Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, the Denver Brass, the Denver Art Museum and Frequent Flyers Productions are among 20 Colorado arts organizations receiving a slice of the National Endowment for the Arts’ second wave of grants for 2010, the NEA announced Thursday.
The NEA will distribute more than $97 million through 1,323 grants to nonprofit arts organizations nationwide, including 20 in Colorado.
The Western States Arts Federation, which redistributes NEA money, received the biggest chunk of Colorado’s share with $1,917,500. The Colorado Council on the Arts came in second with $826,400.
Five Points dance company Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, one of the few in the country preserving and touring the works of African-American artists, received a much-needed $100,000 to support the restaging and touring of choreographer Katherine Dunham’s “Rites de Passage” and “Southland” — the latter of which has never been seen in America.
“It’s significant because the ($100,000) is about two-thirds of the cost of the project,” Robinson said Thursday when she learned of the news. “These grants are very rare, and we’re really thrilled that we have the dollars to start with.”
The grant is the largest Cleo Parker Robinson Dance has received from the NEA. In 2009, it was awarded $20,000 to stage choreographic works by Nejla Yatkin and Ray Mercer, with another $50,000 coming in from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act via the NEA.
Other Colorado arts nonprofits receiving grants include the Denver Art Museum ($75,000), Erie-based National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts ($50,000), the Art Students League of Denver ($30,000), the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs ($25,000) and Denver’s Other Side Arts ($20,000).
