OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

Asia Pacific Performance Exchange Program 2006

Deadline: December 1, 2005

The Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) is an international artists residency program, hosted by UCLA, that promotes cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary exploration; develops rigorous strategies for art making that reflect the nuances of cultural differences; and fosters new ways to create, combine, and interpret artistic expressions.

APPEX is a six-week intensive residency. For five days a week, artists will engage in all-day master classes, studio workshops, experimentation, and collaborative projects. On weekends and evenings, participants will be introduced to the vibrant arts and culture context of the host city through specially planned field trips and concerts. Each Fellow will be provided with travel expenses, shared accommodations, and meals for the duration of the residency.

Traditional and contemporary performing artists from Asia and the United States are invited to apply. Special care will be given in the selection process to ensure a balance across disciplines. Artists who are active in the community as educators, artistic directors, and cultural workers are encouraged to apply.

APPEX 2006 is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and the Ford Foundation.

For Application information please visit UCLA’s World Arts and Culture Program website.

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2006 Dance Lab

Application Deadline: December 7, 2005
Dates: February 16-20 and 23-26, 2005
San Francisco, CA

The 2006 Dance Lab for dance artists whose work is rooted in and inspired by traditional, ethnic and folk dance, is an opportunity for dance artists to strengthen how they talk about their work, its inspiration and creative processes; increase their capacity to develop new markets and communities for their work; develop meaningful relationships with presenters; and access special limited funding for touring in the Western region and outside of their immediate geographic area.

The Dance Lab will benefit dance artists who want to share, present and tour their work outside of their current communities and audiences. Dance Lab Artists will work with a faculty of artists, presenters, managers, dance writers and other specialists from the Bay Area and nation-wide. The curriculum will be refined based on the needs of the Dance Lab Artists and includes four components: One-Day Retreat; Artists Intensive; Dance & Media Conference; and Artist/Presenter Exchange. Dance Lab Artists will receive a modest honorarium as well as individual consultation opportunities.

The 2006 Dance Lab is a project of the Regional Dance Development Initiative, a pilot project of the National Dance Project.

For more information or to obtain an application e-mail San San Wong, Project Director, at rddisfbayarea@yahoo.com.

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Grantseeking Basics for Individuals in the Arts

Date: December 28, 2005
San Francisco, CA

In this workshop, the Foundation Center shows individuals involved in the arts how to identify funders in the arts, consider the option of fiscal sponsorship, and offer tips on how to create a step-by-step plan to find funding for your needs as an individual grantseeker.

The program is offered free of charge. To register call (415) 397-0902 or visit the Foundation Center’s website.

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Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellowships - Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution

Deadline: January 15, 2006
Washington, D.C.

Cultural heritage is today a rubric of ever-expanding scope. It is used globally as a basis for multinational, national, state, and local programs and governance. Cultural heritage is also the focus of ideas and programs generated by hundreds of non-governmental organizations, community-based and advocacy groups, and even businesses. Yet the concept of “cultural heritage” is vastly under-theorized. It has lacked an academic, disciplinary base; has generated only an attenuated theoretical literature; and has generally left the bearers of cultural heritage out of the discussion. Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Fellows at the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage help refine the theoretical framework for cultural heritage and expand it to include grassroots voices. Reflecting the perspectives of academic specialists, civil society groups, and public cultural organizations, fellows’ work informs dialogues and practice across social, political, and disciplinary boundaries, as well as indicating future directions for policy.

The Smithsonian hosts six to eight fellows for each of three years to work on the theoretical development of the concept of cultural heritage. Fellows examined the relationship between cultural heritage and political representation (2004-05) and the economics of cultural heritage (2005-06); the third year of the program (2006-07) concentrates on the arts. The fellows are humanities-oriented thinkers and practitioners engaged in the work of academic institutions, public organizations, and cultural communities.

Applicants for 2006-07 will be interested in developing ideas, principles, and frameworks for understanding the artistic dimension of cultural heritage. Keeping in mind the concern with grassroots cultural communities, applicants will focus their critical inquiry on such issues as community recognition of or support for art (visual, language, music, dance, architecture) as heritage; the relationship between individual or group agency and local or national tradition; the relationship between the institutional contexts of cultural heritage and its form and content; and how art reflects and articulates social identity. Applicants will demonstrate originality of approach and significant potential for making a contribution to the formulation of cultural heritage policy and practice.

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage – where cultural heritage is the subject of ongoing, daily intellectual and practical activity – hosts the fellows. Given the Center’s location in Washington, D.C., and its strong connections to international and national institutions, service organizations, and nongovernmental and community groups, fellows partake of a rich environment and find colleagues and cultural policymakers deeply interested in their work.

Applicants need not be U.S. citizens to be eligible, and approximately half of the fellows are drawn from outside the United States. Fellowships include a stipend and an allowance for travel to and from Washington, D.C., as necessary. Please note: These fellowships are not intended to support undergraduate or graduate studies, or research. Projects will not be considered for the re-writing of dissertations, editing of texts, or the preparation of textbooks or anthologies. Applicants whose native language is not English are expected to have a sufficiently good command of spoken English so that they can fully discuss, debate, and exchange ideas and practices about cultural heritage.

For more information visit the Center for Arts & Culture’s website.

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The Lomax Legacy: Folklore in a Globalizing Century

January 18-20, 2006
Library of Congress, Washington, DC

The American Folklife Center, in cooperation with the Association for Cultural Equity, will present a symposium, “The Lomax Legacy: Folklore in a Globalizing Century,” from January 18-20, 2006, at the Library of Congress. For two days, a diverse group of scholars, cultural workers, and media producers will gather to reflect on the life work of the preeminent song collector, musical anthropologist, and cultural activist Alan Lomax (1915-2002). The symposium will consist of panel presentations, film screenings, and an evening concert. Participants will discuss their own research, publications, productions and advocacy work in light of Lomax’s pioneering initiatives in these same areas. The gathering highlights the AFC’s 2004 acquisition of the Alan Lomax Collection, his legacy of recordings, research and writing - a multimedia archive of musical performances from around the world.

The two-day event will be open to the public, free of charge, but seating is limited and reservations are required. Reservations for no more than two seats per registrant will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For general information, registration, program details and locations of events, please visit the American Folklife Center’s website.

Alan Lomax began his career at the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk Song (the predecessor to the American Folklife Center) in 1933. Between
1933 and 1942, Alan Lomax and his father, folklorist John A. Lomax, helped develop the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folksong into a major repository of traditional music. Many of the early recordings held by the Center are the products of their celebrated field trips to document folk music and oral history across much of the United States and Alan Lomax's subsequent trips to the Caribbean and Europe.

After he left the Library of Congress in 1942, Alan Lomax continued his work to document, analyze and present the traditional music, dance and narratives of cultural communities around the world. He expanded the scope of his work to include ethnomusicological and anthropological research and teaching, book publishing for scholarly and popular audiences, and commercial record, radio and film production. He was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 1980 National Book Critics Circle award for “The Land Where the Blues Began,” the National Medal of the Arts in 1986, a “Living Legend” award from the Library of Congress in 2000 and a Grammy in 2002 for his lifelong contributions to music.

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Websites for Arts Organizations Workshop

Date: January 26, 2006
Los Angeles, CA

The web is a powerful and inexpensive tool for marketing and communication to a potentially global audience. In this workshop organized by the Center for Cultural Innovation, D. Jean Hester, a multimedia artist and website marketing expert, will talk about how to market your arts organization and its programs on the web, how to drive traffic to your site, and how to make your site exciting and representative of your organization or business.

Her workshop is perfect for organizations, small businesses or self-employed people looking to create a new website or to use the one they have more effectively. Hester's own work combines programming, databases, film, video, and performance elements. Her work has been shown in exhibits and screenings throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Hester spent the dot.com boom working on sites for Toyota, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lexus, Union Bank of California, and Wellpoint. This workshop is part of the National Arts Marketing Project.

The registration fee is $35. For more information visit the Center for Cultural Innovation’s website.

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