National Programs

Congratulations to the 32 ensembles and solo artists receiving grant support through the spring 2024 USArtists International (USAI) program round. Those artists will represent the United States at 42 different festivals and venues worldwide. Engagements will take place on five continents and grantees include include 17 music, eight dance, and seven theater/interdisciplinary companies and solo performers.

Eighteen of the grantees have never received a USAI grant. Over 150 eligible applications were received for the spring round and a total of $318,270 in grants were awarded. View a full list of grantees here.

Performing Arts Global Exchange (PAGE) provides fee support directly to nonprofit presenters programming artists from an annually curated roster. The 2024-2025 touring roster features artists from Colombia and Brazil, including Espiral 7 (Colombia), Las Guaracheras (Colombia), Luciane Dom (Brazil), Luedji Luna (Brazil), and La Muchacha (Colombia). Mid Atlantic Arts, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced $171,725 in grant support for 61 engagements through the 2024-2025 PAGE program. Engagements will take place across 28 states. View a full list of supported engagements here.

Regional Programs

ArtsCONNECT supports performing arts touring projects collaboratively developed by presenters working together in the mid-Atlantic region. The 2024-2025 program will support eight tours visiting 25 communities across the region. Artists include: A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham; Boricua y de Mayagüez; Cirque Kalabante; Cyrus Chestnut; Giordano Dance Company; Manual Cinema; Sphinx Virtuosi; and Tambacum. Learn more about the artists and engagements here.

Iber Exchange provides fee support grants to nonprofit presenters located in the mid-Atlantic region that contract artists as part of the Iber Exchange program in collaboration with the Ibermúsicas organization. The 2024-2025 Iber Exchange program will provide support for 17 engagements in the region featuring roster artists Heloísa Fernandes Quartet (Brazil), Pascuala Ilabaca y Fauna (Chile), and Rancho Aparte (Colombia). Learn more about the roster artists and engagements here.

Jazz Touring Network (JTN) is a presenter-based membership program that supports professional development, building partnerships, and working together to curate tours that reflect the richness of the field of jazz. In 2024-2025, JTN members will host 33 engagements through eight tours including: Brandee Younger; Bria Skonberg; Julius Rodriguez Quartet; Jumaane Smith; Keyon Harrold; Miguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo; The Soul Rebels; and Xian aTunde Adjuah. Learn more about the JTN and view a list of engagements here.

Mid Atlantic Tours brings the best in performing arts ensembles 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. The 2024-2025 tours will include 40 engagements throughout the mid-Atlantic and include: Family music with 123 Andrés; Storyteller Adam Booth; Puppet artists Alex & Olmsted; Actress Debra Ann Byrd/Harlem Shakespeare Festival; Folk music with the Long Point String Band; and Plena/Bomba/Son ensemble Plena Libre. Find a performance in your state here.

Special Presenter Initiatives provide additional opportunities for the support of small to mid-sized performing arts presenters in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, West Virginia, and Native nations that share this geography. The 2024-2025 program will support thirty engagements. Learn more about the grantees and engagements here.

Image: Header (l-r): ArtsCONNECT touring artist Manual Cinema's Frankenstein. Credit: Michael Brosilow; Iber Exchange touring artist Pascuala Ilabaca y Fauna. Credit: Courtesy of the artist; Jazz Touring Network touring artist Chief Adjuah. Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson; Mid Atlantic Tours roster artist 123 Andrés. Credit: Marcelo Quiñones; and Special Presenter Initiatives artist Alash. Credit: Wada Fumiko.

Delaware Artist Fellowships Application Open Through August 1st!

Calling all Delaware artists! Mid Atlantic Arts provides administrative support for the Individual Artist Fellowship program for Delaware Division of the Arts. These Fellowships provide funding to Delaware creative artists to fulfill needs that will allow them to advance in their careers.

Apply by Thursday, August 1. Learn more here.

Image: Sculpture by Delaware Division of the Arts Fellow Dennis Beach. Courtesy: Delaware Division of the Arts.

Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship Application Open!

The National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) is accepting applications for the 3rd Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship to honor, celebrate, and support Black storytellers in the Appalachian Regional Commission-designated counties of Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The NABS Fellowships will provide six awards of $5,000 to support practitioners and culture bearers to research, develop, perform, examine, and/or document Black Appalachian storytelling traditions, with one fellow per state.

Mid Atlantic Arts partners with the  National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS) and South Arts on the Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowships as part of our Central Appalachian Living Traditions initiative. Apply by Thursday, August 22, 2024!

Image: Black Storytellers Fellows at the 2024 Appalachian Studies Association conference. Credit: Joel Chapman.

Congratulations, NALAC Fellows!

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) announced the 2024 NALAC Leadership Institute (NLI) Fellows, a cohort of nineteen arts administrators and cultural workers from across the United States and Puerto Rico. The NALAC Leadership Institute is a professional development program that brings emerging and established Latinx/é arts administrators and cultural workers from the United States and Puerto Rico involved in nonprofit arts management and leadership development. Nineteen fellows will convene at the Leadership Institute from July 14-20 in San Antonio to share knowledge about making change in the arts sector.

Learn more about the 2024 Fellows here.

New Staff and Opportunities

We recently welcomed two new staff members to our team, Janessa Schuster and Fern Zaky!

Janessa Schuster (they/them) is our Accounting Manager with a background in non-profit theatre administration. Their passion for the arts has brought them to Mid Atlantic Arts, and they are excited to join the team. In their free time, they enjoy embroidering, baking, and hanging out with their spouse and pets.

Fern Zaky (they/them) joined us as our Development Associate. Fern is an experienced organizational analyst with a background in non-profit strategy and development. They enjoy giving back to the community through art and are excited to join the Mid Atlantic Arts team. You can often find them gardening or volunteering at their community makerspace.

The Mid Atlantic Arts team is currently hiring. For more information, visit our Career Opportunities page.

Board News and Updates

At its June 2024 annual board meeting, Mid Atlantic Arts welcomed two new board members and elected its 2024-2025 officers. New board members include:

Nicholas Cohen has served as Executive Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts (MCA) since 2017. MCA advocates for arts funding, leading to a record $34 million allocation for Maryland State Arts Council in 2024. Cohen and MCA also orchestrated over $100 million in COVID-era relief funds for the arts nationally. 

Aaron Myers is the Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has been an active member of the DC arts community for over a decade and is the founding Board Chair of the Capitol Hill Jazz Foundation, serves on the Board of Governors of the DC Recording Academy, and has been recognized for his work in arts education.

And congratulations to our new slate of board officers:

• Donna Walker-Kuhne, Chair
• James Lemons, Vice Chair
• John McEwen, Vice Chair
• Nicholas Hawkins, Vice Chair

A big thank you to immediate past board chair, Romona Riscoe Benson, for her leadership and departing board member Margi Vanderhye, for her many years of service to the arts in our region.

Disability Pride Month Spotlight

Disability Pride Month originally commemorated the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in July of 1990. It has since become a month-long event to celebrate and recognize the history, experiences, and achievements of people with disabilities. Join us in reflecting on the contributions people with disabilities have made to our creative landscape.

Dance Place and Dancing Wheels

This month's Artist Spotlight blog reflects on Dance Place's engagement with Dancing Wheels Company & School's "Making Memories: A Journey through Dementia."

Dance Place is a DC-based nonprofit that supports dance and movement artists, centering people who have been historically excluded from the dance field. Dancing Wheels Company & School provides dancers with all abilities full access to dance.

Image: Eight dancers form a line so they are all looking towards the center of the line. Two individuals are in wheelchairs. Six dancers not in wheelchairs are squatting, kneeling, or bent at the waist, creating a line uniform in height. Credit: David Dowling.

Opportunity Quick Links

• The AXS Film Fund invites applications from creators of color in documentary filmmaking or nonfiction new media. AXS Film Fund strives to support independent documentary filmmakers and nonfiction new media creators of color living with disabilities in their endeavors to tell stories, make films, and create content. Grants of up to $10,000 will be awarded to up to five creators to assist them in finishing their projects in any stage of production. Deadline: Wednesday, July 31, 2024. Learn more here.

• The Terra Foundation for American Art invites applications for Collections Grants. The Collection Grants program provides support for organizations to reinterpret and re-present their collections through reinstallations or temporary exhibitions drawn from their permanent collections. The Foundation encourages proposals from organizations (e.g., museums, art centers, and community-based cultural organizations) of varying sizes and annual budgets and representing the full spectrum of geographic regions, within and outside the United States. Deadline: Thursday, August 1, 2024. Learn more here.

• Dance/USA is accepting applications for Fellowships for Artists. The Fellowships support dance and movement-based artists from across the U.S. and its territories who work at the intersection of social and embodied practices. DFA recognizes the wide variety of ways in which people engage in social transformation through dance, which often do not fit into established models of arts funding. Unrestricted fellowship awards of $31,000 will be given to at least 25 individual artists, to be used at their own discretion. Deadline: Thursday, August 15, 2024. Learn more here.

• NOAHCON is accepting scholarship applications to attend its 8th annual conference. NOAHCON is an annual event that brings together artists, arts administrators, arts therapists, healthcare professionals, designers, educators, students and anyone with an interest in the transformative impact of arts in health. Deadline: rolling basis. Learn more here.

• The Performing Arts Readiness project offers free resources on emergency preparedness in the arts sector. A list of recordings of previous webinars is available here.

Image: 2023-2024 PAGE ensemble CelloGayageum during a Public Performance at Winter Visual & Performing Arts Center, Millersville University - 02/01/24. Credit: Taylor Mihaljevic.