Four CalArtians from the School of Theater received awards this year. | Images courtesy the Map Fund
The MAP Fund, a program that underwrites new projects each year in the disciplines of dance, theater and music, has awarded 41 projects this year. Among the awardees, four CalArtians from the School of Theater have been selected as individual or collaborative recipients:
- Faculty member Janie Geiser’s company, Automata, along with former CalArts School of Theater Dean Erik Ehn, were awarded for their project Clouded Sulphur (death is a knot undone).
- Playwright Sigrid Gilmer (Theater MFA 05) was awarded as part of Cornerstone Theater Company’s The Urban/Rural Agricultural Residency.
- Christine Marie (Theater/IM MFA 09) was awarded for Signaling Arcana, a cinematic shadow theater production set in the 19th century American wilderness.
- Lars Jan (Theater MFA 08) was awarded for his Holoscenes, a performance by 12 actors over two weeks in three hydraulically animated aquariums.
A panel of peers selected the grantees from more than 800 submissions, awarding grants between $20,000 and $45,000. All works selected “explore the boundaries of contemporary performance practices” in some way.
Created in 1989 by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Fund, which is now supported primarily by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has disbursed more than $24 million to approximately 900 contemporary performing arts projects. Not including the NEA, the MAP Fund is the largest annual open submission grant that supports cutting-edge performance practices in the U.S.