Congratulations to the 19 ensembles and solo performers receiving grants through the first round of USArtists International (USAI)! The artists will travel to 20 festivals  on five continents and include nine music, six dance, and four theater/interdisciplinary companies and solo performers. You can learn more about the artists and where they are headed here.

USAI supports performances by American artists at important cultural festivals and arts marketplaces around the globe. The second program deadline for 2023 was November 30, 2022. The third and final deadline for the 2023 USAI program year is Wednesday, March 29, 2023 for projects taking place between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. Learn more and apply here.

USAI is a program of Mid Atlantic Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Mellon Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. It is the only program of its kind in the United States, and since its inception in 2006, has awarded over $9.8 million in support.

Image: 2022 USArtists International grantee L.A. Dance Project in Benjamin Millepied’s “Romeo & Juliet Suite” at the Nights of Fourvière Festival in France. Photo credit: Paul Bourdrel.

On Tuesday, December 6th Mid Atlantic Arts officially welcomed the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico into the regional arts organization family during a special Memorandum of Understanding signing event at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) joins our nine other state agencies partners - DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, USVI, VA, and WV - that make up the Mid Atlantic Arts regional partnership.

We were delighted to be joined by Chair of the NEA, Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, who made remarks along with Pam Breaux, President & CEO, of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Carlos Ruiz, Executive Director, ICP also spoke before the official signing ceremony along with Romona Riscoe Benson, Chair of Mid Atlantic, and Theresa Colvin, Executive Director. Following the signing, the U.S. Congresswoman representing Puerto Rico, Jenniffer González Colón, joined the group to offer congratulations.

Puerto Rico-based artists and organizations are eligible for program support starting with the 2023-2024 program year. Welcome Puerto Rico!

Image (l-r): Carlos Ruiz, Executive Director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and Mid Atlantic Arts Executive Director Theresa Colvin celebrate the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. Credit: James Kegley Photography.

A warm welcome to Ernest Stuart, Mid Atlantic's new Program Director for Jazz. Ernest will be responsible for leading and managing the Jazz Touring Network and grant support program, the Living Legacy Jazz Award selection process, and serving as Mid Atlantic’s liaison to the national Jazz Road program. 

A jazz musician and producer, Ernest has performed in more than 30 countries touring with the likes of Red Baraat, the Charles Tolliver Big Band, and the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, among others. He was also the founding producer of the Center City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. Ernest holds a B.A. in jazz performance from Temple University and recently received his MS in non-profit management from Columbia University. 

You can reach Ernest at estuart@midatlanticarts.org.

ArtsCONNECT

ArtsCONNECT supports touring projects collaboratively developed by presenters working together in the mid-Atlantic region. The tours include performances as well as complementary engagement activities designed to create greater understanding or connections between artists, audiences, and communities. 

Two or more Presenters located in the mid-Atlantic region who partner to present the same artist/company during the project period can each receive up to 50% subsidy for that artist/company’s compensation.

The Projects in Development listing is a user-generated information hub that includes consortia projects currently in development for ArtsCONNECT. Presenters can view the listing and contact the group if interested in participating. All consortia groups must submit a Projects in Development listing by Thursday, February 16, 2023.

ArtsCONNECT Program Deadline: Thursday, March 2, 2023

Mid Atlantic Tours

Mid Atlantic Tours brings the best of the performing arts to communities across the mid-Atlantic region. Presenters select from a curated roster of artists that changes annually but maintains a programmatic commitment to a diversity of performance genres, regional artist representation, and engaging with communities underserved by the arts.  

Presenters located in the mid-Atlantic region who engage a Mid Atlantic Tours Roster Artist during the project period receive up to 50% subsidy for the Roster Artist’s compensation as well as a presenter capacity support. Presenters work directly with the Roster Artist’s Tour Manager to negotiate terms, including engagement dates and compensation.  

Mid Atlantic Tours Booking Deadline: Thursday, March 23, 2023

Special Presenter Initiatives

Mid Atlantic Arts, in partnership with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), the Delaware Division of the Arts (DDOA), the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICPPR), the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts (VICA), and the West Virginia Division of Culture and History (WVDCH), offers the Special Presenter Initiatives (SPI) to support the presentation of professional performing artists/ensembles at small and mid-size arts and community organizations within these jurisdictions. The program supports presenting projects with professional touring artists and ensembles from anywhere worldwide.

Special Presenter Initiatives Program Deadline: Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Image: Children from Free Family Saturday run the rigging on one of Squonk Opera's enormous puppets. Presented by Artpark & Company, Inc., in Lewiston, NY, Squonk Opera is a 2022-2023 Mid Atlantic Tours roster artist: Credit: Jordan Oscar.

Central Appalachia Living Traditions Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences Grants

Congratulations to the 16 organizations and individual artists/practitioners in Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia who received over $135,000 in grant support through the inaugural round of the Central Appalachia Living Traditions (CALT): Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences program.

CALT: Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences grants fund public-facing projects and events that bring community members together around folk and traditional arts practice and cultural knowledge. Funded projects encourage broad public awareness, understanding, and appreciation of living traditions and/or grow and disseminate artistic skill and cultural knowledge within the community.

Funded projects showcase a diversity of artists/practitioners, traditions, geographies, and constituencies within the folk and traditional arts and cultural communities in Central Appalachia. Traditions highlighted include Appalachian blues, folk, and old-time music, basketmaking, instrument building, woodworking, quilting, weaving and spinning, gender-free square dancing, the expressive culture of Latinx communities in Southern Ohio, and diverse gardening and foodways traditions represented in the Appalachian region. You can read more about the 2023 grantees and their projects here.

For information on the 2024 program and notification of guidelines and application availability, please sign-up here.

Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowship

Applications are now being accepted for the 2023 Appalachian Foodways Practitioners Fellowship. Applicants must be from an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) designated county and priority will be given to applicants from OH, VA, and WV.

Fellows may include, but are not limited to home cooks and bakers, seed savers, farmers, community elders, keepers of recipes and traditional foodways knowledge, hunters, and foragers, who have made significant and long-term contributions to sustaining and supporting the foodways heritage of their respective communities.

Grow Appalachia, the Appalachian Studies Association, and Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions program are thrilled to partner to host the Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowship to honor, celebrate, and support foodways tradition bearers and practitioners in the Appalachian region.

Applications are now open Creative Forces Community Engagement Grants, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA). These grants support community nonclinical arts programs taking place in healthcare, community, or virtual settings that aim to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military service members and veterans exposed to trauma as well as their families and caregivers through experiences of art or art making. From hands-on creative workshops to dance, theater, and music performances by and for veterans, these projects seek to engage military-related populations in communities across the country through experiences of art or art making.

Matching grants awarded to emerging and advanced projects range from $10,000 to

$50,000 each. Visit Mid-America Arts Alliance (maaa.org/creativeforces) for complete grant guidelines. Applications are due January 19, 2023.

Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network began in 2012 as an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veteran Affairs and is managed in partnership with Americans for the Arts, Civic Arts, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, and Mid-America Arts Alliance.

Opportunity Quick Links

• The Performing Arts Discovery (PAD) Program is a showcasing initiative designed to build opportunities for U.S. artists to tour internationally. Open to all U.S.-based performing artists with readiness to tour internationally, PAD encourages those who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and/or LGBTQ+ to apply. Performing artists from all traditional, contemporary, and culturally specific art forms are eligible to apply. Selected artists will receive resources to create professionally-produced, live performance videos for international markets that will be featured on a dedicated platform and included in selected international online showcases. Learn more and apply by: January 6th, 2023 at 11:59PM PST.

• The Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation invites applications for its 2023 Individual Support Grants program, which will award $25,000 in support of mature painters, sculptors, and printmakers who have been creating art for at least 20 years and who are in financial need. There is no preference given to genre, media, or subject matter as long as the work is painting, printmaking, or sculpture or can be directly interpreted as such. Applicants must demonstrate that they have been working in a mature phase of their art for at least 20 years. Deadline: January 18, 2023.

• The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) invites applications for its 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship program. Through the program, unrestricted cash grants of $8,000 will be awarded to artists living in New York State. Fellowship categories in 2023 include craft/sculpture, digital/electronic arts, nonfiction literature, poetry, and printmaking/drawing/book arts. The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship is not a project grant but is intended to fund an artist's vision or voice at all levels of artistic development. Deadline: January 25, 2023.

• The Culture & Animals Foundation is providing annual grants to scholars and artists who use their intellect, creativity, and compassion to build a deeper understanding of human–animal relationships and greater respect for animal rights. Grants are awarded in three categories: research (scholarly projects about animal advocacy and its cultural roots and impact); creativity (original work by artists and thinkers that expresses positive concern for animals); and performance (public performances and exhibitions that raise awareness of animal advocacy). Deadline: January 31, 2023.

• 2023 Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) Native Launchpad Informational Webinar: AIP Program Manager, Ed Bourgeois, shares application guidance and tips, and 2019 Native Launchpad artist Delbert Anderson— jazz trumpeter and D'DAT front man — shares his perspective on the program and how it has generated some incredible opportunities and helped raise his profile. AIP Native Launchpad Deadline: Wednesday, February 1, 2023.

Image: Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, Pittsburgh, PA presented Stefon Harris + Blackout with support from the Jazz Touring Network program. Credit: Murphy Mochetta.