This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The National Endowment of the Arts is giving the Sundance Institute a big boost: A $150,000 grant.
Sundance was one of 1,145 not-for-profit arts groups recommended for some $88 million in the second round of the NEA's fiscal 2011 grants, the agency announced today. It's the largest grant going to a single Utah-connected arts group.
The grant will support Sundance's labs for directors, screenwriters and composers, as well as the Institute's Creative Producing Fellowship and Summit, its screenplay reading series, "as well as sustain the year-round continuum of both creative and business artist support for which we are known," said Sundance's executive director, Keri Putnam.
Sundance received a $30,000 grant for its theater lab earlier in the year.
In a statement, Putnam noted that Sundance "was founded by Robert Redford in 1981 with an initial grant from the NEA, and we rely heavily on these types of grants to sustain our work."
The NEA also gave a partnership grant to the Utah Arts Council of $759,100, to support activities for the state's ongoing partnership agreement with the federal agency.
Other grants for arts groups with Utah connections are:
The University of Utah will get $70,000 "to support the University of Utah Tanner Dance Program's Side-by-Side Dance Training Residency Program. Students in kindergarten through sixth grade and their teachers will acquire and practice dance skills on a weekly basis through in-school residencies and professional development workshops for teachers."
Brigham Young University will get $60,000 "to support the touring exhibition 'The Weir Family, 1820-1920: Expanding the Traditions of American Art,' with accompanying catalogue and educational programs. The exhibition, to be held at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, will be the first major collective examination of the artistic contributions of American artists John Weir (1803-89) and his two sons, John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926) and Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919)."
The Center for Land Use Interpretation, in Culver City, Calif., will get $45,000 "to support an artist residency at Wendover Regional Arts Complex in Wendover, Utah. The residency will enable artists to create and present work in Wendover, a unique landscape in a remote and geographically isolated area which includes the Great Salt Lake and its desert and salt-flat environs."
Bad Dog Rediscovers America, based in Salt Lake City, will get $40,000 "to support the Art Apprenticeship Program for teens in urban and rural areas of New Mexico and Utah. Approximately 35 apprenticeships with professional artists in fused glass, comic art, and digital photography will be offered to teenagers from inner-city Salt Lake City, and other communities in rural New Mexico and Utah."
Utah State University's Mountain West Center for Regional Studies in Logal will get $30,000 "to support a folklorist position at Utah State University. The folklorist will document the traditional arts of the increasingly diverse population of the region and develop public programs to increase understanding among the various ethnic, occupational, religious, and other groups."
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company will get $25,000 "to support dance residency activities and performances at the Del E. Webb Center in Arizona and at the University of Southern Mississippi."
Salt Lake City's Center for Documentary Arts will get $25,000 "to support Exhibits That Teach, an artist-in-residency program. Students will engage in long-term projects that involve the study of the documentary arts genre, explore the cultural contexts that inform the exhibits, and create original artworks."
The Utah Humanities Council is getting $10,000 "to support the 14th annual Utah Humanities Book Festival."
The YMCA of Billings, Mont., is getting $10,000 for its YMCA Writer's Voice program, "a reading tour in Billings and around eastern Montana of writers from Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming."