Artist Communities Alliance (ACA) is thrilled to announce a new pilot grant program for the New York City dance community in collaboration with both Howard Gilman Foundation and Mertz Gilmore Foundation.
ACA’s consortia programs are long-term partnerships that provide funding for artist residency programs and direct support to artists so they can attend residencies. These programs create pathways for artists historically underrepresented or excluded from the residency field, while building and strengthening relationships among residency programs. "Supporting the creation of networks of dance artists, presenters, and communities, to provide growth opportunities for performing artists is at the center of our organization's core values," says Lisa Funderburke, ACA President and CEO. "We are proud to be in partnership with the Howard Gilman and Mertz Gilmore Foundation to explore meaningful ways to uplift the NY dance and performing arts communities and address their unique needs.” With this new pilot program, ACA will be able to reimagine what service and support for the dance community can look like.
From 2023–2024, ACA will grant funding to New York City-based dance artists—this includes individuals, organizations, companies, and collectives—providing them with residency support for different stages of their creative process. “The Howard Gilman Foundation is thrilled to be a part of this partnership with ACA and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. This pilot program is an outgrowth of years of research and listening we've done with artists to best support their creation of new work,” said Anna Campbell, Senior Program Officer at the Howard Gilman Foundation. “With the help of our partners, we’ve designed this program to serve the needs of New York City-based dancemakers, the network of residency centers that provide them with essential support, and the field at large,” adds Kimberleigh Costanzo, Director of Grants Administration & Program Officer at Howard Gilman.
In the pilot year, ACA will partner with three artist residencies to host two NYC-based dance artists or companies selected from the vast network of grantees, partners, members, and dance organizations supported by Howard Gilman and Mertz Gilmore. “Mertz Gilmore strives to strengthen and enrich the City’s dance ecosystem - of which residencies are a crucial component. This work with Howard Gilman and ACA will help fill a gap in support for the field and meet the artists where they are,” shared Leah Krauss, Senior Program Officer for Dance + Special Projects at the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.
The three confirmed residency host partners for 2024 will be The Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, Minnesota; The Arts Center on Governors Island, LMCC, in NYC; and the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) in Tallahassee, Florida.
The selected artists will receive additional funding to support their time in residence. After the pilot year, the consortium aims to expand the application and invitation process. ACA will invite artist residency partners from a competitive pool of its membership in the U.S., weighing, among other factors, geographical diversity, the stage of the creative process supported by the residency, and organizational approaches to equity and access. Like ACA’s other consortium programs, partner residencies will receive resources and guidance to assess and build their equitable capacity* using ACA’s Healthy Residency Framework.
*Equitable Capacity is a concept coined by Lisa Funderburke in which we define as the facility or power to embody equity across all areas of an organization, specifically its policies, process and practices
You can read the press release here.