Wexner Center receives NEA Art Works Grant

Columbus, OH—National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Jane Chu has announced that the Wexner Center for the Arts is one of 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The Center is recommended for a $25,000 grant to support a series of residencies and commissions by choreographer/dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Belgium), filmmaker Liza Johnson (United States), as well as composer and vocal artist Samita Sinha (United States) in collaboration with video artist/sculptor Dani Leventhal (United States). In addition to residency activities, the artists will participate in discussions, master classes, staged readings, and film screenings.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu says, “I’m pleased to be able to share the news of our support through Art Works, including the award to the Wexner Center. The arts foster value, connection, creativity and innovation for the American people and these recommended grants demonstrate those attributes and affirm that the arts are part of our everyday lives.”

Notes Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin, “We are pleased to receive this award from the NEA in support of the center’s sustained commitment to artist residencies and commissions. Such work is at the core of the Wexner Center’s mandate as a cultural catalyst and laboratory for the creation of new work by artists across all disciplines. And because these works will travel on to other venues and locales, support from the NEA will have impact far beyond our own institution.”

The NEA grant-supported works include the following:

• Cipher, a multidisciplinary work by composer and vocal artist Samita Sinha, onstage at the Wex March 23–28, 2015. The piece was co-commissioned by the center through its residency program and represents a new direction for Sinha, as it involves a collaboration with video artist/sculptor Dani Leventhal (on faculty at Ohio State) and a more sophisticated interweaving of technology. In conjunction with the performances, the center will organize discussions with Sinha and her collaborators with academic partners at Ohio State for students in music, Asian studies, theater, and visual art (where Leventhal serves on faculty). 
• Nervous (working title), a new original screenplay by Liza Johnson, based in part on a 2012 New York Times Magazine article, “What Really Happened to the Girls in LeRoy?” This fictionalization of the story focuses on a group of high-school girls in a deindustrialized US town who develop a mass psychogenic illness. Johnson, who screened her first feature-length film Return at the Wex in spring 2012 and returned this year to introduce her second feature, Hateship Loveship, will return in early 2015 to participate in a variety of programs involving Ohio State and other students. Activities include a series of staged and informal script readings with students as well as a series of master classes for university students and public screenings and discussions of her short work.
• Fractus (working title), a new dance work by the noted international dance artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, co-commissioned and co-presented by the Wex. Cherkaoui, artistic director of the dance theater ensemble Eastman, had his US debut at the Wexner Center in 2003 with the premiere of his breakthrough work Foi with Les Ballets C de la B, and his artistic profile has grown exponentially in the years since. Fractus is a full-evening work for a trio with dance collaborators who mirror Cherkaoui’s own choreographic aesthetic: virtuosic postmodern styles and street dance forms rooted in hip-hop. For this work, a dance trio (which includes Cherkaoui) will perform to live music by a Kodo drummer and a master of the zither-like Korean string instrument the kayagum. Subsequent to its premiere in Antwerp in the fall of 2015, the Wexner Center will present this new work April 19, 2016 at the Capitol Theatre; Cherkaoui will also offer a master class in the Ohio State dance department.

Art Works grants support the creation of art, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and enhancement of the livability of communities through the arts. The NEA received 1,474 eligible applications under the Art Works category, requesting more than $75 million in funding. Of those applications, 919 are recommended for grants for a total of $26.6 million.

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA website at arts.gov. Follow the conversation about this and other NEA‐funded projects on Twitter at #NEAFall2014.