Columbia Foundation Articles and Reports February 2011 Arts and Culture
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Columbia Foundation Articles and Reports February 2011 Arts and Culture ASIAN ART MUSEUM $1,058,000 awarded since 1971, including a three-year $150,000 grant in 2007 for the Dragon’s Gift: An Exhibition from Bhutan 1. San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 2010 Asian Art Museum reportedly in financial turmoil The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is in dire financial straits. The museum restructured $120 million in loans to hedge against rising interest rates in 2005, but rates have hit bottom and its lender JPMorgan has threatened to close the museum’s line of credit. The museum would stand to lose $20 million in assets. The money is insured, but it would nonetheless be a blow to the museum. 2. The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2010 Money Woes Threaten Museum: San Francisco's Asian Art Showcase Is Latest Institution Stressed by Soft Economy The Asian Art Museum is one of several museums to suffer financial problems amid the weak economy. According to a 2009 survey, more than 30% of large museums have reported "severe or very severe stress," due to declining contributions and shrinking stock-market investments. The museum, one of the more prominent institutions to be hurt, has hired a bankruptcy attorney to negotiate with creditors. 3. San Francisco Chronicle, January 7, 2011 Asian Art Museum deal makes city liable for debt – Complicated financial agreement will leave S.F. liable for nearly $100 million in debt In a complicated agreement with lenders and San Francisco, the city has assumed the liability for the Asian Art Museum debt, helping the museum to avoid financial calamity. COUNTERPULSE $50,000 in 2009 for Performing Diaspora, a three-week dance festival in October 2009, a residency program for dance artists, and a commissioning program to support artists who are deeply rooted in traditional forms yet seek to push those forms into new territory 4. San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 19, 2010 Return to me: Adia Tamar Whitaker explores her identity in the exceptional Ampey! Review of Ampey!, a 50-minute dance, chant, music, film, and narration piece in CounterPULSE's Performing Diaspora program; the writer says, “If CounterPULSE's Performing Diaspora program had produced nothing but Ampey!, it would have been worth doing. Performed by a stellar cast of dancers and musicians, Whitaker has succeeded in pulling together strands of complex subject matter into a first-rate, original piece of poetic theater.” Page 1 DOOR DOG $35,000 in 2011 for the International Youth Music Initiative, to commission five internationally renowned traditional-music masters to compose pieces that the youth orchestra will premiere in November 2011 5. San Francisco Monthly, October 2010 Learning from the Past, Door Dog Music Forges Ahead Instead of working only for preservation of traditional music, Door Dog is evolving into an organization that takes a systemic point of view. Artistic Director Michael Santoro says, “We realized that if we as an organization are going to say we're trying to revitalize traditional music, we had to step back and say, what are we not paying attention to? Twenty years from now we might lose everything we're trying to preserve." Accordingly, the 2010 festival, called The Ritual Project, was conceived within the context of a more ambitious agenda. Concerns include environmental issues, public health, and political awareness, using the music as a catalyst to encourage social activism. 6. Youtube.com, January 21, 2011 Door Dog Youth Orchestra (2009) [The embedded video] traces the evolution of Door Dog’s youth-education programs. LOS CENZONTLES $225,000 awarded since 2004, including a three-year $150,000 grant in 2007 for Cultures of Mexico in California 7. Morning Edition on National Public Radio, October 28, 2010 Los Cenzontles: A ‘Little Factory’ Of Culture Raza De Oro is the newest album from Los Cenzontles, a Mexican arts center in San Palo, California that provides arts education to youth. Los Cenzontles executive director and founder Eugene Rodriguez says, “Our neighborhood, it's known more for problems than for good things. Our actual center is actually an ex-liquor store. We got together to transform this little liquor store into a cultural space where we teach music, dance, arts and crafts. We create CDs and make documentaries — it's like a little factory of cultural workers” [radio broadcast embedded and linked.] 8. Youtube.com, January 21, 2011 Good Morning Aztlan – Los Cenzontles Los Cenzontles perform the Los Lobos Classic Good Morning Aztlan. The video is by Les Blank and Maureen Gosling. [The embedded video] also includes a special appearance by David Hidalgo. MAGIC THEATRE $263,500 awarded since 1980, including $50,000 in 2011 for The Lily’s Revenge 9. StarkInsider.com, December 22, 2010 Magic Theatre secures special funds for Taylor Mac’s ‘The Lily’s Revenge’ – NEA, Columbia and Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grants Total $120,000. Columbia Foundation and two other foundations award grants to the Magic Theatre for The Lily’s Revenge. ODC THEATER $276,000 awarded since 1980, including a two-year $200,000 grant in 2009 to renovate, refurbish, and expand the original ODC Theater as a performance space for the dance community 10. San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 2010 Page 2 ODC Theater gets jump on butoh with ‘ODD’ ODC Theater premieres “an unusual, unprecedented collaboration”. The production, ODD, inspired by the Norwegian figurative painter, Odd Nerdrum, brought together Shinichi Iova-Koga's inkBoat collaborative with Oakland's Axis Dance Company, which integrates able and disabled performers. OPERA CIRCUS $75,000 awarded since 2007, including $25,000 in 2011 from the Columbia Foundation Fund of the Capital Community Foundation for the production costs in London of a new opera, Naciketa, with music by Scottish composer Nigel Osborne and libretto by Chilean/American writer and poet Ariel Dorfman 11. Blip.tv, Autumn 2010 ISPA NWN 2011: Naciketa Rehearsal Fragments Naciketa is a contemporary opera with musical influences from Indian classical music, urban African and the folk rhythms of South America [linked video of Naciketa rehearsals and introduction to the artists and performers behind the production.] TECTONIC THEATER PROJECT $5,000 awarded in 2011 for a San Francisco performance in October 2010 of The Laramie Project, and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center 12. Metro Weekly, January 25, 2011 Legacy of 'The Laramie Project' [video] – The impact of Matthew Shepard's murder discussed at a public forum at Arena Stage Moises Kaufman and members of Tectonic Theater Project, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez, and SMYAL Executive Director Andrew Barnett discuss the impact of the Matthew Shepard murder, the legacy of Laramie, and how our culture perceives itself on the issue of hate crimes [The video is embedded (and linked) to the report in three parts.] UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS $10,000 awarded in 2008 for the 2008 publication of The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers, a book based on the traveling photo-documentary exhibition by Rich Nahmias, with an introduction by Dolores Huerta. 13. Grist.org, December 21, 2010 Favorite food books of 2010 The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers is listed as a favorite book of 2010 by Grist.org contributing writers. Dara Goldstein, editor of Gastronomica says, “These beautiful sepia-toned prints document intimate moments in the lives of the marginalized workers who labor to put food on our tables. Each photograph is accompanied by a descriptive text; essays and oral histories place the images in historical context. This is a gorgeous and important book.” 14. The Record Searchlight, January 6, 2010 Exhibits: Out with the old, in with the new: Turtle Bay switches up exhibit The photo-documentary exhibition The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers runs from February 4 to April 10, 2011, at Turtle Bay Museum in Redding, California. 15. Grist.org, February 4, 2011 The Migrant Project: Putting faces to your food [SLIDESHOW] Rick Nahmias says, “The Migrant Project photo-documentary series sets out to do one thing: to put human faces to the people who, in the inimitable words of Edward R. Murrow, ‘harvest the food for the best fed nation in the world.’ While traveling nearly 4,000 miles across the state to photograph more than Page 3 40 towns during five months, two things became evident: 1) there is no other sector in our country where people have to work so hard to have so little, and 2) by adjusting our mentality to one of inclusion and respect, we can welcome farmworkers as a meaningful part of our society and understand their intrinsic value, not just for the essential work they perform, but as human beings and individuals who each carry with them the same hopes of many Americans—the dream of a better life.” [The essay and images are excerpted from The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers, an iconic photo- documentary series by Rick Nahmias. This is the fourth article in Grist’s California Dreamin’ Series.] YOUTH SPEAKS $300,000 awarded since 2004, including a three-year $150,000 grant in 2009 for the Living Word Festival 16. San Francisco Chronicle, January 19, 2011 Youth Speaks turns 15 Youth Speaks celebrates its 15th anniversary at an event for supporters of the organization. Human Rights MISSION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION $250,000 awarded since 2009, including a three-year $150,000 grant in 2011 for Plaza Adelante,