July TACA Pop-Up Grant Announcement

Announcing Our Newest Pop-Up Grantees

Creating and sharing art amidst a global pandemic is no simple task! That is why we created TACA Pop-Up Grants – grants up to $6,000 that are designed to celebrate and reward local arts organizations for programming that demonstrates exceptional quality, creativity & innovation, and accessibility & inclusion. Grantees were selected via a nomination process that incorporates 35 anonymous local volunteers. Pop-Up Grants are an important component of the TACA Resiliency Initiative – a focused effort to support and strengthen Dallas arts and cultural organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since August 2020, TACA has awarded $146,000 in Pop-Up Grants to support 49 projects. Of that total, $70,000 has gone directly to support over 200 key and supporting artists. To learn more, visit taca-arts.org/resiliency.

TACA’s July Pop-Up Grantees are Artstillery, Cry Havoc Theater Company, Dallas Center for Photography, Fine Arts Chamber Players, and Prism Movement Theater. Missed our previous Pop-Up Grant announcements? See our history of Pop-Up Grantees by clicking here.

Artstillery

Family Dollar

Photo courtesy of Artstillery.

Founded in 2016, Artstillery creates performances centered around issues of racial, cultural, and social injustice. Sometimes a story needs a storyteller, but that starts with listening. Their process begins with research using a combination of community outreach and interviews. They combine these stories with an interdisciplinary artistic approach that creates a ‘total theatre’ experience. Artstillery’s goal is to give a voice to people who feel they have none. Keep in touch with Artstillery on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Family Dollar brings together oral history, architectural preservation and immersive theater to tell the story of one West Dallas community threatened by the levee on one side and the tides of gentrification on the other. The 360-degree set emerges out of an effort to save the two remaining shotgun houses on West Main from demolition. With the help of architects at Mead & Hunt, home builder Ash Hankins and community members, Artstillery rebuilt the houses on the property of Lone Star Baptist Church.

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Cry Havoc Theater Company

Committed: Mad Women of the Asylum

Photo courtesy of Cry Havoc Theater Company. Photo by Karen Almond.

Cry Havoc Theater Company explores challenging issues, creates bold art, and provokes meaningful conversation. Founded in Dallas, TX in 2014 by Mara Richards Bim, Cry Havoc Theater Company’s body of work includes fourteen productions (thirteen of which are original works). In 2019, the teen company was named “Best Thing to Happen to Local Theater” by D Magazine and received three D-FW Theater Critics Forum Awards for their production of Crossing the Line including Best New Play or Musical, Best Performance by an Ensemble, and Best Directors (Mara Richards Bim and Tim Johnson). Keep in touch with Cry Havoc on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Dallas Center for Photography

The Photography and Dance Exhibition

Photo courtesy of Dallas Center for Photography.

Dallas Center for Photography (DCP) encourages creativity and experimentation at all skill levels. DCP believes in the power of photography to fuel personal growth and connect the community through education, events and exhibitions. Keep in touch with DCP on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

This workshop inspired a group of senior dance students to experiment with capturing the movement, texture, and emotion of dance, representing not what dance looks like to others but what dance feels like to them. Most students used their smartphones which follows DCP’s belief that any camera, in any person’s hand, can tell meaningful stories. The Photography and Dance Exhibition was the culmination of that work and was on display for public viewing in a three-week exhibition run.

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Fine Arts Chamber Players

Basically Beethoven: Festival-in-Place

Photo courtesy of Fine Arts Chamber Players.

Fine Arts Chamber Players (FACP) was founded in 1981 by Rogene Russell and Charles Price, in collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts at Fair Park. The FREE Basically Beethoven Festival began that year and quickly became known as Dallas’ premier summer chamber music festival. Keep in touch with Fine Arts Chamber Players on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Fine Arts Chamber Players produced the 41st annual Basically Beethoven Festival, dubbed the “Festival-in-Place,” online in July 2021. The series of three, free, family-friendly concerts featured local, professional artists and exceptional student musicians, and the repertoire included composers from the LGBTQ community, female composers and artists, and composers and artists of color including a World Premiere by Dallas-based composer (and FACP education alumnus) Quinn Mason.

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Prism Movement Theater

Lucha Teotl

Photo courtesy of Prism Movement Theatre. Photo by Gina Weber.

Prism Movement Theater aims to provide quality movement theater born of ensemble-based work; emphasizing community outreach, education, and diversity in their work. Jeff Colangelo and Katy Tye founded Prism Movement Theater after collaborating together while both students at Southern Methodist University. Jeff, a fight choreographer, and Katy, an acrobat and dancer found that their particular movement aesthetics could be combined to create entire narratives without using any words. Keep in touch with Prism Movement Theater on Facebook and Instagram.

Lucha Teotl delivered a high energy lucha libre experience  where audiences will entered a Lucha ring to watch wrestlers wearing the masks of Aztec gods play out a sincere and exciting wrestling plot. The story, presented in English and Spanish, followed a young rambunctious male wrestler from the Sun God family named Huitzi (short for Huītzilōpōchtli) teaming up with a more experienced wrestler from the Moon god family named Coyol (short for Coyolxauhqui) to become the top luchadors in the Lucha Teotl Alliance.

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