2019-2020 Grant Recipients

Music

Shelter Music Boston
Transformative Concerts at CASPAR Emergency Shelter

Shelter Music Boston (SMB) will perform 10 interactive classical chamber music concerts at CASPAR Emergency Shelter in 2020, our 10th anniversary year. Concerts will provide shelter guests with access to the dignity, creativity, passion, respect, and community that art delivers, all while listening to, talking about,and learning about music that may (or may not) be entirely new to them. Concerts will be performed by professional musicians and to the highest artistic standards. Our survey data shows that SMB concerts result in an immediate and statistically significant mood improvement among listeners and inspires them to use music as a tool to address some of the stresses of homelessness and substance use. Shelter guests and staff report that SMB concerts bring calm to an often chaotic environment, reduce conflict in the shelters, and help shelter guests sleep better.

Cambridge Community Center
The Hip Hop Transformation

THHT is a program that teaches teens the authentic history of hip hop culture, the role it plays in their lives and in society as a whole, and equips them with the skill set to write, record, perform, and distribute their own authentic hip hop music. We believe that there are many ways to deliver 21st Century Skills to young people and that it is our responsibility to deliver these skills in a way that the teens are ready to receive. The program culture is one that revolves around authenticity, creativity, leadership, and connection to one another. With this culture the youth are held accountable not just by the adults working with them, but also by their peers who are collaborating with them to create the best final product possible for the community. The skills that the youth receive mirror many of the 21st Century Skills that young people need to prepare themselves for a career.

Equilibrium
Silente

For the opening of our 2019-2020 season, Equilibrium will present a concert of music for strings, Sunday, Nov. 10, at 3 p.m. at the New School of Music on Lowell Street in Cambridge. This performance brings together the top string players in the region for a program of music by composers who were all educated in New England and spent a significant part of their careers working in greater Boston. Among these composers is Bahar Royaee, an alum of Boston Conservatory whom Equilibrium has commissioned to premiere a new chamber piece on our spring program. Joining Bahar’s solo viola piece are a cello solo by Pedro Alvarez, a string trio by Clifton Ingram, and string quartets by former Radcliffe Fellow Michelle Louand Boston University alum Andre Mestre.

Longy School of Music
Healing Art Initiative

Longy’s Music as a Healing Art Initiative is an innovative hybrid of music and medicine, which provides a much-needed service to vulnerable communities in Cambridge while training our students to make a difference in the world. The Initiative encompasses two components: (1) A class titled Music as a Healing Art, which gives our students an introduction to the art and science of therapeutic music; and (2) Training for students to become certified as Music Practitioners®: a growing field of musicians providing live, acoustic music at a patient’s bedside to provide comfort and promote healing. This training includes five course modules and 45 practicum hours at local hospitals and care facilities.Both the course and certification help students learn how to most effectively use music to promote healing in hospitals, palliative care, and elder care facilities.

Walter Chapin
Epiphanies

In continuation of our 2018-19 season, Equilibrium will present a concert of music for solo and duo clarinet and clarinet quartet on Sat., March 9, 2019 at 8 p.m. at the New School of Music on Lowell Street in Cambridge. This program includes a new piece by Equilibrium member Stefanie Lubkowski alongside quartets by Mary Jane Leach and Matthew Evans Taylor and solo works by Lee Hyla and Evan Williams.

This uncommon programming for a single instrumental timbre will make the most of the New School’s intimate space and give audiences a rare immersive and up-close experience. Our concert will also add something unique to the spring chamber music offerings in the area and introduce a new direction in Equilibrium’s programming in which we showcase the stylistic and sonic possibilities of a limited instrumentation through diverse compositional voices.

New Gallery Concert Series
From There to Here

Embarking on its twentieth season, New Gallery Concert Series presents new pieces of music and visual art along with their creators. Committed to building community that encourages interactive collaborations between participants and members of the audience, NGCS will return to New School of Music in May to present our season finale, “From There to Here.” Conceived as a reflection on the organization’s evolving development, featured composers and visual artist have free range on their interpretation of the theme. The result includes work as literal as a train whizzing by to the musical retelling of a Holocaust survivor’spersonal journey.  The event will be video documented & include two world premieres, one US premiere,mostly participants from the greater Cambridge area, and a pre-concert panel discussion. Our aim is always to strengthen the bonds of our community through the arts.

Skooby Lapofsky
Hidden Life Radio

Hidden Life Radio is a project that aims to increase the general awareness of trees in Cambridge and the city’s disappearing canopy by creating a musical “voice” for the trees with the use of solar-powered biodatasonification systems installed in various municipal locations that have old-growth deciduous trees. Hidden Life Radio will include on-site listening stations located in various municipal buildings like the public libraries,an online radio station and a smartphone app that will livestream music generated by the biodata measured from the various tree species around Cambridge. Weather, climate and other environmental conditions will directly affect how the music is shaped. This “radio station” will allow listeners to hear each featured tree’s biological processes in real-time, creating a poetic reminder that the trees are there enriching our daily lives in numerous ways.

Aaron King
Bridgeside Cypher

The Bridgeside Cypher is an outdoor event hosted at Graffiti Alley in Central Square, Cambridge MA. We define a cypher as a gathering of rappers in a circle taking turns rapping and performing. Our cyphers are usually three hours long and have three sections: 1) Open mic freestyle circle. This allows anyone to join in the circle and rap or sing over instrumentals when it is their turn. 2) Music video shoot. This section features a live music video shoot with performances from local rappers.This allows local artists the opportunity to get a professionally produced video of themselves without needing the money to pay for the production themselves. 3) Performances from featured professional artists and musicians. This could be a group of rappers, a live band, or a beat boxer. Typically we choose musicians that will allow for the open mic cypher to continue during their performance.

Erik Lindgren
Oral Moses in Concert

Dr. Oral Moses is a world-renown bass baritone from Atlanta, and a major authority on the African American Spiritual. I would like to present a concert of Dr. Moses with his accompanist J. Jakari Rush at The Lilypad in Cambridge (Inman Square) in the Spring or Fall of 2020. The concert would feature Spirituals and art songs, with an emphasis on African American composers. Additional information about Oral Moses (including sound samples) can be found on his website: http://www.oralmosessings.com

Alex Lemski
The Creative Music Series

Since 2015 the Creative Music Series (CMS) has produced concerts in Cambridge featuring adventurous jazz; bringing out-of-town musicians with national reputations paying attention to social and cultural realities; booking musicians as leaders who are women and musicians of color. However, jazz's cutting-edge visibility has been declining here since the early '90s, so it's an effort to recognize musicians who often have never played here to enhance our artistic, cultural and diverse community. This proposal will include five concerts; In 2019: The Rob Brown Trio, 8/17, Michael T.A. Thompson’s TrioPlex, 9/6, Wendy Eisenberg’s Gloyd, 10/19, Allison Miller Trio 11/23; 6/13/20: Angelica Sanchez Trio, all at the intimate Lilypad. These are a variety of styles and concerts are priced fairly while respecting the musician's national reputations. There are student and senior discounts.

Theater

Central Square Theater
The Voting Project - Act Up and Vote!

Central Square Theater seeks support for the Act Up and Vote! Festival, May 12-17, 2020, at Central Square Theater. Act Up and Vote! is Youth Underground’s new investigative theater project exploring voting and civic engagement in a historical and contemporary context. Youth Underground, the anchor Education program at Central Square Theater, is a socio-economically, culturally, and ethnically diverse youth Ensemble serving ages 13-25 with stipend-eligible opportunities to create theater in tandem with community-based organizations and showcase their work across Greater Boston and at Central Square Theater. The festival will include school matinees and community performances; panel discussions featuring scholars and civic experts; supplemental interactive community workshops; and onsite voter pre/registration. It will offer multiple facets of engagement with free access to all workshops and panel discussions.

Faye Dupras
Cozy Corner: Dragon Next Door

To premier “Dragon Next Door” (Episode 6 of Cozy Corner) at the Cambridge Friends School for a general followed by school audience in May of 2020. This interactive puppet play for family audiences was workshopped at the armory in the winter of 2019. During the workshop phase we worked closely with accessibility specialist Mia Branco in order to create a show that was accessible to children with autism and children with sensory processing challenges. Beyond refining the script and finalizing the show’s puppet design work, the main focus for this proposed project is to develop the much need accessibility support material. This includes the pre-visit “social story” document, sensory books, and “Meet the Friends of Cozy Corner” pre-visit videos. (Note: Cozy Corner is an “in-process” 8-episode theater series that focuses on the social emotional development of children ages 3 – 8).

Jade Sylcan
Beloved King

Beloved King is a full-length musical based on a queer reading of the book of Samuel in the Bible. It centers a young David and his romantic relationships with King Saul and Prince Jonathan as David first rises to power. Jade is currently a third-year Masters student at Harvard Divinity School on the ordination track to become a Unitarian Universalist minister. This work is their graduate student thesis. At Harvard they are studying with Biblical scholars and queer theologians in order to ensure that the Biblical source material is honored. The inaugural staged-reading of this work is scheduled for March 12th, 2020 at Oberon Theater,corresponding with their graduation in May 2020. This reading will have a nine person cast, a recorded score, and a stage crew. Our goal is for Beloved King to help re-envision and reinvigorate popular engagement with this foundational spiritual text.

Grace Valaskovic
Annabel Lee

Finding herself inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem "Annabel Lee," high school playwright Grace Valaskovic was moved enough to respond with her own piece of art. The result, an hour-long play, draws inspiration from Poe's poem and then elaborates pasts its original themes. The play is set in the modern-day, where the narrator of Poe's poem (Noah) is employed at a coffee shop, trying to work his way through an English major. Still stuck in the past, he annoys his no-nonsense coworker Frankie with Annabel-centric prose. His story takes off when the mysterious Lenore and her beau Rudy enter the coffee shop and Noah is immediately struck by Lenore's uncanny resemblance to his old girlfriend. The audience follows Noah, Frankie, Lenore and Rudy as Noah learns to cope with the death of his once-beloved Annabel Lee and heal the damage he has inflicted on himself and those around him.

Queen Mab
The Tempest – a Three Actor Version

We will present a micro-production of Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" that synthesizes the play down to its essence, so the entire play is performed by only three actors. Our unique approach engages the audience in a fresh experience of the play that celebrates language, storytelling, and transformation. Three African-American actors – one of whom is deaf – will dive deep into the play's reflections on colonial power, and how it controls not just the way we express ourselves, but our very sense of self. Resonances of the immigrant experience and the dignity of marginalized peoples abound. Shakespeare’s transcendent language takes center stage, both as spoken English and translated into American Sign Language. The play will open at Cambridge's Multicultural Arts Center, but the production is portable and after a two-week run will tour to community organizations around Cambridge and the Commonwealth.

Literature

Patricia Russo
Partners in Rhyme

Ten older adults from Cambridge and 20 teens from the Gately Youth Center will participate in Partners in Rhyme, an intergenerational poetry program, at the Cambridge Senior Center. Each adult will work with the same two teens throughout the six-week program. Through the lens of poetry, we'll explore relevant topics including gratitude, mindfulness, rejuvenation and community. During our discussions, participants will be encouraged to share where they find themselves in a poem and/or what the poem brings up for them, rather than analyzing its poetic form or the poet's intended message. After we’ve heard each other’s reactions, everyone will write and share personal poems. We will have a poetry gathering at the end of the program where participants can perform original works created during the series or a favorite poem. This event will be advertised and open to the Cambridge community.

Kenny Likis
Voices that Inspire

“Voices That Inspire” will bring two speakers / performers to Cambridge: Fatimah Asghar and Dr. Billie Jean Young. Ms. Asghar is the author of the poetry collection "If They Come for Us" and co-editor of the anthology "Halal if You Hear Me." She will speak and read for the school community at Cambridge Rindge and Latin (CRLS). Dr. Young wrote and performs the one-woman play “This Little Light of Mine,” which honors the life of voting rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer. In the play, Dr. Young impersonates Fannie Lou Hamer and recreates the speeches and oratory that distinguished Hamer and define her heritage. Dr. Young will perform her play at CRLS and in a public forum. The plan is for the performance in a public forum to be followed by a panel discussion featuring women elected to public office.

Cambridge Center of Adult Education
Blaksmith House Poetry Series

CCAE's Blacksmith House Poetry Series (BHPS) has been enriching the cultural life of the City of Cambridge for over three decades. Founded in 1973 by the Cambridge poet Gail Mazur, BHPS features established and emerging writers of poetry and fiction. Readings are held on Monday nights at 8 p.m. during CCAE's winter, spring, and fall terms. BHPS's target audience includes poetry-lovers, readers,writers, teachers, fans of particular authors, and people who simply savor the intimacy and magic of the spoken word. Readings take place at CCAE's Blacksmith House on Brattle street in Harvard Square, a fitting place since its "spreading chestnut tree" inspired Longfellow's beloved ballad, "The Village Blacksmith." Now the tree in the courtyard embraces new generations of new American voices, and new generations of listeners.

Multidisciplinary

Zoe Dance Company
Metamorfosi

“Metamorfosi” is an ongoing project started in the Spring of 2018. Currently it has two sections and I’m looking into expanding it to create an evening-length performance installation experience. Combining the disciplines of dance, media, and original music, “Metamorfosi” is an opportunity for the audience to be immersed in a multi-sensory environment spanning senses; sight, sound, and touch. Currently,“Metamorfosi” exists in both the digital realm as well as physical. It incorporates a large 70-foot circumference hoop with a string curtain held up by rare earth magnets. There are three projectors helping to map the landscape of this string curtain encasement (where some of the audience will be within). This performance will take place June 2020 at Studio at 550.

Family Opera Inc.
The Cutlass Crew

NCFO will produce the US premiere of “The Cutlass Crew,” a fully-sung opera for audiences of all ages, performed by families drawn from the community. “The Cutlass Crew” was created by renowned author Donald Sturrock and acclaimed British composer Stuart Hancock. It was first performed in London in 2017 and is based on the true story of Lady Mary Killigrew, an aristocrat-turned-pirate who menaced the high seas with her servants as her crew in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Approximately 150 adults and children from 80 families will perform for a total audience of about 2000 over eight performances. The singing, drama and dancing will be supported by outstanding sets, props, makeup,lighting, sound engineering, and full period costumes, with most aspects of the production filled by volunteers from the cast and their families. The number of paid professionals will be minimized.

Cambridge Wildlife Puppetry Project
Animal Homes

“Animal Homes” is a multidisciplinary arts campaign, with STEAM elements, that will enable at least 300 individuals—primarily Cambridge families with children under 12—to deepen their knowledge and experience of the animal species and habitats of Cambridge. The campaign includes musical performances, storytelling, and hands-on visual arts,and pageantry, between July 1, 2019, and August 1, 2020. Each element of this campaign touches on the concepts of home, shelter, and the need for safe space that is a function of animal as well as human life.We are branching out, with this proposal, to a new art form for us—kamishibai. This versatile Japanese practice, now used globally in education, will provoke new personal connections to nature in Cambridge among both new residents and newcomers to the city. The project includes giant puppets on parade, a library event, and live caterpillars!

Yara Liceaga-Rojas
Poetry is Busy, Visible Caribe Series

Poetry Is Busy is a multidisciplinary performance series that I’ve coordinated and curated since 2010. It features invited poets, dancers, writers, filmmakers, performers, musicians, and visual artists. Originally located in Puerto Rico, Poetry Is Busy has presented more than 20 artists (including Philadelphia and Boston’s poet laureates) in the Cambridge/Boston area since 2018, with initial support from Cambridge Arts. The series has played to packed audiences at Middlebury College, the Boston Book Fair, and the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts (among others). I propose to curate a new season of the series titled “Poetry Is Busy: Visible Caribe” that will run from May to August 2020, on the third Friday of each month. Each night will be unique, and will showcase four artists from different Caribbean countries and varied artistic traditions,at the Democracy Center in Cambridge.

Innovators for Purpose
Looking Glass Live!

Cambridge has been a tell of two cities for far too long. There is a very real problem of poverty and inequity. Youth in these communities report feeling invisible. In iFp Studios, teens create installations that enable their voices to be heard in the city's most innovative places. Innovators for Purpose is requesting support for the development of a mobile app using the Roundware contributory audio augmented reality platform. The app will overlay the Looking Glass installation, a permanent installation in Kendall Square, designed by our teens. The app will enable a rich and deep exploration of Kendall's past / present, while sparking conversations about its future. iFp projects helps students develop a sense of belonging and more importantly signals to the community that there is an untapped population ready and willing to become the City's next innovators and change makers.

Visual Arts, Film, & Video

Thomas J. Briggs
Homeless Artists Workshop

Homeless Empowerment Project – art workshop proposal providing artmaking media, guidance and encouragement for homeless artists making and sharing their experience and artwork is the objective of this proposal for support from the Mass Cultural Council. My partner in this initiative is the Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP), a non-profit organization and publisher of Spare Change News and SCN website, which has enthusiastically endorsed this initiative and provided a workshop space at their offices at the Old Cambridge Baptist Church. Since a homeless population is subject to circumstances that are fairly unique to the culture of artists (i.e.,lack of ownership/control of permanent and stable personal space and lack of a secure place to make or display visual or digital media art), a plan to support and share their creative efforts with these assets is crucial to their achievement.

Boston Comic Arts Foundation
Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo 2020

The Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) was established in 2010 to showcase artists and writers in the Boston area (and beyond) working in the field of comics. This free weekend event is for all ages, produced by the Boston Comic Arts Foundation, and hosted by Lesley University College of Art and Design. MICE puts a focus on the art of making comics. We connect comics creators with a local audience. Creators lead a number of creative workshops for children and adults, exploring practical skill development and the mechanics of the art form. We host panel discussions examining the theory, craft, and relevance of comics.We feature several special guest creators, plus an expanded lineup of programming.Attendees will discover new comics from over 150 local creators, while the panel discussions and workshops provide insight about the world of contemporary comics and graphic novels.

Robert Megerdichian
Love in Metal – the Art of Abraham Megerdichian

Abraham Megerdichian was a machinist and lifelong Cambridge resident. During lunch he created from scrap metal his interpretations of everyday objects, which he gave to family and friends for 30 years. This grant is for an exhibit of his actual art and photographs of it taken by Scott Sutherland. Abraham’s son,Robert Megerdichian, also a lifelong Cambridge resident, has gathered, cataloged and promoted the art to be on display. The exhibit will take place at the Cambridge Public Library, main facility, in spring 2020.

Jessica Hankey
Orbis Editions Performance Events and Book Launch

Orbis Editions offers a model for a small press that focuses on using publications as a space for exhibition.Our goal is to promote and disseminate the practices of contemporary artists using publications as a venue for exhibition more portable than that of a gallery or museum. In addition to making and distributing artists’publications, we create public events that reinforce the role of print media as both active within and responsive to its cultural context. With support from the Cambridge Arts Council, Orbis will be able to: create an open call to work with two Cambridge-based artists to produce an open edition of creative works, accompanied by a public event; and produce a public event for an in-progress artist’s anthology on motherhood and surveillance.

Brain Arts Organization, Inc.
Black Market Flea

Black Market Flea is a a bi-monthly market featuring vendors encompassing a wide array of artists,printmakers, illustrators, graphic designers, and photographers. The event provides an affordable, physical platform for fringe artists to promote and sell their work and allows attendees to make personal connections with these artists. Brain Arts will put on a Black Market that incentivizes participation of Cambridge-based vendors. The event will occur on 4/12/2020 from 12-6 pm at the Cambridge Community Center. Funding will go towards waving fees for Cambridge vendors with a goal of doubling the proportion of Cambridge vendors present at the market. CAC money will also fund more thorough event promotion in Cambridge specifically, as well as pay Cambridge-based artists to design event flyers, posters,and a schedule containing dates for future Markets through Fall 2020.

Our Central Square is a three part media arts project about the cultural district it is named after. It begins with teens from Cambridge Community Television’s (CCTV) Youth Media Program (YMP) producing 3-minute profiles featuring locals, business owners, and historians about the history of Central Square.Visiting Artist Keaton Fox will then lead teens through three workshops about media installation and projection art. Lastly, using CCTV archival footage and new material shot by youth participants of Central Square, Fox will create a final 3-5 minute experimental film inspired by history and culture with support from CCTV’s Youth & Immersive Media Coordinator Xia Rondeau. This film will be publicly projected on a prominent wall in Central Square. The project will take place from March-June 2020 and will be screened at the MIT Museum in May then unveiled in Central Square in June.

Field Trips

East End House
Field Trip to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

We are requesting funds to take our young people to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform in Boston. Over 70% percent of our participants identify as Black or African American. 87% of our young people identify as people of color. It is an incredible opportunity to take our young people to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater when they perform in Boston in May. We will use the opportunity to teach our students about Alvin Ailey, his activism, his accomplishments in the world of dance, and how he created

one of the most successful dance companies in the world and one of the most performed ballets. Many of our participants are very interested in the arts, including theater and dance. This will be a formative experience for them to see dancers and performers that look like them dancing world renowned choreography that celebrates African American culture.

Jennifer Orr
Field Trip to Puppet Theater

The Cambridge Arts Grant fits into our curriculum, giving children an authentic experience that they are able to model back in the classroom.  Last year after seeing a performance at the Brookline Puppet Theater, the children created their own puppets and stage and acted out plays.  They were able to come up with their own stories and were encouraged to write them down to share with others.  This year 40 kindergarten students will visit the Puppet Showplace Theater. We will be taking the 40 students to the Theater during the spring season.  The Puppet showplace is going to let us know when the schedule for the spring has been posted so we are able to choose a performance that is appropriate for the students.

Agassiz Baldwin Community
Field Trip to Wheelock Family Theater

The Agassiz Baldwin Community Afterschool will send 40 2nd-5th graders participating in our 2020 April Vacation Week program to the Wheelock Family Theatre to enjoy a musical adaptation of The Little Prince. Families who enroll their children in our out-of-school-time programming appreciate us for our focus an arts and play-based programs. Our curriculum focuses heavily on the development of important social-emotional skills like self-awareness, regulation, teamwork, and cooperation. Our dance and drama instructors lead an enthusiastic cohort of students interested in participating in improvisational games, producing skits, and taking dance lessons with goals to perform in front of their families and peers. While a trip to Wheelock Family Theatre would be an enriching experience for any of our 2nd-5th graders, it will be especially wonderful for these students interested in dramatic arts to see professional artists excelling in their field.

Agassiz Baldwin Community
Field Trip to the Puppet Showplace Theatre

The Agassiz Baldwin Community Outback Summer Program will send 45 rising K-1st graders to the Puppet Showplace Theatre during the summer of 2020. Families that enroll their children in the Outback program have come to appreciate us for our choice-based programming and focus on the arts. As our rising 1st-6th graders have community meetings together, our rising Kindergarteners practice making independent choices with meetings of their own. While activities might range from water play to watercolors, the core of our curriculum focuses heavily on the development of important social-emotional skills like self-awareness and regulation, teamwork, and cooperation. For our rising Kindergarteners and 1st graders, this is an especially challenging time, as Outback is often their first experience with a large and diverse group of peers and away from the usual routine of home and school.

Urbanity Dance, Field Trip to Urbanity Dance’s Season Finale, VERGE

For years, Urbanity Dance has partnered with the Boston Public Schools to provide quality artistic programming for BPS students. Moving forward, Urbanity desires to expand this outreach to our neighbors in Cambridge. Urbanity Dance will bring dance students from the Cambridge Public Schools to the company’s season finale, VERGE. The performance will feature both world-premiere commissions and re-setting of works by acclaimed choreographers from around the nation. VERGE will also showcase a world premiere by Urbanity’s Founder and Director, Betsi Graves. Urbanity chooses to partner specifically with CPS students because we understand the importance of intercommunal artistic enrichment. The cultural vitality of Cambridge’s future innovators mutually benefits its Boston neighbors and exposing students to art in their youth increases the likelihood of participation into adulthood.