled films include “Babette’s Feast” (Denmark), “Like Water for Chocolate” (Mexico), “Eat Drink Man Woman” (Taiwan), and Mostly Martha (Germany).

VCS - for two projects: Da New Breed ($1,200), a community dance performance and workshop with a mix of styles ranging from Street Jazz to Voguing; and “Tara’s Crossing” ($1,500), a new play by Jeffrey Solomon and Houses on the Moon Theater Company that tells the story of a transgender asylum seeker from Guyana and her uphill battle to prove her claims of persecution from within the confines of U.S. Immigration Detention.

2012 Individual Artist Grant Recipients

Matthew Baier ($2,500) - for “Songs on Religious Texts”, a new musical composition on selected texts representing themes from five major religions of the world and Rockland County: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Sufi).

Sue Barrasi ($2,500) - for “Rockland Renaissance”, a celebration of the role that Rockland County’s iconic natural landscapes played in the birth of America’s first significant fine arts movement, The Hudson River School.  The project will feature a traveling exhibition of works created by Barrasi that captures eight to 10 Hudson River School landscapes in oil plein air paintings from a more modern perspective, presenting them alongside their 19th century counterparts allowing audiences to reflect on differences in style and on the enduring beauty of the county they call home.

The grants will be given out at the Awards Breakfast on Thursday, March 8, at 8 a.m. at the Arts Council of Rockland’s Spring Valley office. The 2012 grants recipients will speak briefly about their funded projects. The breakfast is free and open to the public. Reservations can be made by calling (845-426-3660) or e-mailing the Council (info@artscouncilofrockland.org).