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Columbia Foundation Articles and Reports July 2012 Arts and Culture ALONZO KING’S LINES BALLET $40,000 awarded in August 2010 for two new world-premiere ballets, a collaboration with architect Christopher Haas (Triangle of the Squinches) and a new work set to Sephardic music (Resin) 1. Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, March 27, 2012 2012 Isadora Duncan Dance Award Winners Announced Christopher Haas wins a 2012 Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design for his set design for Triangle of the Squinches. Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet wins two other Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for the production Sheherazade. ASIAN ART MUSEUM $255,000 awarded since 2003, including $50,000 in July 2011 for Phantoms of Asia, the first major exhibition of Asian contemporary art from May 18 to September 2, 2012, which explores the question “What is Asia?” through the lens of supernatural, non-material, and spiritual sensibilities in art of the Asian region 2. San Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2012 Asian Art Museum's 'Phantoms of Asia' connects Phantoms of Asia features over 60 pieces of contemporary art playing off and connecting with the Asian Art Museum's prized historical objects. According to the writer, Phantoms of Asia, the museum’s first large-scale exhibition of contemporary art is an “an expansive and ambitious show.” Allison Harding, the Asian Art Museum's assistant curator of contemporary art says, “We're trying to create a dialogue between art of the past and art of the present, and look at the way in which artists today are exploring many of the same concerns of artists throughout time. Where do we come from? Where are we going? How is the universe structured? What is the nature of the universe, and what is my place in that unknowable expanse?” 3. Youtube.com by Asian Art Museum, May 2012 Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past [Links to a series of 22 videos] about the exhibition Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past on view at the Asian Art Museum from May 18 through September 2, 2012. CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM $300,000 awarded since 2007, including $50,000 in July 2011 for Trees for Life: A New Vision for Art, Ecology, and Community, a contemporary-artist exhibition that highlights how artists and Jewish environmental groups are examining and celebrating the tree in today's culture 4. San Francisco Chronicle, March 17, 2012 Contemporary Jewish Museum branches out with trees Tu B'Shevat, a minor Jewish holiday meaning the New Year for the Trees, is the inspiration for the museum's multimedia exhibition, Trees for Life: A New Vision for Art, which includes about 75 pieces, mostly paintings, sculptures, photographs, and videos. The exhibition examines the role of the tree in 1 Jewish tradition. Dara Solomon, a curator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, says “"The holiday was the leaping-off point for us. It has grown in significance in the last few years, especially in the Bay Area. People are engaging with their Jewish roots – no pun.” DOOR DOG PRODUCTIONS $70,000 awarded since FY 2011, including $20,000 in August 2010 to commission five internationally renowned traditional-music masters to compose pieces that the youth orchestra will premiere in November 2011, and $50,000 in July 2011 for The Opera Project 5. San Francisco World Music Festival 2011 Pictures by Jim Block, courtesy of Door Dog Productions [Series of photographs from Door Dog’s 2011 San Francisco World Music Festival] HACKNEY EMPIRE $37,227 awarded from the Columbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation in July 2011 for Isango Ensemble Residency 2012 to bring the Isango Ensemble, a South African theatre company, to London to perform at the Hackney Empire Theatre for a minimum of 18 performances over three weeks beginning May 7, 2012 6. The Stage (London), May 21, 2012 La Bohème Review of La Bohème by Isango Ensemble; the writer says, “The infectiously energetic group, which won an Oliver Award for its 2008 West End transfer of The Magic Flute, this time presents a treatment of Puccini’s La Bohème. The principal cast display impressive voices – the lovers’ quartet at the end of Act III is a delight. The most memorable moments are when the company goes ‘off-piste’, letting its hair down with joyous dancing and chanting. Everyone sings and plays from memory throughout, imbuing the performance with remarkable directness.” KRONOS QUARTET $100,000 awarded since 2009, including $50,000 in July 2011 for Kronos: Made in America 7. The Guardian (London), January 19, 2012 The Kronos Quartet: the sky's the limit The Kronos Quartet has a month-long residency at the Barbican in London in early 2012, “a project that is voraciously ambitious in its musical range.” Kronos opens with a performance of Made in America. The writer says, “Kronos have achieved more in getting the string quartet as a medium, and contemporary music as a creative force, into the global popular consciousness than pretty well any other ensemble.” David Harrington, the founder of Kronos, says, “I just have an incredible sense of wonder and fun exploring the world of music. It's amazing that this configuration of instruments – two violins, a viola and a cello – that began in central Europe around 1750 has now radiated throughout the world.” [The piece links to several Kronos performances on Youtube.com.] THE OPERA GROUP $206,555 awarded since 2007, including $40,837 from the Columbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation in July 2011 for Babur in London 8. The Independent (London), May 31, 2012 Song of the suicide bomber: How 'Babur in London' negotiated a cultural minefield Preview of Babur in London; the writer says, “The opera signals a growing readiness for artists to handle the incendiary theme of contemporary terrorism in their work.” John Fulljames, director of Babur in London and former artistic director of The Opera Group, says, “The headline on the tin inevitably has 2 something sensational about it...and in dealing with a subject like this, we were anxious [about audience response] but in the end, we talked in detail about what the piece was, and what became clear when we premiered it in Switzerland was that it was seen as a beautiful, thoughtful, delicate piece of work, with nothing sensational about it." Fulljames passionately believes that opera should be part of the contemporary world, and so should not avoid grappling with current-day themes. He continues, “I think opera needs to be part of the cultural landscape. The conversation around it should be the same conversation we are having in our cities. If we only make opera about martians who live on the moon, then it's deeply unsatisfactory. What opera offers is an emotional space to have these conversations. For example, dementia is very easy to understand as a science, but it's much harder to understand the emotions. The subject matter here is intellectually – and emotionally – challenging for the cast and audience.” 9. Vimeo.com by The Opera Group, May 2012 Babur in London Trailer [Links to video trailer for Babur in London] THE PHOTOGRAPHERS’ GALLERY $26,953 awarded from the Columbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation in July 2011 for the Raqs Media Collective exhibition 10. ArtLyst (London), May 17, 2012 Shiny New Photographers’ Gallery Opens to the Public The Photographers’ Gallery reopens after renovation on May 19, 2012. The launch exhibitions are Edward Burtynsky’s decade long project ‘Oil’ and the New Delhi based Raqs Media Collective. PRS FOR MUSIC FOUNDATION $40,837 awarded in July 2011 from the Columbia Foundation Fund of the London Community Foundation for a festival of new British music during the Olympic Celebrations of arts and culture in July 2012, based on the New Music 20 x 12 commissions: 20 new works, each lasting 12 minutes 11. Financial Times (London), April 14, 2012 Sound tracks Since the launch of New Music 20x12, a UK-wide program for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, 20 composers have accepted commissions to write something on a sport-related theme. Many of these pieces are to be premiered in April, May and June, and most will be performed at London’s Southbank Centre over a single weekend in July. Joe Cutler’s Ping! for string quartet, four table tennis players and film, is “among the most ambitious” with “choreography as important as sound.” Choreography is also crucial to Gavin Higgins’s What Wild Ecstasy, a piece to which Rambert Dance Company [a Columbia Foundation grantee] performs the ballet Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune in May at Sadler’s Wells in London. Vanessa Reed, executive director PRS for Music Foundation, says, “We wanted to make the selection in terms of musical quality but also to find innovative ways of presentation.” 12. Financial Times (London), May 16, 2012 Rambert Dance Company, Sadler’s Wells, London 4-out-of-5 star review for “a wide-ranging and admirably well-danced programme from a company known for its boldness”; the writer says, “What Wild Ecstasy has a fine and rumbustious score by Gavin Higgins and insanely modish clothes by Michael Howells (whose set is three pendant, gigantic and incredibly scary models of hornets). The dance has tremendous energy, and finds not inconsiderable fun in a Night Out somewhere much warmer than the U.K.’s current Ice-Hell. It is saucy and knowing and enjoyable, and splendidly danced.” 3 ROYAL OPERA HOUSE $774,483 awarded since 1984, including a two-year $136,616 grant in August 2010 for a new opera commission by George Benjamin and Martin Crimp that takes as its starting point a short piece of 13th- century Provencal prose to be retold in a contemporary voice to explore themes including limits of power, female identity, and art in society 13.