Artistic Equipment and Tools Round II
Michelle Brown Riverside
Michelle Brown is a Navajo weaver and Native American artist who learned the traditional art of Navajo weaving as a child from her grandmother, mother, and aunts. Her clans are Red Running into the Water People and Born for the Nearby Water's Edge. Michelle’s grant will enable her to purchase weaving tools to demonstrate Navajo weaving techniques and instruct new audiences and practitioners in the art form.
Janie Geiser Los Angeles
Janie Geiser is a visual/theater artist and experimental filmmaker, whose work explores the nature of artifice and the emotional power of inanimate objects, centering on issues of memory, power, and loss. Geiser's multi-media performances have toured nationally and internationally, and her experimental films have been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the REDCAT in Los Angeles, and numerous festivals. She is co-founder of the Los Angeles non-profit cultural organization Automata. Janie will use her grant from CCI to purchase a used travel trailer and convert it into a dedicated workshop/studio space for puppet, set, and installation construction.
Sasha Isaac-Young Los Angeles
Sasha Isaac-Young is a visual artist, writer, and director of documentary and narrative films. While earning her MFA in film production at USC, Sasha made two thesis films, the first entitled “Foster Stories”, and the second, “Little Valerie”. Both short films sold to the Independent Film Channel in 2005. Sasha’s current filmmaking project is a feature documentary exploring how it feels to live in foster care. Sasha will use her grant from CCI to acquire professional quality camera and production equipment for her continued documentary film work.
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Gordon Lee Cupertino
Gordon Lee is an experienced teacher, musician, composer, and conductor of Chinese orchestra. His Chinese orchestral music is rooted within Xiqu (regional operas) and Quyi (regional musical storytelling). He is the founder and artistic director of Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra (www.fyco.org), which has grown from thirteen members in 2000 to its present membership of over a hundred. Gordon received his grant from CCI to purchase resource materials and computer equipment to aid in his composition activities.
Julia Meltzer Los Angeles
Julia Meltzer is a media artist and director of Clockshop, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles. Clockshop produces artist projects and events—most recently, a series of conversations between artists, writers, and civic leaders. Over the past 15 years, Julia has produced a number of films, videos, and installations on subjects ranging from the bureaucracy of secrecy to images of the future in Damascus, Syria. She lives and works with her husband, David Thorne, in Los Angeles. Julia's grant will allow her to purchase high-definition digital-cinema editing equipment and software to aid in the processing, editing, sound design, as well as HD-DVD authoring and production of current and future filmmaking projects. www.speculativearchive.org
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Richard Steven Street San Anselmo
Richard Steven Street is a photographer, who was trained as an academic historian with a specialty in agriculture and farm labor. His photographic work over the last thirty years has covered the contemporary side of farming. He is presently finishing his autobiography/memoir, Knife Fight City and Other Matters: An Independent Scholar's Life Adrift in the California Agro-Industry at Millennium's End. Richard will use his grant to acquire the equipment, software, and instruction needed to convert thirty years of agricultural photography from film into archived digital scans and to switch from film cameras to high quality digital photography and color printing.
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Planning-Presenting and Marketing Work Round II
Brenda Wong Aoki San Francisco
Brenda Wong Aoki weaves together Japanese Noh and Kyogen theater, Commedia Dell’arte, movement, voice, and everyday experience into her work. She has received two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, four Drama-logue Awards, and a Critics’ Circle Award, as well as continued ASCAP support. She has performed at the New Victory Theater on Broadway, the Apollo, the Kennedy Center, the Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, the Adelaide International Festival in Australia, the Esplanade in Singapore, and the Graz Festival in Austria. Brenda will use her grant for strategic marketing and website redesign planning to promote her recordings and other publications to national and international audiences, with a particular emphasis on populations in Asia. www.firstvoice.org/BrendaWongAoki
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Erin Cosgrove Altadena
Erin Cosgrove is an artist and author who aims her satire at archaic belief systems and misguided moralism. She works in multiple mediums including video, writing, drawing, installation, and performance, most of which were used in her 2008 feature animation, “What Manner of Person Art Thou?” With her grant, Erin will design a comprehensive website and internet outreach strategy that highlights her recent animation work. She will also develop a publication strategy for her satiric “7 Romance Novels” project. www.erincosgrove.com
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Arthur Dong Los Angeles
Arthur Dong has been a producer, director, writer, editor, and self-distributor of independent social issue documentaries for over 25 years. His trilogy of films that investigate anti-gay prejudice were released in the DVD collection, “Stories from the War on Homosexuality,” and include the documentaries Family Fundamentals, Licensed to Kill, and Coming Out Under Fire. His films about Asian Americans include Sewing Woman, Forbidden City, U.S.A., and his newest production, Hollywood Chinese, a documentary on the 100 year history of the Chinese in American feature films. Arthur’s grant is to develop a marketing and distribution strategy using internet technology to reach international audiences and to develop plans for a compilation of his Chinese American themed documentaries. Photo credit: Zand Gee www.deepfocusproductions
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Geoff Gallegos Los Angeles
Geoff Gallegos (aka Double G) is a composer and the conductor of the 70-person daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra. The concept behind his work is to fill a void in the symphonic repertoire by providing an alternative program for funky music fans who still want to go to symphony hall. Geoff will use his CCI funding to take the remaining steps toward the completion of daKAH's forthcoming studio release "III x 13" (Three By Thirteen). This album is an attempt to broaden the fan base for daKAH by providing short pieces that can capture the attention span of the eGeneration without compromising the sophistication of orchestral writing. Photo credit: Naoko Ihara Witmer www.doublegmusic.com
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Kristy Guevara-Flanagan Alameda
Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, along with Dawn Valadez, are the filmmakers behind Vaquera Films, a media company that focuses its lens on questions about gender, youth, and urban culture, as well as, immigration and our nation's cultural diversity. Vaquera Films produced Going on 13, a feature-length documentary about four San Francisco Bay Area girls as they negotiate the precious, precarious moments between being a little girl and becoming a young woman. With her grant from CCI, Kristy will research and develop a web-based interactive study guide for girls ages 9-14 to accompany Going on 13. www.goingon13.com
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Marc Bamuthi Joseph Oakland
Marc Bamuthi Joseph was a featured artist on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO, recognized as one of the Smithsonian's "Top 37 Innovators under 36", and a recipient of the inaugural United States Artist Fellowship. Bamuthi is the artistic director of The Living Word Project, a company committed to producing interdisciplinary work in the verse of our times. With his grant form CCI, Marc will work with the Ella Baker Center to plan and market a community based eco-equity project, which will enable him to engage West Oakland communities around socially and environmentally conscious works. Photo Credit: Umi Vaughan www.livingwordproject.org
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Ted Purves Oakland
Ted Purves is an artist, writer, and educator based in Oakland. He works in collaboration with the artist Susanne Cockrell, under the rubric of Amity Works (www.amityworks.org), to create social art projects that investigate the overlay of urban and rural systems upon the lives of specific communities, seen through the lenses of social economy, history, and local ecology. Purves developed the MFA Concentration in Social Practice at California College of the Arts, where he currently serves as a Professor of Fine Arts. His book, What We Want Is Free: Generosity and Exchange in Recent Art, was released by SUNY Press in early 2005. Ted will use his grant from CCI to redesign and rethink his website and electronic collateral materials to create a more comprehensive web presence that increases his ability to promote and distribute information about his public art practice.
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Ken Roht Los Angeles
Ken Roht is the Producing Artistic Director of Orphean Circus (www.orpheancircus.com). He writes, co-composes, directs, choreographs, and performs in whimsical-surrealist, musical, multi-media spectacles that usually include a broad mix of collaborators. He has received recognition for his work from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Rockefeller Foundation, and Durfee Foundation, as well as many theaters including the REDCAT, Mark Taper Forum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the South Coast Repertory. Ken will use his grant to consult with theater and entertainment professionals on the creation of a prototype marketing package for his Orange Star Dinner Show, as a franchised dinner theater experience.
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Jay Rosenblatt San Francisco
Jay Rosenblatt is known internationally for his experimental and documentary essay films. These films explore the human emotional and psychological core, and while their content is personal, their appeal is universal. Jay’s grant will be used for planning and consultation related to the creation and marketing of a 2-disc professional DVD compilation of his collage films and to upgrade his website. www.jayrosenblattfilms.com.
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Erika Chong Shuch San Francisco
Erika Chong Shuch makes theater. She coalesces movement, words, music, video, and scenic design to build and present original performance works with her company, the ESP Project, a resident performance company at Intersection for the Arts. With her grant, Erica will work with a marketing consultant/creative director to develop a marketing plan and website, aimed at increasing recognition, touring, and other distribution opportunities for her performance works. Photo credit: Ishan Vernallis
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Sri Susilowati Pasadena
Sri Susilowati is a dancer and choreographer from Indonesia, who uses traditional techniques and narratives to address contemporary themes. She is the founder of dance companies in both the United States and Indonesia, and is the founder and director of the Dancing in the Margins Festival, which provides opportunities for world/ethnic dance choreographers to present work that addresses contemporary issues but is still grounded in a deeply-rooted tradition. Sri will use her planning grant to develop a marketing plan and a promotional video with the aid of a marketing consultant, web designer, and videographer in order to expand current audiences and reach new audiences.www.dancinginthemargins.com
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Scott Wells San Francisco
Scott Wells is a San Francisco based dancer and choreographer, who has created works for skateboarders and boxers. His company, Scott Wells & Company, is known for its athletic and graceful “kamikaze dances.” Wells tours annually to Europe and recently completed a tour to Turkey, Austria, Hungary, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, and Croatia. Scott will use his grant to conduct a market assessment and strategic planning process, which will focus on increasing touring opportunities for his work. Photo Credit: David Papas. Pictured: Lindsay Gauthier and Scott Wells www.scottwellsdance.com
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Christine Wong Yap Oakland
Christine Wong Yap is a visual artist who makes installations, works on paper, and multiples to explore themes of optimism and pessimism. She is currently an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts and her 2008 exhibitions include shows at Swarm Gallery in Oakland, Kearny Street Workshop, and Frey Norris Gallery in San Francisco. Christine’s grant will enable her to work with consultants in the development of a business plan to expand the audience and distribution of work with the goal of increasing earned income. www.christinewongyap.com
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Implementation –Presenting and Marketing Work Round II
Chitresh Das San Francisco
Pandit Chitresh Das is one of Kathak's great master artists, as well as a choreographer, composer, and guru. He is one of the few masters performing the Kathak solo with the dynamism, depth of artistry, and virtuosity that make it representative of the true tradition and relevant to modern audiences. Following up on his CCI Planning grant, Pandit Das will use his Implementation grant to create marketing materials, build community and presenter relationships, and supplement artists’ fees for touring the traditional Kathak solo. Photo credit: Edward Casati www.kathak.org
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Alonzo King San Francisco
Choreographer Alonzo King’s original and innovative work uses the language of dance to express the essence of the human experience and to reveal the spirit that animates all forms. Creating work with artistic collaborators from around the globe, King’s work seeks to exemplify human nobility, power, and grace. King founded LINES Ballet ( www.linesballet.org) in 1982 and has created over 75 works for LINES Ballet and other companies in the past 26 years. Alonzo will use his Implementation grant for the domestic and international tour of “Long River High Sky”, a collaborative work with the Shoalin monks and Melody of China. Photo credit: Marty Sohl
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Suzanne Lacy Marina del Rey
Suzanne Lacy is an artist and writer whose work includes large-scale public performances and installations, photographs, and text on issues of social justice and equity. She is Chair of the new Master's in Fine Arts: Public Practices at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Suzanne will use her Implementation grant for the development and dissemination of materials and resources tied to a comprehensive marketing campaign, which is aimed at increasing the visibility of her work among curators and gallerists in the United States and aboard. www.suzannelacy.com
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Marcus Shelby San Francisco
Marcus Shelby is an award winning composer, arranger, educator, and bassist working in San Francisco. His credits include original scoring for film, theater, and dance as well as jazz composition for his own groups, the 15-piece Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra and the Marcus Shelby Trio. He is nationally recognized for his innovative and collaborative approach to composing and arranging for text, the visual arts, dance, and theater and for his commitment to using jazz to narrate the rich history of African Americans. Marcus will use his Implementation grant for the publicity, presentation, and distribution of the CD recording of the jazz oratorio Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land and for marketing and presentation support of the companion educational program, Harriet and Jazz. www.marcusshelby.com
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