National Museum of the American Indian Grants Programs

The National Museum of the American Indian's Indigenous Contemporary Arts Programoffers support to a wide range of arts activities with the goal of increasing the knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of contemporary Native American arts. The NMAI considers the recognition of living artists of the Western Hemisphere and Hawaii to be of primary importance and will give awards to projects that strengthen the scholarship in this underserved field and create opportunities for new and innovative work.

Amount: $7,500 - $15,000

Date due: January 11, 2010

NMAI's Exhibitions and Publications program awards grants of $7,500 to $15,000 to support exhibitions, installations, publications, and critical writing that interpret and present the work of contemporary Native visual artists to the public and encourage dialogue and critical commentary. At least one-half of the proposed project team (artists, authors, curators, etc.) must be Native American or Native Hawaiian.

NMAI's Expressive Arts program awards grants of up to $10,000 to support the creation and presentation of new works through the collaboration of two or more Native artists. Awards will specifically support the creation of new works for public performance that may include, but is not limited to, music, dance, spoken word, electronic media, costume design, mask making, set design, performance art, photography, painting, and other forms of expressive culture. The award is open to all indigenous peoples who hold citizenship in the Americas.

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Black Metropolis Research Consortium Short-term Fellowship

The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is an unincorporated Chicago-based association of libraries, universities, and other archival institutions. Its mission is to make broadly accessible its members' holdings of materials that document African-American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the BMRC short-term fellowship program in African-American studies supports scholars, professional artists, and writers who wish to conduct research in BMRC member institutions' collections relating to African-American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics. The Fellowship is to conduct research in Chicago.

Amount: $3,000 per month for one or two months

Date due: January 11, 2010

The fellowship period is for one or two months during the summer of 2010. Fellows will receive a stipend of $3,000 per month to conduct research in Chicago. Qualified scholars, composers, media artists, musicians, visual artists, and writers are encouraged to apply. Applicants must demonstrate a need for the collections of at least one BMRC institution, with preference given to applicants whose research will take them to at least one other member institution as well. These BMRC collections should be vital to the applicant's research.

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Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Institutional Grants Program

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences funds the Institutional Grants Program to assist in fostering educational activities between the public and the film industry while encouraging the appreciation of motion pictures as both an art form and a vocation.

Amount: Varies

Date due: January 15, 2010

Eligible programs include but are not limited to craft workshops and conferences in which college students and/or adults are trained in one or more of the various craft fields of film production (directing, cinematography, screenwriting, editing, etc.); library and archival projects in which the papers of filmmakers are preserved and/or made available to the public; screening programs, especially those in which filmmakers interact with audiences; seminar programs, in which film professionals discuss their work and/or particular aspects of the creation and distribution of films; teacher training programs, in which production techniques and/or film appreciation information is presented for teachers to take back to their classrooms; and visiting artist programs, especially those in which a filmmaker spends several days in residence at a college, university or media center.

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Ensemble Studio Commissions

The Ensemble Studio Theatre collaborates with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop and produce full-length and one-act plays and musicals that address the questions and dilemmas faced by "hard" scientists. The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project is designed to stimulate artists to create credible and compelling work exploring the worlds of science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes of scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.

Amount: Up to $10,000

Date due: November 30, 2009

Commissions will be awarded to individuals, groups, and creative teams for full-length and one-act plays and musicals. The project is open to a broad range of topics related to the issues, people, ideas, processes, leading-edge discoveries, inventions, and/or history of the "hard" sciences and technology. Works about psychology, human behavior, medical conditions, victims of disease, and science fiction will not be considered.

For more information, click here.

National Dance Project Grants

NDP's production grants fund the creation of new dance work that will tour nationally by supporting costs incurred through the artistic development of the work. These highly competitive grants are awarded to approximately twenty projects annually. Grants generally range from $25,000 to $40,000 each. Projects supported by production grants also receive touring support for the season following the work's creation.

Amount: $40,000

Date due: March 2, 2010

Projects applying for production grants should make possible the creation of regionally or nationally significant work that will tour; offer potential to engage audiences; explore collaborations within and across disciplines, if appropriate; and involve creative and dynamic partnership with one or more U.S. presenter partners in the development of the work. Choreographers, artists, and companies are eligible to apply for production grants.

For more information, click here.

Cultural Exchange Fund Travel Awards

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters has added a new funding round to the 2009-10 Cultural Exchange Fund travel subsidy program supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The new funding round will provide for travel taking place between December 2009 and June 2010. In promoting cross-cultural arts programming, Arts Presenters strongly encourages travel to the following locations, including but not limited to, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: November 16, 2009

Arts Presenters will fund individual travel subsidies and group travel subsidies. The maximum amount awarded per individual organization, inclusive of travel costs and per diem, is $2,000 each. Group travel subsidies will be awarded only to groups of three or more presenters from different member presenting organizations. The maximum award for a group is $10,000 each, with no more than $2,000 awarded per organization. All applicants applying for group travel must designate a lead partner organization. The lead partner organization must be a presenter or presenting organization.

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French-American Jazz Exchange

The CMA/French American Cultural Exchange French-American Jazz Exchange supports innovative collaborations of French and U.S. jazz artists (citizens or legal residents of their respective countries) that take place in one or both countries.

Date due: October 23, 2009

Eligible professional jazz ensembles must have two to ten core musicians, be led by (or include) a composer/performer, and demonstrate a history of performing their own music. The ensemble does not need to have 501(c)(3), not-for-profit status, but an active CMA membership (organization level) is required.

For more information, click here.

Presenting Jazz

Chamber Music America is accepting applications for jazz ensemble grant programs.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: October 23, 2009.

Made possible with the support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Presenting Jazz program offers support to nonprofit U.S. presenters (or presenting organizations with fiscal sponsorship) for the engagement of a professional, touring, U.S. jazz ensemble for concert performance(s) between January 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011. Core support grants range from $5,000 to $10,000 and may be applied to the ensemble's concert fees, its audience-development activities, travel, accommodations, per diems, cartage, and to the presenter's marketing and production costs related to the concert(s). An additional incentive grant of up to $2,000 is available to presenters engaging ensembles that have received grants from Chamber Music America's New Works: Creation and Presentation or New Jazz Works programs.

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MAP Fund seeks to fund contemporary performances

The MAP Fund is seeking letters of inquiry for contemporary arts performance projects. MAP seeks especially to support work that brings insight to the issue of cultural difference or the concept of "other," be that in class, gender, generation, ethnicity, or formal consideration.

Amount: $45,000

Date due: Letter of intent, October 19, 2009

MAP accepts proposals in two stages.

Stage 1: Online Letter of Inquiry. This is an open call requesting written information about your project and the lead artists involved. After a review by MAP staff and field evaluators, those proposals that most closely align with the MAP Fund goals are asked to make a full application.

Stage 2: Full Application (by invitation). Also online, the full application requests a complete project budget, statements from the lead artists, and work samples, in addition to the information submitted in the LOI.

For more information, click here.

Performing Arts Japan

This program is designed to provide financial assistance for non-profit organizations in the US that aim to introduce Japanese performing arts to local audiences. PAJ Touring Grants help present Japanese performing arts at multiple locations in the United States and Canada, with an emphasis on locations outside major metropolitan areas. PAJ Collaboration Grants help American and Japanese artists develop a new work, which will further an appreciation of Japanese culture when presented to an American audience.

Amount: 50% of cost

Date due: November 2, 2009

For more information, click here.

NEA American Masterpieces: Chamber Music

American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius is a major initiative to acquaint Americans with the best of their cultural and artistic legacy. Through American Masterpieces, the National Endowment for the Arts will sponsor performances, exhibitions, tours, and educational programs across all art forms that will reach large and small communities in all 50 states. This component of American Masterpieces will celebrate the extraordinary and rich evolution of chamber music in the United States.

Amount: $5,000 - $75,000

Due: October 8, 2009

Projects must be accompanied by related educational, interpretive, or contextual components. These may include discussions, master classes, seminars, exhibitions, program material, or cooperative learning projects with educational or community institutions. Curriculum-based educational components for children and youth must ensure the application of national or state arts education standards.

For more information, click here.

Creative IT (NSF)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks proposals for projects whose objectives are new models of creativity, new models for research and education, or creativity enhancing tools developed in the context of a specific discipline. A project may respond to new theoretical models, new models of research, innovative educational approaches, or creativity enhancing tools.

Amount: Up to $800,000 across 3 years

Due: October 13, 2009

Two types of proposals will be accepted: pilot projects and major projects. Pilot projects typically have a single PI and a single undergraduate or graduate student for a duration of one to three years. A pilot project identifies a synergy from understanding creativity in a specific context in which a computing environment has the potential to lead to innovative and creative advances in one or more disciplines. Major Projects have one or more PIs and multiple undergraduate and graduate students for a duration of three years with a maximum budget of $800,000. A Major project brings together a group of people to develop a synergistic effect that can transform our understanding of models, computing environments or education relevant to CreativeIT.

For more information, click here.

Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announces the availability of the Enduring Questions grant program supports a faculty member’s development of a new course that will foster intellectual community through the study of an enduring question. This course will encourage undergraduate students and a teacher to grapple with a fundamental question addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.

Amount: $25,000

Due: September 15, 2009

An Enduring Questions grant supports the development of a new undergraduate humanities course that must be taught at least twice during the grant period. The grant supports the work of a faculty member in designing, preparing, and assessing the course. It may also be used for ancillary activities that enhance faculty-student intellectual community, such as visits to museums and artistic or cultural events. An Enduring Questions course may be taught by a faculty member from any department or discipline in the humanities or by a faculty member outside the humanities (e.g., astronomy, biology, economics, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology), so long as humanities sources are central to the course.

For more information, click here.

Cultural Exchange Fund

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Cultural Exchange Fund is a travel subsidy program that assists U.S.-based presenters working to build partnerships and collaborations with international touring artists, companies, and their collaborators to promote the display of work by artists from around the world in its own cultural context. In promoting cross-cultural arts programming, Arts Presenters strongly encourages travel to the following locations: Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

Amount: $2,000

Due date: July 31, 2009 or November 16, 2009

Arts Presenters will award travel subsidies to individual presenters, presenting organizations adn to groups of presenters traveling to see the work of artists, companies and/or to develop and advance projects with international artists and their collaborators. All applicants must be active members of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.

For more information, click here.