OARS funding Music & Theater

The Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) program supports the implementation of high-quality model professional development programs in elementary and secondary education for music, dance, drama, media arts, or visual arts, including folk arts, for educators and other arts instructional staff of kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) students in high-poverty schools. The purpose of this program is to strengthen standards-based arts education programs and to help ensure that all students meet challenging State academic content standards and challenging State student academic achievement standards in the arts. 

Chamber Music America has announced a Request for Proposals for the 2015 Presenter Consortium for Jazz, a grant program designed to provide support to consortiums of U.S. presenters that collectively engage up to three professional U.S. jazz ensembles to perform at each presenter's venue. A consortium consists of one lead presenter, two presenter partners, and up to three ensembles. The consortium presenters may be located within the same state but must be located in different cities or regional areas at least fifty miles apart. The ensembles may reside in the home state of a consortium partner, or be from elsewhere in the United States.

Grants of up to $15,000 will be awarded to American dance, music, and theater ensembles and solo performers that have been invited to perform at international festivals and/or for performance engagements that represent extraordinary career opportunities abroad

A program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, National Dance Project Touring Awards support national tours of new dance works, with up to $35,000 in funding for each artist and company. Awards are distributed as NDP Presentation Grants to United States nonprofits presenting the works and are intended to support artist fees and travel. Touring Awards are automatically given to all NDP Production Grant recipients. In addition, up to ten works created independently from the Production Grant process will receive Touring Awards through a competitive application process each fall.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support mechanistic clinical studies aimed at understanding the impact of arts-based approaches in palliative care for symptom management. This FOA is intended to support mechanistic clinical studies to provide an evidence base for the use of the arts in palliative care for symptom management. The objective is to understand the biological, physiological, neurological, psychological, and/or sociological mechanisms by which the arts exert their effects on symptom management during and throughout the palliative care continuum. The goal is for the research supported under this FOA to develop an evidence-base that could be used as a basis for the uptake of arts-based therapies in palliative care settings, among individuals across the lifespan, with a wide variety of serious chronic conditions and their accompanying symptoms. This FOA is not intended to determine efficacy or the comparative effectiveness of interventions, or to assess interventions designed to treat the underlying cause of a particular disease state.

The program seeks feature-length narrative and documentary submissions from established and emerging filmmakers whose team includes a U.S.-based director or screenwriter from a community that is statistically underrepresented in the film industry. Projects may be in any stage of development, from treatment/screenplay to post-production. Projects of any genre and/or budget range are eligible for a grant. Five narrative filmmakers and five documentary filmmakers will each receive a grant of $15,000 to use toward the development, production, post-production, or marketing of their film project. In addition, grantees will participate in networking events at the film festival and will receive year-round customized support from TFI in order to advance their projects through completion.

Arts Midwest invites proposals from nonprofit theater companies to perform works by Shakespeare for middle- and high-school students between August 1, 2014 and July 31, 2015. Grants will be awarded to up to 40 theater companies to support performances and related educational activities for students from a minimum of 10 schools. Grants must be matched 1 to 1. Applicant review will be based on artistic excellence and merit.

The U.S. Embassy Islamabad Public Affairs Section (PAS) announces an Open Source RFP and invites organizations to submit a proposal supporting people-to-people ties between the people of the United States and Pakistan, specifically in the area of music. These activities should expand people-to-people relationships between non-officials (e.g. musicians, industry professionals) and increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of Pakistan through projects that build self-sustaining relationships between the U.S. and Pakistani musicians and music industries. Program Goals: 1. Strengthen People-to-People Ties between the U.S. and Pakistan: Increase mutual understanding through projects that share American music with Pakistani audiences. 2. Create Institutional Linkages Between the U.S. and Pakistani Music Industries: Encourage the local music industry to build long-term, self-sustaining relationships between U.S. and Pakistani musicians, music institutions, existing festivals and music schools. 3. Support Music/Creative Industry Growth: Provide Pakistani musicians with opportunities to network and discuss challenges facing Pakistan's music industry, engage in substantive dialogue with American music industry professionals, and increase cooperation on problems of mutual concern, such as intellectual property rights. 4. Strengthen Regional Cooperation between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India: Increase mutual understanding on a regional level by including Indian and Afghan musicians in music capacity-building projects. 5. Expand Music Outreach to Youth and Underserved Audiences: Though music programs, develop local partners that are able to access regions of Pakistan not easily accessed by U.S. officials and make American music available to the local youth audience.

The guiding principle of "Art Works" is at the center of everything we do at the NEA. "Art Works" refers to three things: the works of art themselves, the ways art works on audiences, and the fact that art is work for the artists and arts professionals who make up the field.To make "art work," the NEA has included the advancement of innovation as a core component of its mission as a way to ensure the vitality of the arts. We recognize that arts and design organizations are often in the forefront of innovation in their work and strongly encourage innovative projects which are characterized as those that: * Are likely to prove transformative with the potential for meaningful change, whether in the development or enhancement of new or existing art forms, new approaches to the creation or presentation of art, or new ways of engaging the public with art; * Are distinctive, offering fresh insights and new value for their fields and/or the public through unconventional solutions; and* Have the potential to be shared and/or emulated, or are likely to lead to other advances in the field. Through the projects that we support in the Art Works category, we want to achieve the following four outcomes:* Creation: The creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence,* Engagement: Public engagement with diverse and excellent art, * Learning: Lifelong learning in the arts, and * Livability: The strengthening of communities through the arts. - An organization may submit only one application through one of the following FY 2015 categories: Art Works or Challenge America Fast-Track.- The Arts Endowment's support of a project may start on or after January 1, 2015.

The Cultural Exchange Fund is a travel subsidy program supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to assist U.S. based presenting professionals and their organizations and companies in building partnerships and collaborations with international touring artists, companies and their collaborators and to experience the work of artists from around the world in its cultural context. The Association of Performing Arts Presenters recognizes that promoting global exchanges of artists and their work and cross-cultural programs is essential to fully engage audiences and communities in the breadth and diversity of performing arts experiences and provides an opportunity for presenting professionals to expand and deepen their knowledge of artists, traditions and cultures from around the world. APAP strongly encourages but does not limit travel to the following regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The NFA is a national grant program open to US-based Latino working artists, ensembles and Latino arts organizations that demonstrate artistic excellence in pursuit of social justice through the arts. To date, the NFA has awarded over one million dollars to a diverse range of artists and organizations representing every discipline and region of the country. Applying to the NFA is a benefit of NALAC Membership.

We are pleased to announce that the new OARS website is up and running (although the new Research Compliance and Undergraduate Research sections are still in development).   If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, we hope you will soon.  Once you've visited, we'd be grateful if you'd give us five minutes of your time to let us know how we're doing by completing a brief eight-question survey at https://miamioh.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_erhRsEFwwWVP6m1 Finally, don't forget to update any bookmarks you may have to material on our old website!

ArtsCONNECT provides support for projects in which at least three performing arts presenters from two different states work collaboratively to present a touring solo artist or ensemble. Through this program the Foundation generally supports 10-to-15 tours per season that reach up to 50 communities in the mid-Atlantic region. The tours include performances as well as activities, such as artist discussions, lecture demonstrations, master classes, and workshops designed to build greater appreciation for the work of the touring artist or ensemble. The program is also designed to develop and deepen relationships among the region's presenters in order to build a more sustainable touring environment for professional performing artists.

Organizations are encouraged to submit letters of inquiry for projects that strengthen the national infrastructure of the professional nonprofit dance, jazz, presenting and/or theatre fields, or that improve conditions for the national community of performing artists in dance, jazz and theatre, such as: Research projects assessing the national health of professional nonprofit arts groups or of individual professional artists; Special national convenings for entire professional nonprofit performing arts fields (beyond traditional national annual conferences); Special projects that address unique circumstances that affect an entire professional nonprofit field. Highest priority will be given to projects that improve the health of the Arts Program's priority performing arts fields and do not duplicate ongoing efforts or existing services.

Support is provided to create new work that draws inspiration from interaction with artists and the community in the US; to establish mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and expertise between artists, arts organizations and the local community and to pursue artistic cooperation that will enrich creative or professional development or has potential to expand the community's access to the art of other cultures.

With the goal of promoting undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activity in Arts and Humanities education, the Arts and Humanities Division will offer financial support for faculty to present  on the process and/or results of undergraduate research at regional or national Arts and/or Humanities conferences. The awards will be from $500 to $800 and up to three will be awarded for presentations that  have been accepted and presented no earlier than Sept. 1, 2013, and no later than June 30, 2014.

In creative placemaking, partners from public, private, nonprofit, and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, tribe, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired

The Big Read supports organizations across the country in developing community-wide reading programs which encourage reading and participation by diverse audiences. These programs include activities such as author readings, book discussions, art exhibits, lectures, film series, music or dance events, theatrical performances, panel discussions, and other events and activities related to the community's chosen book or poet. Activities focus on one book or poet from The Big Read catalog.

Southern Exposure is a national initiative designed to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the richness and diversity of Latin American cultures through the work of its contemporary and traditional performing artists. The program supports tours that are collaboratively developed by presenting organizations across the United States.  The touring projects include public performances and activities that provide the public with direct interaction with the visiting artists.  An emphasis is placed on funding engagements in communities that have little access to this type of work. Southern Exposure is a partnership of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Deadline The next Southern Exposure deadline is February 28, 2014 for projects taking place between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2015.  Click here for guidelines and application.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award enables students or recent alumni with exceptional artistic or creative promise and financial need to pursue up to three years of study at an accredited graduate institution in the US or abroad.  Awards can be as much as $50,000 annually.  In 2014, the Foundation will select up to 20 recipients for this award. The award provides funding for tuition, room and board, required fees, and books.  Scholarship amounts vary based on several factors, including cost at the institution each recipient attends and other grants and scholarships the student receives.