Announcing the 2017 MAP Fund Grantees!

Announcing the 2017 MAP Fund Grantees!
05/23/2017 MAPstaff

New York, NY – May 23, 2017

The MAP Fund proudly announces the selection of 40 new, live performance works that will receive a total of $1.2 million in direct support for project development and distribution.  

Established in 1988, MAP is among the longest-running grant programs in national arts philanthropy, having supported more than a thousand new works of performance with a total of $29 million. Primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) with additional funds from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MAP invests in artistic production as the critical foundation of imagining — and ultimately creating — a more equitable and vibrant society.

Maurine Knighton, Program Director for the Arts at DDCF, said, “This latest group of MAP grantees wonderfully illustrates the way artists are working today — across disciplines and genres, and with communities. The diverse array of emergent voices, aesthetic inquiry, and new forms among the grantees reflects society’s deep and abiding desire for connection and meaning more broadly. We are excited to see how their exploration and experimentation will tap into and inform the zeitgeist in important ways.”

The announcement of the 2017 list of grantees marks a moment of excitement as the 40 projects move closer to fruition. The MAP Fund Executive Director, Moira Brennan, said, “The heart of the MAP Fund’s mission, which is more urgent than ever given the current cultural and political landscape, is clearly reflected in this remarkable list of visionary artists. It’s an honor to support these projects in collaboration with our peers in the field and our generous funding partners.”

Please join us in celebrating the boldness of artistic vision among the following grantees:

  • Abrons Arts Center for Séancers by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
  • Alarm Will Sound for Paper Pianos by Alarm Will Sound, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Alan Pierson
  • ArtSpot Productions sponsoring Jubilee by NEW NOISE, Bear Hebert, and Philip Cramer
  • Brooklyn Arts Exchange sponsoring bathtub by Tanisha Christie
  • Dances For A Variable Population for LES Citizens Parade by Naomi Goldberg Haas / Dances for a Variable Population and Laura Nova
  • Fractured Atlas sponsoring BEE BOY by Guillermo Brown
  • Fractured Atlas sponsoring ink by Camille A. Brown, Talvin Wilks, and Allison Miller
  • Intersection for the Arts sponsoring GROUNDWORKS by Rulan Tangen / Dancing Earth
  • Links Hall for Clutch by Darrell Jones
  • Los Angeles Poverty Department for Public Safety For Real by John Malpede, Henriëtte Brouwers, and Kevin Michael Key
  • National Performance Network sponsoring Vessels by Rebecca Mwase and Ron Ragin
  • Northern Lights.mn sponsoring THERE | HERE by Pramila Vasudevan / Aniccha Arts
  • Ordway Center for the Performing Arts sponsoring Weave by Rosy Simas
  • The Field sponsoring JACK & JILL by Kaneza Schaal and Cornell Alston
  • The Flying Carpet Theatre Company sponsoring Forging Ahead by Shontina Vernon
  • Theater Mitu Inc. for Remnant by Theater Mitu
  • Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for We Have Iré by Paul Flores

Each year MAP hires peer artists and arts workers, tasking them with identifying as many different notions of deep inquiry as the applicant pool provides — this year’s total pool numbered 911 applications — and ultimately selecting 40 proposals that incite passion, and convey a sense of experimentation and great social urgency. Learn more about MAP’s process here.

This year, MAP was honored to dream forward alongside a remarkable group of panelists:

See the full list of 2017 reviewers and panelists here.


About the MAP Fund

The MAP Fund is founded on the principle that exploration drives human progress, no less in art than in science or medicine. MAP awards $1 million annually to up to 40 projects in the range of $10,000 – $45,000 per grant, supporting original live performance projects that embody a spirit of deep inquiry. In particular, MAP is interested in supporting artists that question, disrupt, complicate, and challenge inherited notions of social and cultural hierarchy across the current American landscape.

About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Arts Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz, and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present, and produce them. For more information, please visit http://www.ddcf.org.

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Founded in 1969, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. Additional information is available at mellon.org.

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