NEA announces $768,500 in arts funding for Nevada

The National Endowment for the Arts will award $768,500 in grants to the Nevada Arts Council, the Western Folklife Center, the Churchill Arts Council and the Nevada Ballet Theater as part of the second half of NEA’s fiscal year 2014 funding, Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced Thursday.

The NAC was awarded $663,500 for the third year of its Partnership Agreement Grant, which supports the agency’s programs, outreach activities and various grant categories.

Elko’s Western Folklife Center will receive $45,000 for a series of poem-films that highlight contemporary rural issues and ideas and incorporate the works of respected agrarian poets. The films will combine audio material and visual images to convey cowboy and agrarian poetry through the new medium. The work is done by experienced video artists and broadcast via online platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and the Western Folklife Center's website. The films will be presented at the 2016 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, folk arts conferences, film festivals and gallery installations at the Western Folklife Center.

Fallon’s Churchill Arts Council was awarded $50,000 to support GloboLocal Peregrinations, a series of interrelated musical performances and outreach activities that focus on the presentation of musical forms and genres derived from jazz, pop, classical, world, and Americana, including folk, bluegrass, rock and country. The performances, workshops, lectures and other outreach activities are scheduled at the Oats Park Art Center in Fallon.

Nevada Ballet Theater in Ls Vegas received $10,000 to help present George Balanchine's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” in its original theatrical context as part of a month‐long production of Rodgers & Hart's musical comedy "On Your Toes," presented as a collaborative effort between Nevada Ballet Theatre, the Las Vegas Shakespeare Company and the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

NEA awarded more than $78 million nationwide. All of the organization’s grants undergo a rigorous independent review process by national panels of artists and other arts experts, followed by review of those recommendations by the National Council on the Arts, with final grant decisions by the NEA acting chair.

“These organizations help to extend the NEA’s reach to thousands of communities across the country, while also carrying out innovative programming in education, creative place making and cultural tourism. For every dollar invested by the NEA, grantee organizations raise an additional $9 in support from other, non-federal sources,” Shigekawa said. "We know that arts and culture play an important role in our nation's economy. These NEA-supported projects will have a positive impact on local economies and provide opportunities for people of all ages to participate in the arts, help our communities to become more vibrant, and support our nation's artists as they contribute to our cultural landscape."

Final reports from previous research grants look at how art clusters contribute to local economic development, how arts education relates to youth development, and more.

The Nevada Arts Council, a division of the Nevada Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, is the agency charged with ensuring that state and national funds support cultural activity and encourage participation in the arts throughout Nevada. In addition to providing hundreds of grants to arts and community-based organizations, schools, artists and local municipalities throughout the state, the Arts Council coordinates a variety of statewide programs and activities such as the annual Poetry Out Loud recitation competition for high-school aged students, traveling exhibits, artist residencies, workshops and cultural assessments. For more information, please visit the department’s website at nac.nevadaculture.org.