SAN JOSE, CALIF.  – July 14, 2015 – To promote innovation in the arts and push the boundaries of audience engagement, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced it is investing $630,000 in 17 San Jose arts groups.

The funding will support a range of projects – from helping the Silicon Valley Ballet present the first American production of Cuban choreographer Alicia Alonso’s “Giselle” to helping a theater bring a new work on Indian widowhood to the stage.

In addition the projects:

·      Help local theaters take risks by inviting the community to be part of a staged reading of an experimental opera based on the Mexican classic “Bless Me, Ultima,” work with new animation technologies on stage, and commission short plays based on a local photographer’s work.

·      Invigorate public spaces with the arts, with The Commons’ immersive performance and concert series in public parks, and a new site-specific series where the San Jose Taiko group’s drummers will interact with people in unexpected places.

·      Engage the public with high-quality visual arts programs, including an LED light installation by Bay Area-artist Jim Campbell at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and programming that will take the San Jose Museum of Art’s exhibits outside its walls.

“The arts inspire us and build community like few things can. The ongoing challenge is to keep today’s audiences engaged. This requires identifying and facilitating innovative ways of interacting, interpreting and engaging with the arts,” said Victoria Rogers, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation. “We hope our funding helps groups experiment with opening themselves up more to the public and getting audiences involved with and excited about the arts.”

The grant recipients are:

Backwater Arts ($25,000) Promoting San Jose as a hub for innovative art by expanding Anne and Mark’s Art Party, founded as a private gathering, into a multiday, visual and performing arts event at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. The 2014 expansion included a juried component curated by an advisory panel of museum leaders.

City Lights Theater Company ($30,000) Experimenting with new storytelling techniques through the production of “Build,” an original piece by Michael Golamco focused on two fictional Silicon Valley game creators.  The play features a third character – a woman built through artificial intelligence by one of the characters after the death of his wife – represented onstage with animation and projection.

Empire Seven Studios ($15,000) Supporting the growth of San Jose’s cultural landscape beyond downtown SoFa and into Japantown with the expansion of the E7S Mural Project, which will bring in renowned street artists.

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana ($25,000) Supporting the premiere of  “57 CHEVY” – a one-man play written by Cris Franco and performed by renowned actor Ricardo Salinas.  “57 CHEVY” tells the story of a young Mexican-American man’s journey in the back seat of his father’s 1957 Chevy, as he traverses physical and cultural borders on the way from Mexico City to the San Fernando Valley.

Naatak ($30,000) Supporting the September premiere of “Vrindavan,” an original Hindi play that addresses the sensitive issues surrounding widowhood in India, with dance, music and humor. Knight funding will also support a mainstage theatrical production for Naatak in 2016.

Opera Cultura ($20,000) Engaging the community in helping to create and perform a stage reading of a new, experimental opera based on “Bless Me, Ultima,” a well-known work in the Mexican-American literary canon. The video recording will air on YouTube in the fall and there will be a post discussion about the work as well.

Seeing Things Gallery ($10,000) Engaging San Jose residents in an act of culture by inviting them to send postcards made by visual artists at a mass art-mailing event in early 2015. The Print Exchange Program offered an artistic, analogic alternative to the digital culture pervasive in the region.

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art ($50,000) Engaging San Jose audiences with a solo-exhibition of cutting-edge LED light installations by renowned Bay Area artist Jim Campbell.

San Jose Jazz ($50,000) Engaging San Jose at-risk youth in the arts by expanding Progressions, an El Sistema-inspired program that provides high-level, after-school music training to local K-12 students.

San Jose Museum of Art Association ($50,000) Helping the museum expand public programming beyond the museum’s walls with events surrounding two exhibitions: the ongoing “Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns” – a group exhibition addressing digital surveillance in the post-9/11 world; and the 2016 “Border Cantos: Richard Misrach | Guillermo Galindo” – a cross-disciplinary response to immigration across the U.S-Mexico border, an issue that has shaped San Jose for the past 350 years.

San Jose Taiko ($20,000) Bringing art into unexpected places by having this renowned Taiko group create site-specific performances that interact with spaces around the city. The free series offers a rare chance for San Jose residents to see another side of this Japanese drumming group, which tours nationally, as it allows different environments to influence its art.

Silicon Valley Ballet ($50,000) Celebrating Cuban culture through “The Giselle Project,” the first production of Cuban choreographer Alicia Alonso’s “Giselle” by an American company, and one of the largest collaborations between Cuba and an American performing arts company since the revolution. Public programming will also re-contextualize the recent reopening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

Silicon Valley Creates ($20,000) Strengthening San Jose’s growing cultural community by supporting the 23rd and 24th annual Artist Laureate Awards, recognizing contributions to the cultural life of Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley Creates ($100,000) Raising awareness about cultural events in San Jose and in other Knight communities by developing four online tools that work with the organization’s Artsopolis online calendar site to promote the arts in underserved communities.

Tabard Theatre Company ($20,000) Supporting innovative theater in San Jose with “10 in 10 Perspective!” – a production of 10 10-minute plays written by local playwrights, with a photograph by a local photographer serving as a catalyst for each story. In the upcoming season, Tabard will complete this process by producing a full-length version of the 10-minute play “Swift Justice.”

The Commons ($15,000) Bringing art into people’s everyday lives by hosting a free, immersive performance and concert series in public parks throughout San Jose. The July 24 event at St. James Park, for example, will feature an Americana fairytale aesthetic and showcases performances from the 7th Street Big Band and soprano Rachel Larsen, as well as a “hipster” quilting bee sponsored by the San Jose Quilts and Textiles Museum.

The School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza ($50,000) Creating opportunities for small and mid-sized arts organizations to present their works by offering access to the facilities as well as technical expertise at Mexican Heritage Plaza. Artists and arts organizations will in turn create further access for live music, art, theater and dance in the surrounding neighborhoods of East San Jose.

Two Fish Design ($20,000) Engaging San Jose regional audiences with the Eighth Annual SubZERO Festival held on June 5-6, 2015 featuring a diverse gathering of innovative artists, performers and musicians. SubZERO is an annual showcase of emerging and thriving subcultures that has grown to more than 16,000 attendees.

For continuous updates on Knight Foundation’s arts program, connect on Facebook and via @KnightArts on Twitter.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

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CONTACT:

Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 305-908-2677, [email protected]