’The Bluest Eye’ production recognized
The county Department of Arts and Culture announced a total of $1.2 million in grants this week to assist 40 arts organizations and artists as they continue to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each of the 40 organizations will receive $30,000 in LA County Performing Arts Recovery Grants. County officials said the grants can be used for the “creation, documentation, and presentation of new or existing artistic work, including dance, music, theater, and folk and traditional arts.”
According to the department, many arts organizations are still trying to recover from the losses suffered during the height of the pandemic.
“Dance, theater, music, and performance-makers of every genre engage our humanity through the embodied live arts,” Kristin Sakoda, director of the Department of Arts and Culture, said in a statement. “These artists, creative producers, collaborators, and arts organizations also play a vital role in our arts ecology and our local economy, yet they’ve been hard hit by the pandemic.
This grant will stimulate activity and address key needs we heard from the field–by providing flexible funding that can be used to create, document, and present artistic work, access venues and rehearsal spaces, pay artist fees and living wages, utilize media and technology, amplify underrepresented voices, and engage audiences.”
Among the grant recipients was theater company A Noise Within, which will use the funds to support a four-week production of “The Bluest Eye,” based on the book by Toni Morrison. Deaf West Theatre receives funds to help develop a play based on the short documentary film “Igelnore,” the story of a deaf Jewish child born in 1920s Germany. Artist Amy Campion will use the funds to develop the dance performance “Street Dance Orixás” at the California African American Museum.
A complete list of grant recipients is available online at https://www.lacountyarts.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/23LACPARG-Grantees_20230831.pdf.
