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Grants go from Arts Board to Zeitgeist

By MARY ABBE, Star Tribune

Last update: May 1, 2008 - 12:07 AM

Minnesota arts organizations received 27 grants totaling more than $2.7 million as the National Endowment for the Arts distributed $77.4 mil- lion to groups across the country.

ALLOCATIONS: About half of the state's funds went to Arts Midwest, based in Minneapolis, which got nearly $1.4 million for partnerships with various regional cultural organizations. The Minnesota State Arts Board received $775,900 to redistribute to state and regional groups and an additional $30,000 to help disabled artists develop careers.

OTHER MAJOR GRANTS went to Minnesota Public Radio ($225,000 for national broadcasts of classical music) and its Minneapolis affiliate Public Radio International ($65,000 for its weekly arts and culture program "Studio 360" and $20,000 for a daily world-music showcase on "The World").

Walker Art Center received $95,000 to restage "Ocean," a 1994 event by choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage, this fall in a granite quarry near St. Cloud. Cunningham's troupe will dance on a circular stage surrounded by an audience of about 1,200 along with 150 classical musicians from the St. Cloud Symphony and four state college orchestras. The Walker also received $25,000 for a visual arts education program with the Minneapolis public schools.

OTHER AWARDS ranged from $60,000 to MacPhail Center for Music (for weekly lessons for children) to $5,000 (to send Minnesota Book Award honorees to rural libraries). Money also went to dance events in Fergus Falls and Rochester; Hmong song instruction in St. Paul; American chamber music concerts by Zeitgeist; book design by disadvantaged teens, and stagings of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in prisons, shelters and housing projects.

Across the border in Hudson, Wis., Phipps Center for the Arts received $10,000 for a public art installation in nearby Somerset.

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431