L T 1 TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: It is my special pleasure to transmit herewith the Annual Report of the National Endowment for the Arts for the fiscal year 1993. The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded over 100,000 grants since 1965 for arts projects that touch every community in the Nation. Through its grants to individual artists, the agency has helped to launch and sustain the voice and grace of a generation--such as the brilliance of Rita Dove, now the U.S. Poet Laureate, or the daring of dancer Arthur Mitchell. Through its grants to art organizations, it has helped invigorate community arts centers and museums, preserve our folk heritage, and advance the perform­ ing, literary, and visual arts. Since its inception, the Arts Endowment has believed that all children should have an education in the arts. Over the past few years, the agency has worked hard to include the arts in our national education reform movement. Today, the arts are helping to lead the way in renewing American schools. I have seen first-hand the success story of this small agency. In my home State of Arkansas, the National Endowment for the Arts worked in partnership with the State arts agency and the private sector to bring artists into our schools, to help cities revive downtown centers, and to support opera and jazz, literature and music. All across the United States, the Endowment invests in our cultural institutions and artists. People in communities small and large in every State have greater opportunities to participate and enjoy the arts. We all benefit from this increased arts presence, and yet the cost is just 65 cents per American. The payback in economic terms has always been several-fold. The payback in human benefit is incalculable. THE WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR~THE ARTS The Federal agency that supports the Dear Mr. President: visual, literary and perfornting arts to benqfit all Atnericans I have the honor to submit to you the Annual Report of the National Endowment for the Arts for the fiscal year ended O~qce of the September 30, 1993. Chairman Respectfully, Arts in Education Challenge & A,twtncement Jane Alexander l)ance Chairman Design Arts The President Expansion Arts The White House bldk Arts Washington, D.C. hlternational August 1994 Literature l.ocals Media Arls Music Opent/Musical Theater Presentin~ ~ Conlnlissioning State ~ Regional Theater Visual Arts TATEMENT was a year of transition and attainment at the National Endowment for the Arts. Transition was, of course, prompted by the election of President Clinton and his vision of new directions for both government and nation. Attainment lay in the remarkable manner that the Endowment carried on its work during Fiscal Year 1993--from October 1, 1992 to September 30, 1993--during which time the agency operated without a chairman who had been appointed by a president and confirmed by the Senate. Fiscal Year ’93 brought, for example, the transformation of the old Office of International Activities as the full- fledged International Program. This change signalled to applicants and potential funding partners alike the Endowment’s long-term commitment to grant-making in the international arena. One of the new program’s first concrete achievements was creation of the United States/Canada/Mexico Creative Artists’ Residencies, the first trilateral exchange program of its kind. The year also saw expansion of ArtsLink, which fosters exchanges by U.S. artists and arts administrators with their coun­ terparts in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. (For more details on these and other grant categories, see the relevant chapters below.) Another culmination came in the Endowment’s publica­ tion of Dancemakers, a research study which demonstrat­ ed conclusively what insiders have argued for years: that the very creators of America’s great cultural export, dance, are an economically endangered species. Given the economic facts of their lives, it is remarkable that choreographers continue to create new dances. Yet con­ tinue they do, collectively demonstrating one of the de­ finitive traits of the artist suigenerir, to be is to create. Like many Americans, I tend to regard museums, foun­ dations and conservatories as institutions of admirable stability. Yet the Endowment helped growth and innova­ nation. FY ’93 was barely six weeks old when the people tion occur in these institutions as well. For example, of the United States went to the polls and elected a new Museum Program funds in FY ’93 helped the University president. After Mr. Clinton was inaugurated the follow­ of Wyoming open its new American Heritage Center ing January, he nominated the sixth chairman of the and Art Museum in Laramie. Our Challenge Program National Endowment for the Arts. The Senate con­ helped the decades-old Carter G. Woodson Foundation firmed the appointment and my swearing-in occurred expand its Black Culture on Tour in America project to a few days after the new fiscal year began. So it was that establish a Mid-Atlantic/New England touring circuit, the Endowment had operated without a presidentially- and thus extend its scope and serve vastly increased audi­ appointed executive for the entire Fiscal Year 1993. ences. The Challenge Program also helped the North During much of this period the power of the chairman Carolina School of the Arts establish a filmmaking resided in Madeleine Kunin who had been confirmed as academy this year. Deputy Secretary of Education by the Senate. She in turn conferred practical, day-to-day authority to Ana M. In the realm of music, FY ’93 saw a da capo and crescen­ Steele, as the Endowment’s Acting Senior Deputy do. The Chamber Music Rural Residencies, an innova­ Chairman. Ms. Steele had been Acting Chairman briefly, tion just a year ago, brought ensembles of chamber and after the previous administration’s acting chairman re­ jazz players to establish residencies in Georgia, Iowa and signed, and she would become de facto Senior Deputy Kansas. The communities that welcomed them have Chairman in time. generally lacked live classical music in the past; this ini­ tiative brought the living presence of professional musi­ The fact remains that during Fiscal Year 1993, the work cians to perform in schools and church halls, to provide of the National Endowment for the Arts continued, instruction, and in general to encourage the growth of a thanks to the stewardship of Ms. Steele and to the work new cultural resource in rural places. In addition, music of barely 250 dedicated civil servants. This is a credit to found new listeners through the Media Arts Program, our democracy, the very soul of continuity in govern­ which helped a remarkable 26-program series, "Wade in ment that is the strength of this republic. the Water: African-American Sacred Music Traditions," reach the national airwaves via public broadcasting. Having joined the task after the dose of FY ’93, I am proud to endorse this Annual Report which covers the These projects are a few of those supported by the 4,096 previous period. In so doing, I extend America’s thanks to grants detailed in this report for Fiscal Year 1993. These in those who kept alight the embers of Federal support for turn represented some 16,259 applications for assistance the arts. Now let us fan the flames of new creativity in our which the Endowment received from every corner of the writers, composers and painters from Maine to Guam. Let nation. Discipline by discipline, program by program and us find comfort and inspiration in the cultural endeavors category by category, these applications were reviewed by of this land. Let us find new laughter and wisdom alike on 1,005 professionally qualified individuals and lay persons stages and screens and pages from Anchorage to the who served on 138 separate panels during the year. These Virgin Islands. Let us encourage children and young panels’ recommendations were in turn forwarded to the adults from the Upper Peninsula to the Outer Banks and National Council on the Arts for its review and endorse­ the High Desert to discover the arts as vehicles for their ment for approval by the acting chairman. own creative energies and as hopeful mirrors of their dreams. Let us listen to scientists and bend new technolo­ The few thousand grants described in this Annual Report gies into the service of the arts, which means to the service testify to the Endowment’s fidelity to its mission: to stim­ of humankind. Let this agency continue the work it began ulate all the arts throughout the land; to support excel­ more than a generation ago, and may our age come to be lence in the arts; to offer opportunities for the American remembered as the time of an American Renaissance. people to participate in the arts as creators and perform­ ers (whether, for instance, as painters on new canvas or singers of old songs) and as consumers of the arts, namely as members of living audiences. It is all the more notable that these grants were awarded Jane Alexander during a year that was intrinsically transitional for the Chairman 1993 Annual Report 11 The Arts Endowment serves as a catalyst to increase op­ Arts portunities for artists and resources for arts organiza­ tions. It also spurs involvement in the arts by citizens, public and private organizations, and the states and local communities. The agency awards grants to nonprofit arts organizations to help support outstanding perfor­ mances, exhibitions, projects and programs. It provides fellowships to American artists of exceptional talent in order to stimulate creation of new works of art, expand Endowment the nation’s artistic resources and promote preservation of diverse cultural legacies.