230 metro area arts grants total $1.49 million for 2010

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 
The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, based in St. Paul, announced the award in March of 65 grants totaling $293,780 in the second round of its 2010 Community Arts grant program. The announcement raised to 230 the number of grants made in fiscal year 2010, totaling $1,491,599. Earlier announcements named grantees in the Community Arts (1st round), Creative Intersection, Arts Activity Support, Organizational Development, and Capital Grants programs.


Year-to-date grants exceed the $1,007,491 total for all of fiscal year 2009. MRAC makes grants to organizations with budgets less than $300,000 located in the seven metropolitan counties of greater Minneapolis and St. Paul. MRAC operates on a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30, and receives its grant funds from the Minnesota State Legislature, the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the McKnight Foundation.


Community Arts grants to 65 organizations or programs in March totaled $293,780, an average of $4,520 each:

Anoka County: Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, $3,500; Blaine Parks and Recreation, $3,000; Fridley Community Theatre, $5,000; Lee Carlson Center for Mental Health and Well Being, $4,798.

Carver County: Centre Stage Theatre and Arts, $5,000; ISD 108 Community Education, $5,000; Nordic Heritage Club, $1,930; Watertown Area Fine Arts Council, $5,000; Watertown-Mayer Community Education, $5,000.

Dakota County: Chameleon Theatre Circle, $5,000; Dakota County Sheriff's Office, $4,560; DanceWorks Repertory Ensemble, $5,000; Eagan Parks and Recreation, $5,000; Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau, $5,000; Minnesota Brass, Inc., $5,000.

Hennepin County: Aldrich Arts Collaborative, $2,910; Brazen Theatre Company, $5,000; Carnaval Brasileiro, $5,000; Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis, $5,000; Copper Street Brass Quintet, $2,500; Eclectic Ensemble, $1,545; Flower Shop Project, $5,000; Hauser Dance, $5,000; Hope Community, Inc., $4,000; I'm Telling Productions, $5,000; Northside Arts Collective, $5,000; Obsidian Arts, $5,000; Peace Day Lantern Ceremony, $5,000; Rainbow Rumpus, $5,000; Redeemer Center for Life, $4,722; Refuge, $4,000; Screenwriters' Workshop, $3,000; Strange Capers, $5,000; Urban Spectrum Theatre, $3,550; Weaver's Guild of Minnesota, $5,000; West Bank School of Music, $3,500.

Ramsey County: Center for Irish Music, $5,000; Hmong Cultural Center, Inc., $5,000; Lidia Productions, $5,000; Maggie Bergeron and Company, $5,000; New Native Theatre, $4,000; North Star Chorus, $5,000; People, Inc., $5,000; Sample Night Live!, $5,000; StoryBlend, $5,000; The Minnesota Feis, Inc., $4,540; Walker West Music Academy, $5,000; West Side Theater Project, $5,000; Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment, $5,000; Young Artists Initiative, $4,500.

Scott County: Hymnus, Incorporated, $5,000; Savage Arts Council, $4,000.

Suburban Hennepin County: 4 Community Theatre, $5,000; Discovery Arts Council, $2,725; Les Jolies Petites School of Dance, $5,000; Minnesota Sunshine Dance, $5,000; Westonka Community Education and Services, $3,000.

Suburban Ramsey County: Rosetown Playhouse, $5,000.

Washington County: Forest Lake Park Board, $5,000; Masquers Theatre Company, $5,000; Music Saint Croix, $5,000; St. Croix Valley Chamber Chorale, $5,000; Stillwater Area Public Schools Community Education, $5,000; Washington County 4-H Federation, $5,000; Washington County Agricultural Society, $3,500.

Within its guidelines, MRAC permits organizations to receive more than one project grant in a fiscal year. Of the 230 grants made through March, 19 organizations have been awarded grants for two projects and two organizations have been awarded grants for three.


Organizations receiving two project grants in 2010 include the following (C=Capital, CA=Community Arts, OD=Organizational Development):

Ashland Productions ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA); Caponi Art Park ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA);  Continental Ballet Company ($4,697 C; $5,000 CA); Dakota Valley Symphony ($8,480 C; $5,000 CA); East Side Arts Council ($6,080 C; $10,000 CA); Frank Theatre ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); JazzMN, Inc. ($10,000 CA; $3,840 OD); Masquers Theatre Company ($8,905 C; $5,000 CA); Minnesota Freedom Band ($9,038 C; $2,500 CA); Music Saint Croix ($1,163 C; $5,000 CA); Off-Leash Area ($10,000 CA; $5,000 OD); Open Eye Figure Theatre ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); Plymouth Christian Youth Center ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); Rainbow Rumpus ($6,225 OD; $5,000 CA); Red Eye Collaboration ($8,700 C; $10,000 CA); Rosetown Playhouse ($10,000 OD; $5,000 CA); Sample Night Live! ($10,000 OD; $5,000 CA); Walking Shadow Theatre Company ($6,813 C; $10,000 CA); West Bank School of Music ($10,000 OD; $3,500 CA).

Organizations receiving three project grants in 2010 include the following:

Katha Dance Theatre ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); TU Dance ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA; $10,000 OD). 

MRAC is one of 11 regional arts councils serving the state of Minnesota. The Minnesota State Arts Board makes grants statewide to organizations with budgets exceeding $300,000.

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Spring performances by Shapiro and Smith Dance

Minneapolis, Minnesota


A shorthand description of "Women and Men," the spring performance program by Shapiro and Smith Dance, can be summed up by the numbers five, four, three, two, one – plus three.


Five women – Maggie Bergeron, Megan McClellan, Kari Mosel, Laura Selle-Virtucio, and Joanie Smith – four men – Bryan Godbout, Cade Holmseth, Andrew Lester, and Eddie Oroyon – and three guest performers – Ananya Chatterjea, Carl Flink, and Emilie Plauché Flink – will perform three repertory works and two world premieres staged in an evening of dance, Apr. 1-4, at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis.

After meeting in the New York dance companies of Murray Lewis and Alwin Nikolais, collaborators Joanie Smith and Danial Shapiro choreographed their first dance together during a 1985 Fulbright Lectureship in Helsinki, Finland. For more than 20 years, the dynamic duo then toured the world with a distinctive blend of contemporary dance and dramatic theater.


Since Shapiro's death from cancer in 2006, Smith has continued to lead their company's creative and administrative development, presenting a mix of new and old works in annual Twin Cities seasons. When not choreographing and performing, Smith serves as associate professor of dance at the University of Minnesota.


For the seven dancers in the world premiere of "Bolero" on the April program, Smith has re-imagined "The Art of War," an earlier work with Shapiro set to Ravel's classic. "'The Art of War,'" Smith says, "used to be Danny's piece. Under my hand, the new 'Bolero' has completely changed, to the point where all that is the same is the music!"


In "Betty's House," the other premiere, Smith has continued the narrative started 23 years ago in "George and Betty's House," the duet she danced with Shapiro. The new installment, set to a Scott Killian score, finds Betty surrounded by cats and still obsessed with fruitless housework.


Smith's colleague, Ananya Chatterjea, director of dance at the University of Minnesota, will perform as a guest in the reprise of "Medea Medea," while Carl Flink, chair of theatre arts and dance, will perform with his wife, Plauché Flink, in "The Gist."


The quartet of Bergeron, Godbout, Oroyan, and Selle-Virtucio promises to round out the program with romantic eye candy in Shapiro and Smith's "Moonlight," set to Beethoven.


Shapiro and Smith Dance will perform at the Southern Theater, Minneapolis, Apr. 1-4. The opening night, pre-show reception will be sponsored by City Pages. For tickets: 612.340.1725.

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Walking the streets of downtown Minneapolis, 1

Minneapolis, Minnesota


For 37 years, I have worked in or very near downtown Minneapolis. For 29 of those years, I have lived close enough to walk to work. That has been time enough to absorb, process, and take for granted the countless changes that have infiltrated the cityscape.


Ours is a city that tears things down and builds newer things back up with no regard for any value that might attach to historical or architectural significance. After 20-30 years, we start over again. Witness our unending dialogue about the need for a domed or open-air stadium. If I am still on the planet in 25 years, whatever I then use for newspapers will report on the latest debates to place a retractable roof on the new Target Field that opens for professional baseball next month.


I am not sure that we enjoy this repeating cycle; it just seems embedded in our civic DNA. Perhaps it reflects a collective, obsessive-compulsive personality of the people who built Minneapolis and were never satisfied that they got right anything they were building. In other words, we can't help ourselves.


My new place of employment for the past two months is situated near downtown, near the Mississippi River, and near the University of Minnesota, but at a somewhat further remove from my house than previous workday destinations. As temperatures and pavement conditions have improved with the waning winter, I have begun walking the nearly three miles at least once per day, usually at night.


Such is good for reducing my personal carbon footprint, containing the anxieties of modern life, and for retaining a figure of relative fighting trim.


Treading through downtown this evening, I passed the Accenture Tower on the city block bounded by 3rd and 4th avenues south, and 7th and 8th streets. When constructed in 1987, the 31-story office project was called Lincoln Centre. The "re" spelling of Centre aways struck me as an affectation. Many people have thought it a cold and uninviting structure and have had no hesitation about saying so. I always have regarded it as one of the more classy buildings that have gone up in the last four decades. The tower situates toward 4th Avenue, and has left room for development of a corporate looking park along 3rd Avenue. At the time of construction, there was an expressed intent to build an identical tower along 3rd to mirror that along 4th. Never happened. Now, if another structure rises on that block, it will, no doubt, serve the ego and vision of its designer. A pity.


Nonetheless, I enjoy the park's presence even if it does not invite pedestrians to approach and enter in. In this it is different from the nearly full-block park across 7th Street – also bounded by 3rd and 4th avenues – that serves as a pedestal for the Hennepin County Government Center. The grounds there boast berms and a variety of forestation among pink brick paths. Originally, the bricks were red, imported from someplace in Italy. However, they provided such slick surfaces during our Minnesota winters that, after any number of lawsuit settlements with people who slipped and fell, the bricks got sandblasted down to a dull shadow of their former selves, or were replaced outright.


Construction of the 24-story Government Center, completed in 1977, caused a bit of a scandal because of its cost. Although Hennepin County has been, far and away, the largest of Minnesota's 87 counties in population, prior to the new building few people were aware that county government existed. Previously, it shared space in Minneapolis City Hall.


Hennepin County Commissioner Richard O. Hanson's person and personality drove construction of the Government Center, just as they had earlier won civil service protections for county employees, built county highways, and built the welfare and library programs. First appointed to the county commission by Mayor Hubert Humphrey in 1948, Hanson became the longest-serving commissioner in county history, until his defeat at the hands of fellow Democrat Jeff Spartz in 1976. Construction of the government center was a key issue in that year's campaign.


Hanson was a true Renaissance man. In his 20s, he taught political science at the University of Minnesota. Later, he co-founded a Minneapolis investment firm, Craig Hallum, Inc., helped found the Citizens League, and served on the boards of the United Hospital Fund, Family & Children's Services, the Legal Aid Society, and others. He died at 79 in April 2000.


I first met Hanson in a professional capacity during his 50s, and my 20s, in the 1970s. Later, we came to know each other as closeted gay men who operated largely under the radar of the larger society. His was the first example to me, in those late-Carter and early-Reagan years, of a man who could accomplish worthwhile things in life and still be gay. I am grateful for his unconditional support during a crucial crucible of my life's journey. I think of him often as I pass by the building, plazas, and park that earned him such opprobrium at their creation.

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Commissions anchor spring TCGMC concert

Minneapolis, Minnesota


As a child attending Sunday services of the new St. Timothy's Lutheran Church, held in the Nelson Grade School gymnasium in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, I once heard our pastor make a point in his sermon about the weakness of the human voice. "If all the people in the city of Chicago started talking at one time," he said, "they would generate barely enough energy to illuminate a light bulb."

In those days that preceded the Stonewall Rebellion by 10 years, the pastor had never heard a gay men's chorus, the collective voices of which now have power to change and illuminate the world.


For Glenn Olson, such voices have provided at least one life changing experience. As a baritone singer with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus since its second season in 1982, he has attended seven quadrennial choral festivals sponsored by GALA Choruses. The 1996 GALA gathering in Tampa, Florida, he says, had a special buzz about it.


Word had it that the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus had commissioned a hot new work, NakedMan, to close the festival and honor the memory of the 254 singers it had lost to AIDS. For everyone, like Olson, who shared the moment, the outside air crackled with electricity as they emerged afterward from the packed hall.


With its soaring melodies, "NakedMan" sings the story of all people who have felt different, and celebrates their courage to face the unknown. The song suite, by Philip Littell and Robert Seeley, grew out of interviews with gay men, and is set in 15 movements adding up to 53 minutes of music. The movements cover the range of human experience: coming out of every kind, getting married, serving in the military, wrestling with God, and experiencing loss.

At the debut of "NakedMan" in 1996, Dr. Stan Hill had served as artistic director of the San Francisco chorus for seven years. He continued there for four more years before assuming the same post with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus in August 2000.


With the two organizations, Hill has commissioned some of the most successful repertoire in the gay and lesbian choral literature. In addition to "NakedMan," he has shepherded to creation "Exile," "ExtrABBAganza," "Metamorphosis," "Through A Glass, Darkly," and "Misbehavin'!"


Hill also has led the TCGMC on a number of remarkable, groundbreaking journeys, including its 25th anniversary season in 2006. That season culminated in the Great Southern Sing-Out Tour through four states and five cities in six July days.


The chorus launched the Southern tour at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, becoming the first gay organization to perform on the historic stage of the Grand Ole Opry. From Tennessee, three buses of singers and supporters then traveled to performances in Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. "Marry Us," one of the movements from "NakedMan," was featured at every stop.


Accompanied by the GLBT Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, "NakedMan" will open the first half of TCGMC's spring concert, LifeSongs: The Music of Living, Mar. 26-27, at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, Minneapolis. In its publicity, the MPO states that, speaking for itself, its members "will be fully clothed."


The world premiere of "The Kushner Trilogy" will highlight the program's second act. Lyrics for the three sections – "It is Very Simple," "There is a Little House in Heaven," and "I Want More Life" – are drawn from texts by the playwright Tony Kushner.


The TCGMC performed the third section on four occasions during the Guthrie Theater's Kushner Celebration in 2009. Its text comes from "Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika," a monologue by Prior, a man wracked by advancing AIDS, who pleads before a cosmic tribunal for more life despite the pain of his disease. The music transforms the repeated phrase, "I want more life," from plea to confident claim for the gay man's place at humanity's table.


Jeffrey Bores, TCGMC's board chair, and his partner, Michael Hawkins, underwrote the trilogy's choral setting by Michael Shaieb, who also composed "Through A Glass, Darkly" for the chorus in 2008. Meet the Composer's MetLife Creative Connections Program provided additional funding to support post-performance conversations with the composer.

The spring chorus program also will include "The Promise of Living" from Aaron Copland's "The Tender Land," "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha," "This is the Moment" from "Jekyll and Hyde," and "Here's Where I Stand" from the film "Camp."


More than 750 men have served in the TCGMC's singing ranks since its first concert at the Heritage Hall of the Minneapolis Public Library. The group has recorded 10 CDs and performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, VocalEssence, Ballet of the Dolls, James Sewell Ballet, composer Ned Rorem, Harvey Fierstein, Ann Hampton Calloway, Michael Feinstein, and Holly Near.


The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus will present its 2010 spring concert performances with the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota West Bank Arts Quarter, Minneapolis, Fri. & Sat., Mar. 26 & 27, 8pm. For tickets call 612.623.2345. Photos by Paul Nixdorf.

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The Vaudevillian: Spirit of the American Dream

Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Twins baseball fans amid the ghosts of Minneapolis history

Minneapolis, Minnesota


When fans of the Minnesota Twins baseball team swarm to opening day ceremonies at the new Target Field on the north edge of downtown Minneapolis, Apr. 12, few will have any notion of the area's complex connections to people and pivotal events in the city's history.


Mere steps from the stadium's northwest corner once stood the Oak Lake subdivision, platted in 1880 near Olson Highway (6th Avenue North) and Lyndale Avenue with curving streets and some cul-de-sacs. The lake and its genteel neighborhood are long gone, as are the Jewish, black, and working-class white families that took up residence in successive waves as the original cachet waned.


Larry Millett, in Lost Twin Cities (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992), described the neighborhood's evolution and how, by the 1930s, the city had cleared Oak Lake and re-located the farmers' market there.


In Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century: The Growth of an American City (242 pp, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010), author Iric Nathanson describes the role of land covenants and other implicit understandings that restricted minorities' residential choices to certain parts of the city. The experience and proximity of Jewish and black residents in the larger Oak Lake and Glenwood Avenue sector had important implications for the civil rights movement that unfolded in the second half of the 20th century in a city once known as the capital of anti-Semitism in the United States.


My affinity for the area's history has a personal basis. The families of both my parents resided there at various times, and I was born at Glenwood and Penn avenues.


Earlier, on Jan. 23, 1937, when my grandparents lived at 506 Girard Avenue, my grandfather, Harry Hayden Peterson, was shot and killed a few blocks away at the Fresno Cafe, 1007 Sixth Avenue North. Joseph Taylor, the man who shot him in self-defense, lived a block away at 506 Fremont Avenue. Taylor was properly acquitted on Mar. 2, following a speedy trial. The case was a sensation in the newspapers because Taylor was one of the city's few black entrepreneurs and served as a role model in his community. Life was never the same afterward for the Taylors or for my grandmother and her four children.


By the early 1950s, according to Millett, the city regarded the area as its worst slum and, in 1954, demolished more than 660 structures in a 180-acre area between Glenwood Avenue and Olson Highway.


The intersection of First Avenue North and 6th Street, one block south of Target Field, was the scene in May 1934 of a strikebreaking confrontation between members of a Teamsters union local and 1,000 police deputies backed by commercial interests of the Citizens Alliance. Nathanson recounted the event as "one skirmish in a summer-long strike that provoked full-scale class warfare." The strikers eventually won the sometimes bloody struggle, breaking the monopoly of business interests on the city's power structure and balancing it with the interests of organized labor.


Nathanson includes chapters on more than 100 years of controversy about the structure of Minneapolis' city government; periodic bouts of corruption and indictment of mayors, council members, and police officers; and efforts to redevelop downtown, the neighborhoods, and the riverfront.


Baseball fans who will arrive and depart Target Field via the light rail trains may appreciate Nathanson's last chapter with its mind-numbing detail of how light rail mass transit arrived in the Twin Cities. Folks who have followed or fretted over the 13-year saga of the Shubert Theater's salvation and rehabilitation two blocks from the stadium don't know from nothing about perseverance in pursuit of civic goals.


For decades, municipal and state planners tried to build a freeway along Highway 55/Hiawatha Avenue, following an old route south from downtown to Fort Snelling and the airport. For more than a decade in the 1970s and 80s, hundreds and thousands of residents in south Minneapolis fought those efforts at city hall, at the legislature, and in congress, arguing in favor of an at-grade parkway that allowed for the possibility of light rail transit.


One dramatic confrontation occurred in the lobby of the downtown Federal Building late on a January evening in 1975, when 200+ residents took Congressman Donald Fraser to task for his vote in favor of funding freeway construction along the route. I was there! What Nathanson did not relate about the incident was the fact that residents chartered buses to the event at their own expense after Fraser's office had refused to schedule a meeting at a more convenient time and place. Light rail began running on the non-freeway, Hiawatha Avenue on June 26, 2004 – 29 years later!


In all of "Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century," I found but one factual error. On page 196, Nathanson relates that Rudy Perpich was elected Minnesota's governor in 1976. In fact, as lieutenant governor, Perpich assumed the office of governor on Dec. 29, 1976, following the resignation of Governor Wendell Anderson. Perpich then appointed Anderson to fill the United States Senate vacancy created by the election of Walter Mondale as vice president. Both Perpich and Anderson were defeated for election in November 1978.

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A new gig, 30 days in

Minneapolis, Minnesota


When I assumed duties as executive director of the Southern Theater in Minneapolis 30 days ago, I added a new port of call to the harbors of arts management that I have called home. The time has passed in a whirlwind of 38 meetings and an avalanche of information that requires absorption on a daily basis. If asked six months ago – and I was – I would have said it was impossible to imagine myself in this job. Yet, it feels like what I should be doing right now.


Just today, a long-time friend asked if I was enjoying myself. The politically correct response would have been to say "yes." However, in this economic climate, anyone who purports to lead anything would be crazy to say that he or she welcomes the conundrums that visit every enterprise, whether non-profit or for. What we can say, honestly, is that we welcome the opportunities to solve major problems and wrestle with large challenges. None of us would consciously choose the environment in which most individuals and places of business find themselves.


The Southern Theater faces challenges similar to many, larger than some, and fewer than there could be. Some of the challenges got broadcast far and wide along with the news of my hiring (see: Star Tribune, MinnPost, and Minnesota Public Radio). This scrutiny places us under a magnifying glass in the public eye, but grants us a certain freedom that eludes other arts venues and organizations: because everyone knows we have problems, we can speak about them more openly and solicit solutions more broadly. Other venues and organizations have our same problems, some larger, and some more deadly. Many of our colleagues remain in willful denial or abject terror about their prospects.


All of us need to keep our heads and focus on the step-by-step basics before us. We must raise more money than we spend and spend less money than we have. To accomplish that, we must understand and control our true costs of doing business and price our products and services with that information in mind – balancing certainty with acceptable risk. Easy enough to say, but it will be hell to accomplish. The times present us with an array of undesirable options. Our survival depends upon our ability to choose.


We also need to engage with our community of users – artists and audiences – about the need for subsidy over-and-above the cost of tickets. At the end of a day, someone somewhere must pay the bills. This, too, is easy enough to say, but will be difficult to realize.


Many organizations that engage in the same or similar activities must set aside their competitive instincts and have the conversations that explore ways to share services and costs. Maybe even artistic products. (I know, I know the horror of all that – but if our largest, arts-friendly foundation can use that terminology, so can we!)


We can take heart from the month's-long uptick in the stock market: it has restored much, but not nearly all, of the portfolio value of our arts-centered grant-makers. We will not be out of the woods, however, until rates of unemployment and underemployment get reduced substantially. To the extent that the arts rely upon the discretionary income of individuals and households for most of their revenue, we will be under siege for some time to come.


Cyncis have – and will – lament our prospects and dismiss our progress. It is both a blessing and a curse of my life that I remain, in the face of much evidence to the contrary, an eternal optimist about what can be accomplished.


On March 1, 1910, the Southern Theater threw open its doors to the – largely – Swedish community that built it in the Snoose Boulevard/Seven Corners neighborhood of Minneapolis, overlooking the Bohemian Flats that border part of the Mississippi River. The founders of 100 years ago built their theater with faith in themselves and in a rich future. We have the opportunity to renew that faith today.


Join us on Saturday, Mar. 6, as we celebrate the beginning of the Southern's second century of embrace and engagement with the community that gives it life. The Southern Exposure 2010 gala promises a worthy evening of remembrance and re-commitment. If you can't make it that night, pick a performance from the schedule that appeals to you and resolve to attend it with a friend.


Look for me in the lobby. I want to see new and old friends in this new port of call!

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Notes from a precinct caucus

Minneapolis, Minnesota


The 34 most faithful of Democrats in Ward 6, Precinct 3, of Minneapolis, convened their biennial caucus tonight in the basement of the Plymouth Congregational Church, located eight blocks south of the downtown business and entertainment districts. Upstairs, the church choir rehearsed "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."


The Republicans may have thought about holding a caucus within the Minneapolis city limits, but we really have not encouraged them to do so for decades. Our liberal, Scandinavian tolerance has its limits and extends only to allowing them to cast ballots in November general elections.


Just like two years ago, when people lined up down the sidewalk and around the church to get in, the weather tonight was cold and snowy, the sidewalks icy. Unlike two years ago, there was no line of shivering people waiting to gain entry.


The proposed agenda for our precinct caucus said we would convene at 7pm. The convenor, however, opted to wait until all the stragglers had signed in, and we finally got underway at seven-past-seven.


After reading aloud the requirements for our eligibility to participate – sort of our nod, in its way, to the new political correctness of the right that seeks to cast out the aliens from our midst – the convenor read aloud the affirmative action statement – sort of our nod, in its way, to the old political correctness that seeks to affirm and embrace every form of diversity and nonnormativity known to man (and woman). He also read aloud something called a Platform Statement – a new thing, I believe, in the time-worn proceedings.


After stating his willingness to serve as the permanent caucus chair, we moved, seconded, and elected the convenor to serve in that position in spite of his unorthodox status as a self-identified Caucasian, heterosexual male. The now-permanent caucus chair then asked for a motion seeking authority for himself to appoint two tellers and a recording secretary for the proceedings. Suspecting that he hungered for this additional, less-than-burdensome and generally less-than-thankful task, I moved that he be allowed to do as he wished. After unanimous passage, he appointed his wife as the secretary, and two men – at least one of whom is known to be gay – as tellers.


We then adopted the rules for the conduct of our caucus business.


Then, after stating his willingness to serve as the precinct chair for the next two years, we moved, seconded, and elected the convenor – now-permanent caucus chair – to serve in that position in spite of his unorthodox status. (We residents of the Stevens Square/Loring Heights neighborhood pride ourselves on our open minded world view – whatever its relation to reality!)


After killing time for two minutes to permit the clock to reach 7:30pm, we elected delegates to the State Senate District 61 convention. Because the caucus turn-out two years ago had snaked down the sidewalk and around the church, our precinct had 55 delegate slots to fill. This meant that the 34 people in attendance – plus the four who had sent letters regretting their absence for more pressing matters – all could be delegates merely by signing their names to the form at the front table. To further our masochistic, if not somewhat sadistic tendencies as a political entity, in a similar fashion we determined who would be the 14 delegates to the Minneapolis City Convention (held in May for the purpose of endorsing up to five candidates for the Minneapolis School Board) and the six candidates to the Hennepin County District 3 Convention (held later in February to endorse a candidate for the county commission).


After killing a bit more time, the two appointed tellers – at least one of whom is known to be gay – were allowed to open the ballot box at 8pm to count the straw poll votes for who should carry the party's standard for the office of governor. When the votes were counted, it was revealed that two people had not voted. As for the rest, their results added up as follows: Tom Bakk - 0; Matt Entenza - 6; Susan Gaertner - 0; Steve Kelley - 2; Margaret Anderson Kelliher - 3; John Marty - 6; Felix Montez - 0; Tom Rukavina - 3; R. T. Rybak - 7; Ole Savior - 0; Paul Thissen - 4; Uncommitted - 1.


With that certification of consensus and unified vision, the excitement continued unabated as business then turned to the consideration of resolutions, meant to infect and inform the universal party platform to be adopted at the State Convention in Duluth. In short and perfunctory order, we voted in favor of single-payer health care at the federal and state levels (we insisted on voting separately about the federal and state status); in favor of marriage equality; in favor of an independent inquiry by Obama into the treatment of terrorist detainees following 9/11; in favor – rousingly so – of repealing the status of corporate personhood; in favor of promoting local and sustainable food sources; and in favor of a presidential primary in Minnesota.


Not to be pushed over by the special interests of our friends, neighbors, and nodding acquaintances, however, we did defeat a single motion following vigorous debate. That motion was to cut the size of our legislature by either 1/8 or 1/9 and to save millions of dollars. It was not clear whether we defeated this because we opposed reducing the number of lawmakers, or because we opposed the saving of millions of dollars. Perhaps both.


There being no further business to come before the body, the precinct caucus was adjourned at 8:08pm.

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Metro arts grants exceed $1 million, 2010 to-date

Minneapolis, Minnesota


The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, based in St. Paul, announced the award in January of 21 Organizational Development grants totaling $190,405, and 24 Capital Grants totaling $190,139. MRAC guidelines require grantees to secure matching funds for their projects.


The January announcement raised to 165 the number of grants made in fiscal year 2010, totaling $1,197,819. Earlier announcements named grantees in the first rounds of the MRAC Community Arts, Creative Intersection, and Arts Activity Support programs.


Year-to-date grants exceed the $1,007,491 total for all of fiscal year 2009. MRAC makes grants to organizations with budgets less than $300,000 located in the seven metropolitan counties of greater Minneapolis and St. Paul. MRAC operates on a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30, and receives its grant funds from the Minnesota State Legislature, the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the McKnight Foundation.


Organizational Development grants to 21 organizations in January totaled $190,405, an average of $9,066 each.    

Hennepin County: Art Shanty Projects, $10,000; Frank Theatre, $10,000; Fresh Air, Inc. (KFAI FM), $10,000; JazzMN, Inc., $3,840; Kulture Klub Collaborative, $9,640; Minneapolis Pops Orchestra Association, $6,480; Morris Park Players, $10,000; Off-Leash Area, $5,000; Open Eye Figure Theatre, $10,000; Plymouth Christian Youth Center, $10,000; Rainbow Rumpus, $6,225; Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater, $10,000; West Bank School of Music, $10,000.

Ramsey County: Nautilus Music-Theater, $10,000; Sample Night Live!, $10,000; Skylark Opera, $9,220; TU Dance, $10,000; Zeitgeist, $10,000. 

Suburban Hennepin County: Katha Dance Theatre, $10,000.

Suburban Ramsey County: Rosetown Playhouse, $10,000.

Washington County: ArtReach Alliance, $10,000.

Capital grants to 24 organizations in January totaled $190,139, an average of $7,922 each.    

Carver County: Chaska Valley Family Theater, $3,312.

Dakota County: Caponi Art Park, $10,000; Dakota Valley Symphony, $8,480.

Hennepin County: Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center, $10,000; Hollywood Studio of Dance, $7,738; Kairos Dance Theatre, $8,916; Minnesota Freedom Band, $9,038; Old Arizona Collaborative, Inc., $8,120; Rain Taxi, Inc., $8,000; Red Eye Collaboration, $8,700; Walking Shadow Theatre Company, $6,813.

Ramsey County: ArtStart, $8,700; East Side Arts Council, $6,080; Minnesota Brass, Inc., $10,000; Sounds of Hope, Ltd., $6,125; Irish Music and Dance Association, $10,000; Scott County River Valley Theatre Company, $8,500.

Suburban Hennepin County: Continental Ballet Company, $4,697; Discovery Arts Council, $7,552; Theater Or, $9,750..

Suburban Ramsey County: Ashland Productions, $10,000; Lakeshore Players, Inc., $9,550.

Washington County: Masquers Theatre Company, $8,905; Music St. Croix, $1,163.

Within its guidelines, MRAC permits organizations to receive more than one project grant in a fiscal year. Of the 165 grants made through January, 13 organizations have been awarded grants for two projects and two organizations have been awarded grants for three.


Organizations receiving two project grants in 2010 include the following (C=Capital, CA=Community Arts, OD=Organizational Development):

Ashland Productions ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA); Caponi Art Park ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA);  Continental Ballet Company ($4,697 C; $5,000 CA); Dakota Valley Symphony ($8,480 C; $5,000 CA); East Side Arts Council ($6,080 C; $10,000 CA); Frank Theatre ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); JazzMN, Inc. ($10,000 CA; $3,840 OD); Minnesota Freedom Band ($9,038 C; $2,500 CA); Off-Leash Area ($10,000 CA; $5,000 OD); Open Eye Figure Theatre ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); Plymouth Christian Youth Center ($10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); Red Eye Collaboration ($8,700 C; $10,000 CA); Walking Shadow Theatre Company ($6,813 C; $10,000 CA).

Organizations receiving three project grants in 2010 include the following:

Katha Dance Theatre ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA; $10,000 OD); TU Dance ($10,000 C; $10,000 CA; $10,000 OD). 

MRAC is one of 11 regional arts councils serving the state of Minnesota. The Minnesota State Arts Board makes grants statewide to organizations with budgets exceeding $300,000.

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Coming attractions in Twin Cities dance

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Channeling music at the Liberace Museum

Minneapolis, Minnesota


As Philip Fortenberry tells the story, one day when he was four years old, while playing with his trucks under a tree in his yard in rural Hub, Mississippi, a sudden inspiration led him to drop everything, run into the house, sit down at the family piano, and begin playing all of the songs he had ever heard, and some that he had not. He had never played the piano before that day.


A prodigy, by age seven he played regularly at the Edna Baptist Church, a service he rendered, without pay, through high school, and continued at the Main Street Baptist Church in Hattiesburg while attending William Carey College. After moving to New York City, Fortenberry earned a Master of Music degree from New Jersey City University, and was an adjunct faculty member at New York University.


In his early career, Fortenberry became the musical director for Forbidden Broadway, the off-Broadway revue, and musical supervisor for the show's London production.


His later Broadway and touring performance credits include Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Saturday Night Fever, Ragtime, The Lion King, and many more. In 1990, Fortenberry and the mezzo-soprano Frederica Von Stade performed at the White House for two presidents, Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and George H. W. Bush of the United States.


Since becoming a resident of Las Vegas, Fortenberry has played for several theater productions, including his current gig as a performer in Jersey Boys, the story of four kids from Newark, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. He also has worked with the Faith Community Lutheran Church and the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Roman Catholic Church.


Three afternoons a week, Fortenberry takes the stage in the 75-seat Cabaret Showroom at the Liberace Museum. There, at the keyboard of a mirrored, Baldwin grand piano used by Liberace at the Las Vegas Hilton, Caesars Palace, and Radio City Music Hall, Fortenberry holds forth with "Liberace and Me," an acoustic, cabaret style performance. The program serves as a vehicle for telling his own story while preserving the legacy of Liberace's music and style of entertaining. Audience members array themselves around small tables where they can nosh from a selection of light items from the cafe nearby.


Opening his act with Liberace's signature arrangement of Chopsticks, Fortenberry then wends his way through a mix of Liberace classics and Broadway show tunes, channeling the former master in all his harmonic brilliance. Each performance includes an improvised "Portrait of Music" for a member of the audience to honor Liberace's spirit of spontaneity. On Dec. 16, this gift was bestowed on a visitor celebrating her 87th birthday. The set closes with the audience joining Fortenberry in a sung rendition of "I'll Be Seeing You."


The boyishly handsome musician lingers afterward to engage visitors with an affable, though somewhat guarded, Southern charm, closing an experience that provides visitors with a pleasing prelude to an evening in the clubs and showrooms on the Las Vegas Strip. 


Philip Fortenberry plays The Cabaret Showroom at the Liberace Museum each Tue., Wed., and Sat., 1pm. 1775 East Tropicana Avenue (at Spencer), Las Vegas. 702.798.5595. Fortenberry on MySpace and YouTube.

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Travel and study grants for Minnesota and New York City artists

Minneapolis, Minnesota


The Jerome Foundation 2010 Travel and Study Grant Program will award grants to emerging creative artists (choreographers, film and video directors, poets, spoken word artists, fiction and creative nonfiction writers) for activities that lead to individual exploration and growth. Informational workshops will be held in February. More information is available at www.jeromefdn.org. Application deadline: March 8, 2010.

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Jottings as one ends, one begins

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Saturday, Dec. 19, 3:04pm – The absence of open water matches that of geese, ducks, and gulls from Lake Calhoun today. 23º with low, dark-gray clouds portending snow. The snowed-over pedestrian path means that walkers, runners, skaters, and cyclists share the vehicular path in both directions – with signs telling all but walkers to yield. A lone, hatless fool skis Nordic style across the ice ("fool" being relative viz brisk walkers on solid ground). Rifle volleys somewhere west in St. Louis Park suggest military honors, but whoever heard of a 33-gun salute? If not a funeral, then an odd place to practice. A mind trick of Minnesota winters: bulky-attired runners retain allure and sex appeal. Some of them, anyway. Two, in particular. Wind bites only while rounding the southeast bend. Two women bundled as in burqas (with only eye slits), descend steps at the 32d Street Beach talking excitedly about prospects for some kind of Bush Foundation grant. North of the beach, two clumsy skaters collide, kiss, and continue out to where the ice does not yet support snow. One hopes not to reach Christmas Day news items of divers searching for bodies. A windboarder tows his sailboard toward two companions waiting just offshore from the boat launch. Frozen pavement amplifies the sound of Lake Street traffic between lakes Calhoun and Isles. Nonbermed areas sound like Daytona Speedway, relatively. 


Sunday, Dec. 20, 12:09am – Spent a great evening with Chari, friend of 43 years, at Medina Entertainment Center to see and visit with Dennis, friend of 42 years and member of the Rockin' Hollywoods band!

Monday, Dec. 21, 4:35pm – Solstice. 17º. Two days' snowfall blankets all. Seven walkers, five runners, two cyclists, and no partridges in trees – nor other aviators. Optimists: nine canoes and kayaks still chained in place on north shore of lake. So very Calhoun quiet save for occasional vehicle on parkway or plane above clouds. 


Wednesday, Dec. 23, 10:31pm – So, the new, late-20-something guy next door moved here from Texas with his family in October to assist his elderly uncle and manage the apartment building. He never saw snow before last week. As we completed our second shovel-out of today, he was horrified to hear that it could snow for four more months. Told him: "If this doesn't send you back to Texas, nothing will!" 


Thursday, Dec. 24, 11:31am – Tonight: Christmas Eve Services at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral - religious service, cultural ritual, artistic production. 10pm - Be seated to insure a place. 10:30pm - Congregation/audience caroling. 11pm-12:45am - Midnight Mass with choir, organ, brass. 


Saturday, Dec. 26, 11:01am – The Young Victoria is a perfectly lovely film. The best line in a preview trailer was spoken by Chrisopher Plummer's character to Helen Mirren's, in The Last Station: "You don't need a husband, you need a Greek chorus!" 


Tuesday, Dec. 29, 12:54pm – Back! The crash-and-burn by MinnesotaPlaylist.com, a primo-must-have for Minnesota theater, is fixed! Check 'em out! 


Thursday, Dec. 31, 9:24am – Minnesota Public Radio reports that the mood is jubilant as fireworks welcomed the new year over the harbour and opera house in Sydney, Australia – folks happy to leave 2009 behind. My Facebook Live Feed reports that not everyone has cause for jubilation today. Nonetheless, as the bitter matches the sweet, a blessed 2010 to all! 


Thursday, Dec. 31, 10:53am – The Nuclear Cowboyz present a motorcycle ballet – a motocross spectacle – in 15-city tour. http://tinyurl.com/ydoxy4v 


Thursday, Dec. 31, 11:36am – Happy New Year wishes to the four fabulous artistic founders of Live Action Set! 


Friday, Jan. 1, 1:50pm – The 189-seat Commonweal Theater in tiny Lanesboro, Minnesota, drew 20,283 in 2009. With great work, others can too! http://tinyurl.com/yjpbwr7 


Friday, Jan. 1, 2:04pm – Where I-35W enters downtown Minneapolis, across from Central Lutheran Church and one block from Convention Center (and five blocks from home), Hilton Garden Inn offers neighborhood discounts on breakfast buffet, seven days a week (hours vary). Today, that discount was 32%. The discount for evenings is 25%. It's off the beaten track but appears to be a quiet wine hang-out for evening.

Friday, Jan. 1, 7:53pm – A waning full moon over Lake Calhoun. Last night, this was the Blue Moon. –1º and clear, with the mildest of breezes at the lake tonight. Two runners moving briskly on their rounds. 


Friday, Jan. 1, 11:42pm – Deborah Howell, former editor at Star Tribune and Pioneer Press struck and killed by a car in New Zealand. Husband, C. Peter McGrath (former U of M president), with her at the time. http://tinyurl.com/ydom6wo 


Saturday, Jan. 2, 2:20am – "With or without you!" Felt 28 again, closing up the 331 Club in NE Minneapolis, listening to Venus spin 95% real vinyl tunes. Just like 28, however, after thinking I was making eyes with the cute – but wasted – breakdancer, excitement at his approach died as he instead, in slurred manner, asked my partner if he had been his history professor at St. John's University four years ago! Had to laugh uproariously at all of us!

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Quintessential Minnesota jazz at Bennett's in St. Paul

St. Paul, Minnesota


For three magical hours, Dec. 29, members of the Bill Evans New Orleans Jazz Band and their audience of dinner customers journeyed through the quintessence of Minnesota's jazz traditions. At its end, the cornetist Charlie DeVore observed "We haven't had such a wild evening here in years."


Exceptional music – and the occasional wild evening – happens whenever the group plays Bennett's Chop and Railhouse in St. Paul, providing the nondescript establishment with a cachet matching those of the Twin Cities' more visible jazz venues: the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, the Artists' Quarter in St. Paul, the Northrop Jazz series at the University of Minnesota, and Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion broadcasts.


Situated where neighborhood-meets-city near an old railway on West 7th Street and Victoria Avenue, Bennett's features a weekly menu of American food specials, along with performances by some of Minnesota's best, home-grown jazz musicians on the second and last Tuesdays of each month.


The six members of the Evans ensemble enjoy prominent mindshares among Minnesota's jazz fans, while three have become living legends. DeVore can recount tales of playing at Brady's Pub in the 1960s on Block E in downtown Minneapolis. He, trombonist Evans, and pianist Mike Polad also are longtime veterans of the Emporium of Jazz in Mendota, across the Minnesota River south of the MSP airport. I saw and heard them there during forays with my law firm colleagues in the 1970s.


Members of a younger generation round out the ranks: clarinetist Tony Balluff, bassist Steve Puttell, and drummer Chuck DeVore, son of the cornetist. Balluff also plays with the Southside Aces, a jazz group he founded in south Minneapolis, and he annually pulls together the 34th Street Irregulars to march in the city's May Day Parade.


As a part-time sports bar, Bennett's best-of-both-worlds setup includes a flat screen television above the musicians. This allowed diners to bop along with the Evans band while watching Flomax commercials and the Wisconsin Badgers kick the Miami Hurricanes' collective backside, 20-14, in the Champ Sports Bowl. On days of Vikings home football games, Bennett's runs a shuttle bus to and from the Metrodome in Minneapolis.


The weekly menu specials include half-price apps and bottles of wine on Monday, walleye dinners on Tuesday, T-bones on Wednesday, half-price burgers on Thursday, all-you-can-eat crab on Friday, prime ribs on Saturday, and kids free on Sunday.


Jazz night clientele includes a man attired in a jacket from the American Legion Post in Inver Grove Heights; a couple who heard their first jazz music concert outdoors at the Lake Harriet Bandshell in Minneapolis, then attended the Emporium for many years, and soon will embark on their 15th annual jazz music cruise; and a man whose last cruise took place in 1945 when a 20mm gun was positioned above his bunk in the North Atlantic.


Bennett's eclectic ambience, decor, and patronage remind me of Jimmy Hegg's Restaurant, a former destination spot on Second Avenue South in downtown Minneapolis. For lunch and after work, lawyers and business people worshipped at St. Hegg's, ushered to their seats by Jimmy's wife, Jeannette, and officiated by Jimmy from his stool at the cash register. Late nights, the place became the town's central theater hangout, a place where the late Mike Steele, the theater critic, could appear in person to read aloud his review that would appear in the next morning's newspaper. Hegg's closed in 1982.


A similar feeling of communal ritual pervades the jazz night at Bennett's. On the 29th, the BENOJB offered three sets within three hours, separated by breaks not exceeding 10 minutes. The group performed many tunes from the 1930s, including "Algier's Street," "Honey Hush," "Bugle Boy March," and a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" for Tom Steele, a diehard fan of 83.


Throughout, the elder DeVore maintained a two-way conversation with the audience between numbers. "The music sounds great!" someone said.


"I don't know what happened," he replied.


In-town for the holidays, two guest musicians sat-in for the second and third sets: clarinetist and vocalist Andy Moore, and soprano saxophonist Henry Blackburn. Moore is a son of the late Dave Moore, the pioneering news anchor for WCCO Television in Minneapolis.


Blackburn's sax and Moore's voice sang sweetly and sonorously through Sidney Bechet's "Promenade Aux Champs-Élysées." Hearing it reminded me of another sweet experience with Bechet, that of seeing Danny Buraczeski's choreographed "Blue On The Moon," performed by Zenon Dance Company in 1989 at the Ordway in St. Paul and the Joyce Theater in New York.


Moore also vocalized Fats Waller's "If It Ain't Love" from music Polad found in a music store in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Other tunes included "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like New Year's," "All the Wrongs You've Done To Me," and "Just a Little While to Stay" – this last an audience sing-along.


Duke Ellington's "Creole Love Call" opened with three clarinets and later featured a sublimely sweet clarinet solo by Balluff. ("Tony: Call me!") For "Shake and Break," two women of a certain age danced among the restaurant tables, one spinning a lavender parasol as she moved. Charlie DeVore provided the vocals and scat from "Why Don't You Go Down to New Orleans." The audience provided vocals for the closer, "Auld Lang Syne."


Over the years, I have spent time at the Blue Note in New York City with Buraczeski, at Yoshi's in Oakland, California, with former ballet dancer and jazz musician John DeSerio, and numerous evenings at Twin Cities jazz venues.


The evening with the Bill Evans New Orleans Jazz Band at Bennett's in St. Paul ranks with the best of them. The group returns there Tuesday, Jan. 12, with Sonny Leland on the piano.

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First 2010 round: Metro arts grants total $817,275

Minneapolis, Minnesota


In the first round of grant making for three of its 2010 funding programs, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, based in St. Paul, awarded 120 grants totaling $817,275. Contracts and checks will be issued to organizations with budgets less than $300,000 and located in the seven metropolitan counties of greater Minneapolis and St. Paul. MRAC operates on a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30, and receives its grant funds from the Minnesota State Legislature, the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the McKnight Foundation.


Earlier in December, MRAC announced its first round of Community Arts Grant Awards. Grants to 62 organizations totaled $265,265, an average of $4,278 each.  

Anoka County: Mississippi Valley Orchestra, $4,000; North Artists Studio Crawl, $3,500; Northern Symphony Orchestra, $5,000.  

Carver County: ISD 112 Community Education, $4,600; River City Theatre Company, $5,000; Watertown Film Festival, $5,000.  

Dakota County: Burnsville Visual Art Society, $2,278; Chamber Music Lakeville, $5,000; City of South St. Paul, $5,000; Dakota County Public Health, $5,000; Dakota Valley Symphony, $5,000; International Festival of Burnsville, $5,000; South Metro Chorale, $5,000; The Play's the Thing Productions, $5,000; Velvet Tones, $4,430.  

Hennepin County: Diverse Emerging Music Organization, $4,624; Eclectic Edge Ensemble, $5,000; Grassroots Culture, $4,315; HUGE Theater, $5,000; Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota, $5,000; Lao Women Association, $5,000; Lao Writers Summit, $5,000; Minneapolis Southside Singers, $5,000; Nimbus Theatre, $5,000; Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association, $5,000; Puppet Farm Art, $2,500; Southside Family Nurturing Center, $5,000; Twin Cities Jazz Workshops, $5,000; Works Progress, $4,945.

Ramsey County: Bridge Productions, $5,000; Lex-Ham Community Arts, $920; Magic Lantern Puppet Theater, $3,800; Metropolitan Symphony Orchestral Association, $2,500; Minnesota Freedom Band, $2,500; Minnesota State Band, $4,910; Music in the Park Series, $5,000; Saint Paul Almanac, $5,000; Savage Umbrella, $2,868; Twin Cities Housing and Development Corporation, Liberty Plaza, $4,500; Vietnamese Community of Minnesota, $2,800; What About Us, $2,100; Women's Drum Center, $5,000.

Scott County: Jordan Art Festival, $5,000; River Valley Theatre Company, $5,000.

Suburban Hennepin County: Allegro Orchestral Association, $5,000; Continental Ballet Company, $5,000; Cross Community Players, $5,000; Music Association of Minnetonka, $4,985; Orono Community Education, $2,525; Thursday Musical, $4,000; Twin Cities Youth Chorale, $1,900.

Suburban Ramsey County: Community Partners of Youth, $4,285; Encore Wind Ensemble, $2,000; Heritage Theatre Company, $5,000; Honeywell Concert Band, $3,000; Lakeshore Players, Inc., $5,000; North Suburban Chorus, $3,000; Twin Cities Housing and Development Corporation, Calibre Ridge, $4,000.

Washington County: FamilyMeans - Cimarron Youth Development Initiative, $5,000; FamilyMeans - Landfall Youth Development Initiative, $4,880; Summer Tuesdays, $3,600; White Pine Festival, $5,000.

In November, MRAC announced its first round of Creative Intersection Grant Awards: Rosemount Area Arts Council, $7,300, Dakota County; East Side Arts Council, $10,000, Ramsey County; St. Paul Almanac, $10,000, Ramsey County; New Prague Arts Council, $8,000, Scott County; St. Louis Park Friends of the Arts, $10,000, Suburban Hennepin County.


In September, 53 organizations received $506,710, an average of $9,560 each, in the first round of Arts Activity Support Grants.

Dakota County: Caponi Art Park, $10,000; International Friendship Through the Performing Arts, $10,000.

Hennepin County: 3-Minute Egg, $8,600; Ananya Dance Theater, $10,000; ARENA Dances, Inc., $10,000; Art Shanty Projects, $10,000; ArtiCulture, $5,950; Ascension Place, $4,000; Body Cartography Project, $10,000; Camden Music School, Dave DeGennars and Circus Minimus Puppetry, $10,000; Catalyst, $10,000; Deepashika, $10,000; Frank Theatre, $10,000; Global Site Performance, $4,600; Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project, $10,000; JazzMN, Inc., $10,000; Kairos Dance Theatre, $10,000; Live Action Set, $10,000; Minneapolis Pops Orchestral Association, $10,000; Minnesota Guitar Society, $9,000; Mizna, $10,000; Off-Leash Area, $10,000; Open Eye Figure Theater, $10,000; Orchestra, $10,000; Plymouth Christian Youth Center, $10,000; Red Eye Collaboration, $10,000; Sandbox Theatre, $10,000; Speaking of Home, $6,960; Theatre Unbound, $9,600; TVbyGirls, $10,000; Walking Shadow Theatre Company, $10,000; Workhaus Playwrights Collective, $10,000; Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre, $10,000.

Ramsey County: CAAM Chinese Dance Theater, $10,000; East Side Arts Countil, $10,000; Gremlin Theatre, $10,000; Hot Summer Jazz Festival, $10,000; Minnesota Chinese Dance Theater, $10,000; Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company, $10,000; One Voice Mixed Chorus, $10,000; Oratorio Society of Minnesota, $10,000; Riverview Economic Development Association, $10,000; Selby Area Community Development, $8,000; Sounds of Hope, Ltd., $10,000; St. Paul Art Collective, $10,000; Teatro del Pueblo, $10,000; TU Dance, $10,000; Twin Cities Women's Choir, $10,000; Wishes for the Sky, $10,000; Zeitgeist, $10,000.

Suburban Hennepin County: Katha Dance Theatre, $10,000.

Suburbay Ramsey County: Ashland Productions, $10,000.

Washington County: St. Croix Concert Series, $10,000.

MRAC received 384 grant requests in 2009 and awarded 254 grants totaling $1,007,491. First-time applicants received seven percent of the grants. According to MRAC's December newsletter, funded projects served 11,685 artists and reached approximately 395,000 audience members. MRAC also provided 38 skill-building workshops and networking activities for people from more than 270 organizations.


MRAC is one of 11 regional arts councils serving the state of Minnesota. The Minnesota State Arts Board makes grants statewide to organizations with budgets exceeding $300,000.
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