kimi eisele

5 Arizona Artists Awarded Arts Commission Project Grants to Create New Works

PHOENIX, AZ (December 27, 2011) – In December 2011, the Governor-appointed board of the Arizona Commission on the Arts awarded the prestigious Artist Project Grants to artists from across Arizona, practicing in a variety of artistic disciplines. Offered annually, these grants support the professional development of Arizona artists with awards of up to $5,500.

The Arts Commission remains committed to maintaining support for artists through grants, as it has for 21 years. In addition to the Artist Project Grant, the Arts Commission also makes one Distinguished Merit Award, which offers additional funding support in the amount of up to $2,500 to one recipient. Of the 180 applications received, only 5 were funded, based on grant funding currently available.

The 2012 recipients are: Perry Allen, Kimi Eisele, Logan Phillips, Joshua Rathkamp, and TC Tolbert.

2012 Artist Project Grant review panelists included Stacey Lynn Brown, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL; Liesel Fenner, Public Art Program Manager at Americans for the Arts, Washington, D.C.; and Robert Karimi,  award winning interdisciplinary playwright/poet, currently serving as Artist-in-residence at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, MN. Vicki Hunt, a Governor-appointed Commissioner of the Arizona Commission on the Arts, chaired the panel.

These awards have been known to springboard recipients into the next level of their careers as artists, in their business of researching, developing, marketing and delivering their creative product. Through their work with communities, in education and in partnership with local vendors, artists stimulate local economies and improve the quality of life for all.

Artist Project Grant Distinguished Merit Award

Perry Allen (Phoenix) — Town of Product. The artist will create a suburban town animated from still-image advertisements, to be projected wall-sized and continuously looping through a 24-hour day, suitable for a range of venues. Allen holds a B.A. in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College in New York, and teaches film and video at Arizona School for the Arts.

Artist Project Grant Panelists said of the artist: “This artist’s proposed project is conceptually very powerful and overall feasible to accomplish successfully; a very interesting, visionary commentary on cultural consumerism.”

Artist Project Grant Descriptions

Kimi Eisele (Tucson) —The Lightest Object in the Universe: A Novel. Eisele will write a novel exploring love, loss, and adaptation in a post-apocalyptic America. Eisele holds a M.A. in geography from the University of Arizona, and her essays and articles about globalization, the environment, health and the arts have been published in Orion Magazine, River Teeth, as well as in anthologies and online news outlets.

Logan Phillips (Tucson) — The Sonoran Strange. Phillips, working closely with collaborators, will write and direct a multimedia theater piece celebrating the varied histories of Arizona. Phillips holds a B.A. in Spanish from Northern Arizona University, and has performed and conducted residencies throughout the United States and Mexico.

Joshua Rathkamp (Gilbert) — In Response: A Collection of Poems. The writer will create a collection of poems exploring single fatherhood through personal and universal fact. Rathkamp holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Arizona State University. A widely published author, he is the director of the Creative Writing Program at Mesa Community College and the Fine Arts Coordinator for the Maricopa Community College District.

TC Tolbert (Tucson) — The Littlest Death. Tolbert will create a poetry manuscript that addresses the violence against transgender people and the challenges they face in their daily lives. Tolbert holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Arizona, currently teaches Composition at UA and Pima Community College, and is also the Assistant Director of Casa Libre en la Solana.

Bill Desmond Writing Award

The Arts Commission is also pleased to announce that Elena Diaz Bjorkquist (Tucson) will receive the Bill Desmond Writing Award for the best nonfiction submission, in the amount of $500. This award was established by Kathleen Desmond to honor her late husband, Bill Desmond, a reporter, editor and nonfiction writer. Bjorkquist’s project, Unsung Women who made Arizona Great, is set within a historical framework in honor of the Arizona Centennial. The project will become a series of monologues that bring to life the diverse contributions of seven Arizona women. Artist Project Grant panelist, Stacey Lynn Brown, the award judge, said of the project, “This is a wonderful proposal, and I love the prospect of unearthing the stories of the influential women in the history or Arizona. This is vital and important artistic work.”

About the Arizona Commission on the Arts

One of 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies across the United States, the Arizona Commission on the Arts is an agency of the State of Arizona that supports a statewide arts network. The Arizona Commission on the Arts supports access to quality arts and arts education opportunities for all Arizonans; the development and retention of statewide jobs in the nonprofit arts, culture and education sectors; and increased economic impact in local communities through arts-based partnerships that develop tax and small business revenue.

We imagine an Arizona where everyone can participate in and experience the arts.

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Shoutin’ it from the Rooftop: We LOVE this Community!

Join NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre for a special evening of dance, film, and stories to celebrate its work in the community and raise funds for its new project, “FLOW: Dancing for Water Awareness in the Desert.”

WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 14, 5:00 – 6:30 pm

WHERE: the Roof of the Pennington Street Parking Garage

Featuring:

* The premiere of “Nourishing Gestures,” a documentary film made by local filmmaker Jamie A. Lee (visionaries filmworks) about NEW ART’s 2007-2008 project, “We Are What We Eat,” a collaboration with the Community Food Bank that explored the food we eat and the systems that feed us. The 20-minute film highlights the company’s process of community outreach with non-dancers.

* Performance excerpts from “We Are What We Eat” and works-in-progress “FLOW.”

* Popcorn and other goodies to eat!

The event is free, but donations will be requested. (Duh, it’s a fundraiser!)

NOTE: Bring a chair to sit in, warm clothes, a checkbook/cash.

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SOLO: An Evening of Solo Dance Choreography by Amanda Hamp

Sept. 10 & 11, 8 pm & 10 pm

Art Haus, Decorah, Iowa

Solo is a performance project researches compositional methods for the art form of the dance solo. The collection of solos, drawn from the artists’ own particular experience and imagination, speak to general themes of memory, loss, authority and submission, abuse and comfort, and time. Building on the pioneering idea of Modern Dance as self-expression, each solo is specific to its dancer’s individual experience and imagination. However, it is through such specificity that the works convey larger themes to which audience members can relate in their own specific ways.

Kimi will perform “The Light, The Time of Day.” Danced, in part, with a clock, the piece uses text and movement to investigate how we adapt to the past, present, and future, staying aware of what has been and what is, and letting go of control for what is yet unknown, but still planning and practicing for—or adapting moment by moment to the next/current instant, the next/current encounter, the next/current fall, the next/current surprise, the next/current repetition of the familiar.

“FLOW: Dancing for Water Awareness in the Desert”

NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre awarded a grant from the Kresge Foundation (in conjunction with TPAC) for “Flow,” a  project using modern dance to illuminate water issues and celebrate our connection to the Santa Cruz River. The project incorporates a series of community engagement workshops, in collaboration with project partners: Pima County Natural Resources Parks and Recreation, the Sonoran Institute, the Ironwood Tree Experience, Arizona Land and Water Trust, and others.

Read more about the Kresge Awards here, in the Arizona Daily Star.

DANCE CAMP

Movement Intensive in Compositional Improv or MICI is a fabulous 5-day workshop facilitated by my improv gurus, The Architects.  Held this year June 13-20, it is affectionately called “dance camp” by those of us who know and love it. It is a week of deep dancing, connecting, and in-the-moment practice with 24 other dancers and daily facilitation by the masterful, wise, and experienced Architects–Katherine Ferrier, Lisa Gonzales, Jennifer Kayle, and Pamela Vail.  An wide expansion of my weekly improv practice in Tucson, it pushes me to my edges, provokes my mind and muscles, feeds my practice and flings me joyously into the unknown.

This year almost all the members of Movement Salon are attending. We’ll return to Tucson with juice in our joints and minds and ready to invent wonders for ourselves and local audiences.

Adaptations

NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre presents “Adaptations,” a performance about change, making do, and reinvention.

April 16 & 17, 2010  8 pm

ZUZI! Theater in the Historic Y

738 North 5th Avenue, Tucson, AZ

Featuring….dancing on bicycles! Live music by Tucson’s own Batucaxé! Falling, running, spinning, laughing! With new and adapted works by Renee Blakeley, Kimi Eisele, LisaMarie McFarlane, Tammy Rosen, and Katie Rutterer. Also work by guest choreographers, Amanda Hamp of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and Yarrow King, Dance Director of Tucson’s Afro-Brazilian drumming ensemble, Batucaxé.

Given the dismal state of economic and environmental affairs (budget cuts to arts and education, global financial insecurity, and over-consumption of finite natural resources in the desert and beyond), how do we keep going? How do we change and adapt? This innovative evening-length performance features work by local choreographers and reflects the inherent ways we, as humans, can adjust to new circumstances.

As dancers we are always responding to changing circumstances by moving or rotating or shifting our weight. As performers, we adapt to uneven surfaces, bright stage lights, technical difficulties. We’ve always been good at doing what we do with very little monetary reward. How do we adapt? We lift up and lean on each other. We fall in love with our bicycles again. We learn new styles and forms. We change the music. We move. So, now we want to move you.