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Performing Arts
Program StaffSusan Feder, Program Officer
OverviewThe Foundation’s Performing Arts Program currently provides multi-year grants on an invitation-only basis to leading orchestras, theater companies, opera companies, modern dance companies, and dance-specific presenters based in the United States. Although the Foundation does not confine its support to large organizations with national visibility, it does seek to support institutions that contribute to the preservation and development of their art form, provide creative leadership in solving problems or addressing issues unique to the field, and which present the highest level of institutional performance. Grants are awarded on the basis of artistic merit and leadership in the field, and concentrate on achieving long-term results. In conjunction with regular program grants, the Foundation also makes a limited number of grants to research and service organizations that are doing work closely related to program goals. The Foundation’s decade-long orchestra program, in which a dozen orchestras participated in an Orchestra Forum and associated activities, ended in 2008. Recent orchestra grantees have been invited to apply for awards based on the criteria above. The opera program places a particular focus on companies demonstrating a longstanding commitment to the creation of new opera and the revival of rarely heard operas. Since 2000, the Performing Arts program has made awards to producing theaters in New York City through a regrant program. Currently, the New York Theater Program (NYTP) is administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA); is a competitive program reviewed by a panel made up of theater practitioners; and is open to theaters with budgets between $300,000 and $3.5 million that do not have a "K–12 Arts Education" or "Youth and Family" focus. You may click here to download a press release announcing the 2008 recipients. At this time, all NYTP program funds have been allocated for the next three years. We will announce in late 2010 whether or not there will be another round of grants in 2011. For more information about the New York Theater Program please go to www.nyfa.org. For the past two decades the Foundation’s dance program has provided support to a relatively stable cohort of companies for the creation of new works. In an effort to reach a larger number of companies and to be more responsive to changes in the dance field, in 2008 the Foundation shifted its support for the creation and touring of dance to the National Dance Project (see description below of NDP), a peer-reviewed program managed by the New England Foundation for the Arts. With that shift, program staff are now able to channel direct support to areas that will strengthen both individual institutions and the field. The National Dance Project (NDP) provides grants for the production and touring of contemporary dance work by regionally and nationally significant artists in the United States and abroad. NDP Production Grants support the development of new dance work while NDP Touring Grants support the presentation and distribution of the work created by Production Grant recipients, and a limited number of other nominated tours each touring season. For more information about the National Dance Project please go to www.nefa.org. In addition to the NDP grant, the Foundation provides funding to the Center for Creative Research, a program that supports many of the choreographers in the dance program, and the Dance Heritage Coalition, which provides support to the dance field in many areas, primarily documentation and preservation. The Performing Arts Program currently does not make grants to:
Program Contact InformationApplication to the Foundation’s Performing Arts Program may be made by invitation only.
You will find a list of past grantees of the Performing Arts Program in the Foundation’s annual reports, which you can access on this website. Organizations that wish to inquire about the possibility of future funding should not call the Foundation. Instead, they should send a 2-3 page letter providing an overview of the organization, its history, mission, and goals, and the relevance of its work to the priorities and programs of the Foundation. Please refrain from sending additional materials — including brochures, press articles, education materials, etc. — unless subsequently requested by program staff, and do not request a grant from the Foundation unless requested to do so by the program staff. While we will review and respond to all letters in time, organizations should check this site periodically for updates on future programming initiatives. Please bear in mind that the Foundation is rarely able to respond positively to unsolicited requests.
Please direct all inquiries in writing (not email) to: Diane E. Ragsdale Before writing, please review the Foundation’s general requirements for grant proposals in the Grant Inquiries section of this Web site.
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