Dance fellowship goes to Northrop

The McKnight Foundation fellowship program for dancers and choreographers, formerly housed at the financially troubled Southern Theater, has found a new, permanent home.

The program, which offers grants of $25,000 apiece to six Twin Cities dancers and choreographers annually, will be administered by the Northrop Auditorium concert series at the University of Minnesota, officials said Thursday. It also will be expanded to include international artists.

"Given the recent history of that program, we knew it was really important to our board and senior leadership that we find an administrative home that is stable, long-established and had deep connections to this community," said Laura Zimmermann, program officer for the arts at the McKnight Foundation. "Northrop fits the bill perfectly, plus it has really creative leadership."

Money to individual artists

McKnight funds 12 arts-fellowship programs, including ones for composers, screenwriters and visual artists, that are administered by nine organizations. The programs have a total annual budget of $1.7 million, of which about $950,000 goes directly to artists, Zimmermann said.

The program for dancers and choreographers had been administered via the Southern for nine years before McKnight abruptly took it away in April after the Southern admitted that it had used restricted monies designated for artists to pay for operating expenses.

The Southern, which must repay $300,000 to the foundation, did not have the funds to fully pay such winning dance artists as Penelope Freeh, Eddie Oroyan and Emilie Plauché Flink.

Plans are to broaden the program by adding a component for international artists in residence. Administrator Mary Ellen Childs, who has been with the program for years, will continue to run it, officials said.

"It's a really great alignment between one of the great dance series in town and a pillar of arts support," Northrop director Ben Johnson said Thursday in a phone call from Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was seeing the world premiere of a work that is coming to the Twin Cities. "As a presenter of large-scale ballet, modern dance and cutting-edge work, we have the capacity to promote local artists nationally and also to infuse the local scene with international ideas."