Dozens of local organizations that promote community arts, history, and culture are receiving “Dane Arts” grants, County Executive Joe Parisi and the Dane County Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission announced today. Fifty-nine project grant requests totaling $95,400 were recently awarded in cycle 1 for “Dane Arts” project grants in 2022.
“We are fortunate to have so many creative artists call Dane County home,” said County Executive Parisi. “Through these grants and our continued partnerships, we’re able to promote and support the work of incredibly talented people and organizations in this community. Congratulations to this latest round of recipients.”
The “Dane Arts” grants are funded by county dollars in conjunction with private donations from the Endres Manufacturing Company Foundation, the Evjue Foundation, Inc., the charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
This year, Dane County’s Dane Arts will award over $180,000 in public-private funds to nonprofit organizations, schools, individuals, and municipalities for arts, cultural, and local history projects and programs offered countywide.
The next project grant deadline is August 1, 2022 at 4:00 p.m.
Grant recipients are listed below this announcement.
Multidisciplinary Arts/Culture
African Association of Madison, Inc – Africa Fest 2022 – A celebration of African Folk Arts & Culture! Award: $1,010
Africa Fest has become a Madison institution, now in its 24th year. It is a one-day celebration of African food, material, culture, art, music, and dance for the whole family. Africa Fest will be held this year on Saturday, August 20, at McPike Park, Madison from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Admission is free. All are welcome.
Disability Pride Madison – Disability Pride Festival
Award: $1,960
The Disability Pride Festival celebrates the lives and civil rights of all people with disabilities. Through art and performance, we will share the stories of our lives, break down and end internalized shame and stereotypes and build a stronger, more inclusive community for everyone.
Drum Power Inc. – Drum Power Camp 2022
Award: $2,016
Drum Power’s Summer Drum and Dance Camp at MYArts provides an opportunity for young people to practice discipline, community, and leadership through drum and dance traditions from Brazil, Cuba, Peru, Guinea, Senegal, Mali, and the United States, as well as dance forms including Afro-Peruvian, Breaking, Hip Hop, Modern, and Capoeira.
LunART Festival – “IDENTITY” LunART Festival 2022 Season
Award: $2,045
The mission of LunART is to support, inspire, promote, and celebrate women in the arts through public performances, exhibitions, workshops, and interdisciplinary collaboration; thus enriching our community and creating a welcoming space for learning and experimentation. The driving idea of LunART is to create a vibrant, safe space for all women where creativity is the queen!
Madison Children’s Museum – SummerPalooza
Award: $1,989
Madison Children’s Museum’s SummerPalooza Festival celebrates the start of the summer season while showcasing youth arts programs from throughout the community. Youth and professional artists come together for a block party featuring free outdoor performances and participatory art projects, free daily museum admission, and a celebratory community parade around Capitol Square.
Overture Center for the Arts – The Lullaby Project
Award: $2,059
The Lullaby Project uses the creative process of songwriting to help new and expectant parents express their hopes and dreams for the future through music. Singer-songwriters are paired with parents to create lullabies for their children, supporting maternal health, aiding child development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child.
Rachel Werner – The Little Book Project WI: Edition #6
Award: $874
The Little Book WI Project weaves together visual and literary arts focused on a central theme, providing a mechanism to spark “uncensored” public discourse by providing a platform for artists from a variety of disciplines—especially those who have encountered barriers to making their work accessible to a wider audience.
Sessions at McPike Park, Inc. – Afro-Caribbean Artists-in-Residence at the Sessions Award: $1,259
The 2022 Sessions at McPike Park are seven evenings and two week-end afternoons of local and national music, dance, & stand-up comedy. The free events enable the community to take in excellent mixed artistic performances from near and far.
Music
Anders Svanoe – New Music Series 2022-2023
Award: $1,369
The New Music Series features extraordinary musicians performing their own new compositions. This free concert series curated by Anders Svanoe takes place on the last Sunday of the month September through November and January through May. Enjoy live performances followed by a Q&A with the artists.
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society – Riches to Rags: Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society’s 31 Summer Chamber Music Festival
Award: $1,900
Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society is back live and in-person combining musicians from around the country, widely varied and diverse repertoire, and delightful surprises to create a joyful summer festival with eight concerts. BDDS will also perform two musical pop-up outdoor concerts and dozens of virtual one-on-one musical conversations with patients in hospitals.
Dane Dances – DANE DANCES! 2022
Award: $959
In its milestone 20th season in 2019, Dane Dances! continued to be one of the premier trademark summer activities in Dane County. It is also recognized as the most successful volunteer community effort at promoting racial and cultural diversity and bringing people of all ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and incomes together. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic Dane Dances! could not be held in 2020, and in 2021 attendance was about 75% of years prior due to Covid.
Friends of Allen Centennial Gardens, Inc. – Summer Sundays in the Garden 2022 (Concert Series at Allen Centennial Garden)
Award: $1,788
SUMMER SUNDAYS IN THE GARDEN, established in 2016 and now a fixture of Madison’s summer music scene, is a concert series that offers a wide variety of jazz—swing, gypsy, Latin, bebop, modern—on alternating Sundays June through August. This family-friendly outdoor series, free and open to the public, takes place in the inspiring natural surrounds of Allen Centennial Gardens, and features the area’s best local musicians with occasional outside guests.
Grace Presents – Grace Presents – HD Livestreaming Capabilities for Concert Season May – December 2022 Award: $1,359
The Grace Presents HD Virtual Concert Series provides a solution to the problem around connecting Madison’s diverse communities to local musical performances during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring a broad range of musical styles representative of Madison’s diversity, these top-quality, multi-camera concerts feature exceptionally talented musicians based in Dane County, and are free for all to enjoy from the comfort and safety of their living rooms.
Handel Aria Competition – 9th Annual Handel Aria Competition
Award: $1,288
The ninth annual Handel Aria Competition is being held in Madison, Wisconsin to promote the performance and appreciation of Handel’s extensive vocal repertoire. Founders Dean and Orange Schroeder, enthusiasts of George Frideric Handel’s music and lifelong supporters of the arts, are excited to be offering this music to the community.
Just Bach – Just Bach: Season 5
Award: $1,523
Just Bach is a free monthly concert series celebrating the music of J.S. Bach. Founded to share the immense range of Bach’s repertoire, the musicians use performance conventions that were present when Bach lived, in order to bring the music to life in the manner and style that Bach intended.
Madison Bach Musicians, Inc. – Italian Baroque Masters, October 1-2 Public Concerts and September 30 Sun Prairie HS Educational Outreach Event
Award: $1,327
Madison Bach Musicians will perform Italian Baroque Masters concerts on October 1 and 2 at Holy Wisdom Monastery. The October 1 concert will also be livestreamed for ticketed patrons—available on-demand October 1-17. On Friday morning (September 30), MBM will give a concert/discussion of this repertoire for students at Sun Prairie High School.
Madison Classical Guitar Society – Artist Concert Series 2022-2023
Award: $1,791
Madison Classical Guitar Society promotes music and the arts in southern Wisconsin by bringing regional, nationally and internationally-renowned guitarists to the community. Free concerts provide exposure to the guitar repertoire, both classical and modern. Free master classes by the artists provide mentoring to both youth and adult students.
Madison Music Collective – Fall 2022 DIG JAZZ
Award: $1,486
The DIG JAZZ Series presents new music composed by local musicians in a wide variety of jazz styles. Despite the devastating effects of the Covid pandemic, the Madison Music Collective has managed to continue this concert series through it all, streamed on YouTube and Facebook, garnering thousands of views both live and then on-demand after the concert. Entering its 8th year, the series has been enthusiastically received and remains immensely popular.
Madison New Music Ensemble – The Madison New Music Ensemble Two Concerts in 2022-23 Award: $733
The Madison New Music Ensemble will present two concerts featuring the works of prominent international and national composers of contemporary concert music. The concerts will be held Saturday September 10th 2022, and Saturday, April 8th 2023 at the Arts + Literature Laboratory and the First Unitarian Society Atrium Auditorium, respectively.
Madison Opera, Inc. – Opera in the Park 2022
Award: $1,887
Madison Opera presents Opera in the Park, a free concert on July 23, 2022 in Garner Park. Now celebrating its 22nd year, this concert of opera and musical theater excerpts has become a Wisconsin summer tradition, bringing our community together under the night sky to enjoy beautiful music.
Madison Savoyards, Ltd. – Ruddigore, or The Witch’s Curse
Award: $1,877
Sir Arthur Sullivan’s great music and W.S. Gilbert’s wicked-funny wit impale the Victorian horror genre as Madison Savoyards, Ltd. presents Ruddigore. Live musicians, singers, and dancers will take the stage of the Bartell Theatre in downtown Madison, Wisconsin to perform this rarely produced, but hilarious tale of madcap macabre.
Madison Youth Choirs – Madison Youth Choirs’ 20th Anniversary Season: December 2022 Concert Series Award: $1,985
From September through December 2022, the 350 young singers of Madison Youth Choirs will explore the connection between music and architecture, from rhythm, arch, and harmony to historical and political context, through a diverse range of classical and contemporary repertoire, culminating in a public concert series for the community.
MAMA, Inc. – 2022 Madison Area Music Association Awards
Award: $1,804
The Madison Area Music Association (MAMA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission of supporting youth music programs in the greater Madison area and strengthening and engaging the music community as a whole. The annual awards show is a Grammy-style event which recognizes the efforts of local musicians, music business professionals and educators while highlighting MAMA’s charitable work.
Middleton Community Orchestra – Summer and Fall Concerts 2022: Outdoors and Indoors Award: $1,859
Performed by outstanding amateur musicians from Dane County in collaboration with some of classical music’s brightest local stars, MCO’s Thirteenth Anniversary concerts are affordable, accessible community events perfect for audiences of ALL ages. General Admission is $15, and all students (including college age) are admitted FREE of charge. MCO’s summer series, free to everyone, now in its third year, began when Covid shuttered indoor concerts.
NewBridge Madison, Inc. – NewBridge Summer Concerts at Warner Park
Award: $966
Enjoy free, live music for all ages at the Summer Concert Series at Warner Park Shelter, 2930 N. Sherman Avenue. Monday evenings, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on June 13, 20, 27 and July 11, 18, 25. Bring a lawn chair/blanket and enjoy food from local food trucks. More information can be found at www.newbridgemadison.org or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NewBridgeMadison.
PEBOGA – Next Level Showcase/Park St. Music Fest
Award: $1,698
Next Level Showcase/Park St Music Fest is in its fifth year. The music festival is a free outdoor music event that serves as a platform for a cross-section of music genres (i.e. Blues, R&B, Pop, Smooth Jazz, etc.) featuring primarily local artists. Next Level Artists Showcase is designed to provide high quality promotional exposure to aspiring local artists while serving as an on-ramp to improving race relations through diversity and inclusion.
Stoughton Chamber Music Festival – Stoughton Chamber Music Festival 2022
Award: $1,978
The 2022 Stoughton Chamber Music Festival: in three inventive programs staged at five iconic spaces, ten musicians will explore the beauty and mystery of chaos.
Willy Street Chamber Players – Willy Street Chamber Players 2022 Summer Concert Series Award: $2,053
The acclaimed Willy Street Chamber Players will present their popular summer series of classical music concerts and events this July including three ticketed performances at Immanuel Lutheran Church, one free outdoor concert in Orton Park, and a residency for students attending summer camp programs at MYArts. Performances include world-class guest artists and music that spans the continents and centuries.
Wisconsin Chamber Choir – Hope Springs Eternal
Award: $1,627
The Wisconsin Chamber Choir presents “Hope Springs Eternal,” a concert celebrating the legacies of John Lewis and Rosa Parks with new commissioned music, along with Baroque masterpieces by Handel and Zelenka for choir and chamber orchestra. Local audiences may enjoy the concert in person at First Unitarian Society in Madison on Friday, May 13, 2022 at 8 p.m., and a worldwide audience will enjoy it via live-stream on YouTube.
Wisconsin Union Theater – Wisconsin Union Theater presents Madison Jazz Festival and Juneteenth Jubilee Award: $1,926
In June 2022, Wisconsin Union Theater will present the Madison Jazz Festival’s closing performances and produce the Juneteenth Jubilee, featuring Jazz superstar Christian McBride. The Festival and Jubilee will feature free concerts on the beloved Memorial Union Terrace, reach new populations for its 10,000-person audience, and showcase exceptional local and national jazz artists.
Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, Inc. – WYSO Music Makers “Art of Music” Summer Program 2022 Award: $1,988
The WYSO Music Makers Summer Program is an intensive week long expansion of the WYSO Music Makers program, designed to include instrumental music, music theory, and integrated arts classes. In addition to music, and with the help of DAMA, these summer students will learn the language of visual arts and design artwork to
be installed in the new WYSO center for music. Students will share their love of music and arts with a final performance and art show open to the community.
Visual Arts
Lelia Byron – The Shape of the Environment
Award: $1,860
The Shape of the Environment will be a ten-week visual arts exhibition featuring the work of 22 artists who will create and share work that is related to environmental issues. Taking place at the Art Lit Lab, the exhibition will also include eight free interactive events open to the public.
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art – Wendy Red Star: Apsáalooke: Children of the Large-Beaked Bird Exhibition and Related Programs
Award: $2,104
Wendy Red Star is a multimedia artist and member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) tribe. Combining research, photography, and installation, her artistic practice addresses incomplete and flawed narratives about Native people. This exhibition will travel to MMoCA from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and be complemented by extensive community-based programming.
Madison Public Art Project – Vibrant Hydrant Project
Award: $1,790
The Madison Public Art Project is delighted to support the creation of “Vibrant Hydrant,” a new public art program in partnership with the City of Monona Fire Department using local fire hydrants as a unique canvas. The goal of these colorful painted hydrants is to uplift the spirits of those who pass by, offer a collective remembrance of September 11, commemorate those we lost, and take steps toward a more inclusive and peaceful world.
Mills Folly Microcinema – Mills Folly Microcinema 2022-2023
Award: $1,308
Mills Folly Microcinema is a monthly showcase for experimental film and video art at the Arts + Literature Laboratory at 111 S. Livingston Street in Madison. Screenings will highlight films and videos from the national film festival circuit, other regional microcinemas, and Dane County filmmakers and video artists.
Victoria Maidhof – Collateral Damage 2023, An Exhibition at the Arts + Literature Gallery Award: $1,491
Mental illness knows no social, ethnic, or economic bounds. 15 diverse artists turn their voices to their experiences with mental illness and mental health.
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters – Alison Gates & Colin Matthes (Paired Solo Exhibitions) Award: $1,260
These paired solo exhibits highlight the role of creativity and imagination in tackling the obstacles presented by our rapidly changing climate. Alison Gates and Colin Matthes address this predicament by proposing different approaches, from serious to silly, the challenges of the coming century.
Dance
Dance Wisconsin – “New Voices” – Offering Opportunities to New Choreographers to Share Their Creative Voices and Expanding Their Work for Future Success
Award: $1,606
Dance Wisconsin performs original choreography created by non-resident choreographers Miye Bishop, Maggie Batterman, Isabella Linismero, Kyra Laster and Megan Schimke. These developing choreographers brought their original voices and set concert works on the Dance Wisconsin Company for the enjoyment of Dane County residents and all of Wisconsin.
Li Chiao-Ping Dance – 2022 SEED Festival
Award: $2,001
The SEED Intensive & Performance Festival is an opportunity for people of all ages and abilities to explore, converse, and create. The festival offerings include a wide variety of movement classes, panel discussions, creative workshops, and performance opportunities. All offerings are designed to accommodate all who wish to participate. The SEED Festival is a time for all to discover something new, be challenged, and celebrate dance as a community.
Madison Contemporary Vision Dance – Collaboration Project 2
Award: $2,053
The Collaboration Project 2 will continue to build relationships and connect dance studio and street-style artist communities to provide opportunities to Dane County artists and families through:
- Free children’s classes
- Free outdoor performances
- Dancers from different backgrounds creating and performing together
- Videos and documentary of project
- Theater Concert
Sessions at McPike Park, Inc. – Enhance the Dance at Sessions in McPike Park
Award: $801
Local dance artists – individuals and groups – will liven up McPike Park during the free, mixed arts Pursuit of Happiness.
UW Community Arts Collaboratory – Performing Ourselves Lakeview Residency 2022 Award: $2,131
This Dane Arts grant supports Performing Ourselves programming at Lakeview Elementary School throughout Fall 2022. Dance improves motor skills, decision-making, creativity, risk taking, cultural understanding, attentiveness, and self-awareness. Through their participation in Performing Ourselves, teachers and dancers alike experience and foster connection, confidence and coping skills.
Theater
Children’s Theater of Madison – CTM Young Playwrights Program 2022-23
Award: $1,350
The Young Playwrights Program is an in-school or virtual residency program designed to give an artistic space to teenagers through the medium of playwrighting and through mentoring from teaching artists. The program culminates in a public performance featuring staged readings of selected plays, directed and performed by experienced artists.
Forward Theater – THE WANDERERS Presentation and Community Engagement
Award: $1,178
Forward Theater will produce The Wanderers by Anna Ziegler September 8 – 25, 2022.
Music Theatre of Madison – TEN DAYS IN A MADHOUSE: A New Musical
Award: $2,039
TEN DAYS IN A MADHOUSE is the culmination of a four-year development process on a new musical by local writers Karen Saari and Jennifer Hedstrom. Using professional actors from the community, the piece tells the true story of Nellie Bly, a reporter who infiltrated an asylum to report on what she saw.
StageQ – CapitalQ Theatre Festival
Award: $1,893
StageQ is proud to present the inaugural “CapitalQ Theatre Festival.” A fresh, new spin on the perennial favorite, “Queer Shorts,” this festival runs a single weekend and is filled with one-act plays submitted from local and national playwrights running throughout the weekend.
TNW Ensemble Theater, Inc. – Becoming Dr. Ruth: Performance and Outreach
Award: $1,208
TNW Ensemble Theater presents: “Being Dr. Ruth,” a solo performance and community discussions, by Eileen Koteles, Atlanta actor, who portrays the remarkable Dr. Ruth Westheimer, famed sex counselor of television and film, whose deep wisdom and humor has touched people of all ages.
Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation – Talking Spirits XXIV: Forest Hill Cemetery Tour Award: $1,684
The Wisconsin Veterans Museum’s Talking Spirits Tour is an award-winning living history program, which illuminates the lives of many prominent and lesser-known figures in Wisconsin history. This year’s theme, “Henceforth, and Forever Free” will look at how the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended 160 years ago, changed the lives of those in Madison and Wisconsin.
Arts in Education
American Players Theatre – American Players Theatre Student Matinees and Accompanying Workshops for Dane County Students
Award: $1,941
APT will perform student matinees of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ for over 3,000 middle and high school students. Post-show discussions, study guides, and accompanying workshops with APT teaching artists will be provided to complement the theatrical experience.
Arts & Literature Laboratory, Inc. – ALL Arts Outreach 2022-23
Award: $1,976
Arts & Literature Laboratory’s ALL Arts Outreach Program focuses on removing barriers for youth, families and seniors to access high-quality arts education.
Benjamin Fritz – Finishing Post-Production on the Final Two Films of 2021 for Children’s Film Academy of Madison
Award: $1,784
Children’s Film Academy of Madison pairs youth with professional filmmakers to bring their stories to life. The group helps youth develop scripts, go through the casting and location process, film the stories, and oversee post-production to ensure a quality product that can be enjoyed for years to come.
Girls Rock Camp Madison – Girls Rock Camp Madison
Award: $1,982
Girls Rock Camp Madison is a one-week day camp for girls/non-binary youth ages 8-18 where campers learn an instrument, write a song, form a band, record in a professional recording studio, then rock out in front of hundreds of screaming fans at a showcase. GRC Madison’s mission is to support a culture of positive self esteem and collaboration among our campers while building community through music.
Madison Jazz Society – Enriching Jazz Education for Madison’s Elementary and Middle School Students Award: $981
“Enriching Jazz Education for Madison’s Elementary and Middle School Students” provides MMSD students access to high-quality jazz music experiences and helps address lack of familiarity with this American art form. This project will enable MMSD students to learn from locally-based musicians who share their love of jazz and improvisation with students.
Madison Public Library Foundation – Hawthorne Library Art in the Alley
Award: $961
The Bubbler team at Madison Public Library will develop and deliver community art workshops led by local artists at the Hawthorne Library. Funding will cover artist stipends as well as materials for the free, hands-on arts instruction for children in the Madison community.
Madison Symphony Orchestra Inc. – Symphony Soup 2022
Award: $1,429
As the Madison Symphony Orchestra’s education concert for students in grades K-3, Symphony Soup serves as the foundation of the MSO’s Young People’s Concerts Series, reaching its youngest audience members. Symphony Soup brings students out of the classroom and into the concert hall, introducing them to the symphony orchestra and exploring age-appropriate musical concepts.
Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center – Lakeside Kids 2022
Award: $955
Monona Terrace organizes “Lakeside Kids,” an innovative program that provides cultural and arts-focused play activities that bring visual and performing arts to children ages four and up. Lakeside Kids is free to the public and is enjoyed by families of all income levels.
Opera for the Young – Countywide School Tour of a New Production of the Opera “The Barber of Seville” by Gioachino Rossini
Award: $2,043
Funding from Dane Arts will support the countywide school tour of OFTY’s new production of “The Barber of Seville” by Gioachino Rossini. Teaching materials will include Tutorial Videos, a Student Handbook, a Teacher’s Guide about opera and “Barber,” and activities for integration of the opera into academic subjects.
Simpson Street Free Press – Writing for Publication: The Arts and Local History in Dane County Award: $1,466
The “Where in Dane County” series and SSFP’s local arts coverage engage young people in the cultural mosaic of Dane County. Young reporters explore history and the arts. The stories they tell lead their young audience to fascinating newspaper content that celebrates history and the arts in Dane County.
Local History
Northwest Dane Senior Services, Inc. – Cycling Without Age Storyteller Series
Award: $1,741
Join us for the weekly Storyteller Series at Northwest Dane Senior Services in Cross Plains, WI. Sit back, relax, and allow a Wisconsin storyteller to take you on an exciting trip as they use the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination. After the session, the storyteller along with a pilot will take one older adult on a trishaw ride around the community telling more stories.
