November & December 2023 Pop-Up Grant Recipients
Meet the Pop-Up Grants Recipients for November & December
We are closing the curtains on 2023 with four standout Pop-Up Grants programs! These productions included diverse artistic endeavors, challenging us to see complexity in familiar stories and immerse ourselves in the creativity of the Dallas arts community.
Avant Chamber Ballet
Dracula
Unrestricted Grant: $2,500 Pop-Up Grant
Artist Bonus Funds: $5,000 Artist Bonus Funding
Avant Chamber Ballet recently performed their spine-chilling world premiere of Dracula, choreographed by ACB’s director Katie Puder and set to a score by Philip Glass. The dramatic score was created by Glass to accompany the 1931 horror film classic Dracula and tells the suspenseful and gripping story reimagined to reflect our modern times. The ballet immerses audiences in this edge-of-your-seat suspense that will exhilarate novice ballet-goers and aficionados alike.
Avant Chamber Ballet’s mission is to bring exceptional live dance and chamber music together for audiences in Dallas and Fort Worth. Their ensemble of classically trained dancers presents a diverse repertoire of classical and contemporary works from local choreographers, as well as internationally acclaimed artists. Since their inaugural season in 2012, ACB has presented over fifty world premiere ballets. The organization is in its tenth season, and is led by artistic director Katie Puder with a subscription season at Moody Performance Hall, Dallas Arts District. Keep in touch with ACB on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center
Othello adapted by Franky D. Gonzalez
Unrestricted Grant: $2,500 Pop-Up Grant
Artist Bonus Funds: $5,000 Artist Bonus Funding
Bishop Arts Theatre Center‘s recent production of Othello tells this classic story through a new lens, asking the audience to question power and privilege in the world of football. When a woman shatters a glass ceiling what waits for her when she lands? Franky Gonzalez’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello explores this question and centers on the difficulties of Imani Othello who has been named the first Black woman head coach of a major football team in Dallas, Texas. Immerse yourself in the brilliance of Denise Lee as she breathes life into the indomitable spirit of Othello.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center (BATC) is an award-winning, multicultural, multidisciplinary arts institution. Founded in September of 1993, their mission is to cultivate a diverse and vibrant arts community committed to social impact, while creating opportunities for local and emerging artists to develop new, contemporary, and lasting works that celebrate the diversity and resiliency of our community. Bishop Arts Theatre Center offers a full season of theater performances, jazz concerts, a speaker series, and year-round arts education programs. Learn more about BATC on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.
Kitchen Dog Theater
Safe At Home
Unrestricted Grant: $2,500 Pop-Up Grant
Artist Bonus Funds: $5,000 Artist Bonus Funding
Kitchen Dog Theater‘s Safe at Home tells the story of star pitcher Victor Castillo, who is set to take the mound for game 7 of the World Series. But when a rumor begins to circulate that Castillo may use the sport’s biggest stage as a political protest, the shock waves hit all corners of the stadium. An engaging and provocative site-specific work, Safe at Home examines the complex intersection between baseball, politics and the American Dream. Pods of audience members, led by tour guides, traveled throughout the stadium to nine different spaces, ranging from a luxury suite to the men’s room to the dugout, as the patrons, not the cast, moved from scene to scene.
It is the mission of Kitchen Dog Theater to provide a place where questions of justice, morality, and human freedom can be explored. They choose plays that challenge moral and social consciences, inviting audiences to be provoked, challenged, and amazed. KDT believes that the theater is a site of individual discovery as well as a force against conventional views of the self and experience. It is not a provider of answers, but an invitation to question. Since theater of this kind is not bound by any tradition, Kitchen Dog Theater is committed to exploring these questions whether they are found in the classics, contemporary works, or new plays. Keep in touch with Kitchen Dog Theatre on Facebook and Instagram.
The Dallas Opera
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Unrestricted Grant: $2,500 Pop-Up Grant
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, commissioned by The Dallas Opera, follows journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby who awakes from a coma unable to move or speak, “locked-in” like a diver at the bottom of the sea. With a mind as brilliant as ever, he writes a best-selling memoir dedicated to his children, blink by blink, with the only part of his body that he can move—his eye. Like the memoir, the opera scenes move from his memories before the stroke, to his daily life being hospitalized in Berck-sur-Mer, and the flights of his remarkable imagination. The music for this inspiring story was composed by Joby Talbot, who wrote the film scores for Sing 2 and Wonka.
The Dallas Opera (TDO) is a world-class performing arts organization producing outstanding mainstage and chamber opera repertoire; attracting national and international attention; committed to extensive community outreach and education; and managed to the highest possible standards of artistic excellence, accountability, efficiency and financial sustainability. In Spring 2021, TDO announced the launch of its new streaming platform, thedallasopera.tv which represents a new avenue of presentation and production for an opera company, beyond the physical space of an opera house. Keep in touch with The Dallas Opera on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
WHAT’S A POP-UP GRANT?
We started our Pop-Up Grant program to shine a light on arts organizations creating programming that demonstrates exceptional quality, innovation, and accessibility safely, without skimping on the creative impact.
HOW DO YOU PICK THE RECIPIENTS?
Grant recipients are meticulously selected via a nomination process that incorporates 70+ anonymous volunteers. Nominations are made each month and a selection committee meets afterward to determine grantees based on our criteria above.
To learn more about Pop-Up Grants, please click here.
HEADER PHOTO: Avant Chamber Ballet’s Dracula- Photo Credit: Sharen Bradford