More on City of Austin Intentions for $30k from National Endowment for the Arts

Press release published December 19, 2013 after NEA's announcement of grants on December 11:

www.austintexas.gov/news

City of Austin receives National Endowment for the Arts grant to support citywide Cultural Mapping Project
 

The grant will support a 2-year community-wide cultural mapping project

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman, Joan Shigekawa, recently announced that the City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Division of the Economic Development Department is one of 895 organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The $30,000 grant will support a 2-year sophisticated community-wide cultural mapping project exploring Austin’s cultural assets and economic and community development strategies.

The project will enable the creative sector to integrate goals with City initiatives in order to inform potential future artist housing, creative sector incubators, and other cultural facilities in development projects. It will also assist in informing the growth and location of creative corridors or hubs and cultural districts as identified in the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support these exciting and diverse projects that will take place throughout the United States,” said Acting Chairman Shigekawa. “Whether it is through a focus on education, engagement, or innovation, these projects all contribute to vibrant communities and memorable experiences for the public to engage with the arts.”

Starting in mid-2014, citizens will be invited to participate in sessions geared toward developing a series of GIS maps and visuals focused on the ten new Council districts. The maps will include physical cultural assets – such as pieces of public art or performance venues; non-cultural data that describe the social dynamics of Austin; current City planning and economic initiatives; and artist visuals that present community meaning.

“We are excited about mapping the many creative resources we have in Austin,” said Megan Crigger, Cultural Arts Division Manager. “It gives us an opportunity to explore the intersection between Austin’s creative sector, the economy, and place, and identify strategies to ensure we continue growing the creativity that distinguishes Austin from other cities.”

Accompanying the final maps will be individual reports that describe the discussions, findings, and recommendations for priority community and economic development strategies.

Art Works grants support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence: public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and enhancing the livability of communities through the arts. The NEA received 1,528 eligible Art Works applications, requesting more than $75 million in funding. Of those applications, 895 were recommended for grants for a total of $23.4 million.

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov.

City of Austin Cultural Arts Division

Impact Austin Grants $100,000 to Zach Theatre Education Programs

ZACH Theatre has been awarded a $100,000 grant from Impact Austin — a nonprofit organization that pools annual donations from members and gives grants to local, worthy causes selected by its members — to fund the expansion of ZACH’s Arts Across the Curriculum program.

Impact Austin will hold an award presentation for ZACH on Monday, June 17 at noon at the Topfer Theatre’s People’s Plaza, 202 S. Lamar Blvd. at W. Riverside Dr. The presentation is open to the public.

ZACH Theatre’s Arts Across the Curriculum is an arts integration and professional development program that trains teachers to use creative drama and theatre techniques to actively engage students in language arts, science, history, and math curricula.

Impact Austin’s grants are awarded in five focus areas: culture, education, environment, family, and health and wellness. ZACH’s Arts Across the Curriculum program was the grant winner for the culture category, which encompasses programs and projects that cultivate, develop, educate and improve the cultural climate in the Greater Austin area.

For the past two years, ZACH Theatre, with support from partner organizations mindPOP, Austin ISD and The Kennedy Center, has successfully piloted the AAC program in three Title I Austin ISD elementary schools and 15 classrooms. The Impact Austin grant will allow ZACH to expand its AAC program from three Title I schools to 16, from 15 teachers to 60, and from 300 at-risk students to 1,500 over the next two years. The grant will also fund the addition of a dedicated program coordinator, salaries for teaching artists, and an in-depth third-party quantitative and qualitative evaluation conducted by UT to measure the effectiveness of the program so it can further be refined and expanded.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com

National Endowment for the Arts Grants $40,000 to Creative Action to Train AISD Teachers in Arts-Based Education

This week the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that Austin’s Creative Action will receive a $40,000 NEA Art Works grant to support the “Creative Action In the Classroom” project.

This innovative project will allow Creative Action (formerly Theatre Action Project), in partnership with MINDPOP, to deliver powerful arts experiences to 2,500 AISD students, but it will also allow it to provide targeted professional development to teachers that will help them incorporate arts-based strategies as part of their teaching.

“What makes this project so important,” says Karen LaShelle, executive director of Creative Action, “it allows us to model and then train teachers on the effective strategies we use every day to inspire, engage and educate youth. Teachers can keep using those strategies across the curriculum making the entire educational experience more fun, more interactive and ultimately as studies have shown, more successful.”

Launched with in-depth research last year, the project is a collaboration among Creative Action, MINDPOP, Austin Independent School District and City of Austin. Creative Action staff will train a total of 125 classroom teachers in arts-based teaching strategies to support district-identified gaps in arts education.

According to a report published last year by the NEA, "The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth," at-risk students who have access to the arts in or out of school also tend to have better academic results, better workforce opportunities, and more civic engagement. The study reports these and other positive outcomes associated with high levels of arts exposure for youth of low socioeconomic status.

“Arts and social and emotional learning continue to be an important part of the curriculum in schools,” says LaShelle, “especially since we know that engaging youth creatively and supporting their personal growth is critical to student success.”

As Austin’s largest provider of after-school programming, arts enrichment, and character education programming in Central Texas, Creative Action serves more than 16,000 children and young people every year. The NEA grant marks a significant point of growth for Creative Action, which is already the largest arts-education organization in Central Texas. Last year, Creative Action won a $150,000 grant from Impact Austin for its “New Stages” youth ensemble and it was a finalist for the 2012 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, selected by the President’s Committee on the Arts.

Arts Reporting; Vortex Repertory Receives NEA Grant for The Elementals: Water

Tweeted by Vortex Repertory:

VORTEX Repertory Company receives NEA grant to support The Elementals: Water

Grant is part of NEA announcement of 863 grants and $22.543 million in funding nationwide

VORTEX Repertory Company is one of the grantees announced by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)and will receive an Art Works grant of $15,000 to support the production The Elementals: WATER. The 863 grant awards total $22.543 million, encompass 15 artistic disciplines and fields, and support projects in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

VORTEX Repertory Company will create and present a unique work of theatre with music and dance to be performed in a large pool of water. The Elementals: WATER encompasses daring designs, exhilarating dance choreographed by Toni Bravo, and original music by Chad Salvata to convey environmental and spiritual messages that celebrate the beauty of water, heightening awareness, reverence, and protection of this precious resource. Conceived and directed by award-winning theatrical visionary Bonnie Cullum, the creation of WATER draws on the experience of more than 100 original VORTEX productions and world premieres. The world premiere of WATER will be at The VORTEX in Austin, Texas in August and September 2012.

Click to read more at the Facebook page of Vortex Repertory . . . .

Arts Reporting: Salvage Vanguard Theatre Receives TCG-MetLife Grant to Support Scenery Co-op

News received directly from Jenny Larson, Artistic Director of the

The SVT has been chosen for a $50,000 "Do It" grant to assist in the set-up of a cooperative stock of scene material to be shared among Austin Theatres. From the press release of the Theatre Communications Group and the MetLife Foundation:

"MetLife Foundation and Theatre Communications Group (TCG) announce the fourth round of recipients for the MetLife/TCG A-ha! Program: Think It, Do It, which supports the creative thinking and action of TCG member theatres with the goal of impacting the larger theatre community. Five theatres were awarded grants, totaling $225,000, to either research and develop new ideas or experiment and implement innovative concepts.

"The A-ha! Program has two components: Think It grants ($25,000), which give theatre professionals the time and space for research and development and Do It grants ($50,000), which support the implementation and testing of new ideas. The projects and initiatives supported by the A-ha! Program impact more than just the recipient theatres. Successful projects serve as models for theatre and arts professionals across the country.

Click to view list of grantees at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Shakespeare at Winedale Receives Outreach Grant from RBC Wealth Management

Received directly:

Shakespeare at Winedale Receives Grant from RBC Wealth Management

Shakespeare at Winedale recently received a generous $5,000 grant from the RBC Foundation- USA to fund the program’s Shakespeare Outreach program, which brings Shakespeare into the lives of deserving children in and around central Texas. Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach, housed in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas, is a Language Arts enrichment program that provides opportunities for meaningful learning and academic excellence for Texas schoolchildren in grades K-12, with a special focus on both emerging and advanced readers in grades 3 through 8, and on students in low-income communities.

“We are extremely grateful for the support that RBC has given to our program over several years,” said Shakespeare at Winedale director James Loehlin, “Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach depends on grant support to carry out our educational mission.”

The mission of the RBC Foundation- USA is to improve the quality of life in the communities where RBC Wealth Management has a business presence by supporting non-profit organizations that make a positive difference. The foundation focuses on three core areas: arts and culture, human services and youth education. The culture at RBC Wealth Management is deeply rooted in being a trusted partner of its clients and to communities the firm serves.

Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach Upcoming events include summer workshops with Austin and Gonzales youth, both culminating at Winedale. Students will explore Shakespeare with the help of the Winedale summer class. The students will have the special opportunity to perform on the barn stage as well as enjoy Winedale performances of Hamlet and As You Like It.

About RBC Wealth Management In the United States, RBC Wealth Management operates as a division of RBC Capital Markets Corporation. Founded in 1909, RBC Capital Markets, LLC. is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, and other major securities exchanges. RBC Wealth Management has over $183 billion of assets under administration and nearly 2,100 financial consultants operating in nearly 199 locations in 42 states. Through RBC Foundation – USA grants, charitable sponsorships, civic involvement and employee volunteerism, RBC Wealth Management gave $3.2 million to charitable causes in local communities in 2010.