2018 Grantee & Award Recipients

Click a grant or award named below to read about the recipients in that category.

 

  • 2018 Future Culture Public Art Pilots

    Each of these projects will be granted an artist fee of $15,000 and a scalable implementation budget of $30,000-$45,000
    Funded by the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS)

    Volker Goetze – Sonic Gates
    A team led by Staten Island-based composer/touring performer/media artist Volker Goetze will construct a series of sound sculptures at various sites along the waterfront, on Bay Street, and in Tappen Park, from St. George to Stapleton. This project brings together SI MakerSpace—with sculptors DB Lampman and Alassane Drabo—and other cultural groups to fabricate these sculptures. Additionally, school groups will help construct the sonic sculptures through a cooperative educational experience. An inaugural day festivities will feature a progressive parade in which local cultural groups will perform at each location in the summer of 2018. Sonic Gates will advance Future Culture’s recommendations to promote exploration of the Staten Island North Shore and re-imagine underused “in-between” spaces.

    Kevin Washington – Court Yard Fridays
    Kevin Washington (a Staten Island native, retired NYC Firefighter, and community organizer)—with Homer Jackson, Director of the Philadelphia Jazz Project, and Lynn Washington, an experienced graphic designer—will host a series of weekend concerts in the summer of 2018 in the courtyard between Borough Hall and the old Supreme Court building to exhibit world-class performers with connections to Staten Island alongside local arts groups. In addition to the performance, food trucks and restaurants will offer food to complement the musical styles on show. This project will bring together various community groups and members to enjoy this series of celebrations. Court Yard Fridays will pilot Future Culture’s recommendations to organize unique events of scale and regularity, and to activate existing, underutilized public space.

  • 2018 Premier Grantees

    21 awards, total awarded: $60,672
    Funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

    APMD – Soundscape at the SI Museum
    APMD will create a site-specific audio installation inspired by the exhibits on view at the Staten Island Museum. The audio pieces will be placed along the traditional audio-guide path accessed by visitors. They will also perform a live concert at the museum incorporating music inspired by the audio tour and utilizing a room of video projections. The audio tour and live performance will bring together sound and space, creating a dynamic site-specific, sensory experience.

    Alexis Scott – The Studio Art Gallery Showcases
    The Studio Showcases are events that showcase local and visiting artists of multiple disciplines (photographers, dancers, live painters, live performances). These events are meant to support emerging talent in a collaborative environment. Funding will be used to compensate artists and fund programming that happens during these events.

    Chloe Cofresi – La Hija Del Pirata
    La Hija Del Pirata (The Pirate’s Daughter) is an immersive play about multi-generations of women descended from the Puerto-Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí. The story is creative non-fiction. The women in the play are based on real women who descended from Cofresí’s only surviving child, Maria Bernada. The show follows these descendants as they are seduced by false gold in pursuit of the ultimate Pirate’s treasure. This is a play about the power of family stories: how they can be both missing links and chains that keep us bound.

    Christine Cruz – Project Alice
    Project Alice is a photo/video series inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. 40 Staten Island artists have come together to work on this project – drawing from their own experience, with Alice’s story as the common lens, each artist crafts a rich visual narrative speaking to important social issues – Bullying/Self-image, Depression/Suicide, Racism/Black Lives Matter, Addiction/Drug Abuse, and Transgender Identity/Coming Out. The project hopes to shed light on these issues and to inspire conversations around these topics. Funding will be used to produce a weeklong exhibition—a fully immersive experience that will activate the audience’s five senses, with art to see, touch, smell and taste. The exhibit will feature five installations addressing the five social issues—each one connecting to a piece of Alice’s story.

    Cody “PREZ” Nelson – Climate Change, Nothing to Mess With
    “Climate Change, Nothing To Mess With” is a 30 ft x 40 ft public art Installation. Prez along with 20 youth participants from a West Brighton Community Center will transform a 3 story high wall into a thought provoking art piece. The rising sea levels & extreme weather conditions across the planet have been a clear indication that something serious is happening with our planet. This piece is meant to bring attention to Climate Change while also playing on the lyrics from world famous music group from Staten Island, the Wu Tang Clan. The mural will feature a Wu Tang shaped satellite storm image that will speak to the tremendous impact serious forces can have on our planet.

    Freshkills Park Alliance – Freshkills Park After School Art Programs and Youth Exhibits
    Fastnet: Plein Air reimagines a shipping container as an art studio space to teach drawing techniques through the unique landscape of Freshkills Park. Artist and Creative Director James Powers will build out seating and drawing tables inside a shipping container that will be relocated to Freshkills North Park to be used for afterschool and weekend programming. This project will add a new program stream to Park offerings, allowing more people the opportunity to investigate, innovate, and interpret the world’s largest landfill to park project.

    James Johnson – Ambrosian Recital Series
    Johnson will present a music recital series, featuring established and emerging classical and operatic artists at the historic Church of Saint Andrew in Richmondtown in the Spring and Fall of 2018. This series aims to provide a venue in which established artists will perform alongside the young or emerging artists as well as to encourage the exploration of unfamiliar classical music.

    Joelle Morrison – Unheard Voices: Ordinary People of Manhattan’s Lower East Side
    A reading series of Morrison’s nonfiction stories and narratives about the lives of ordinary people in one Lower East Side/East Village neighborhood in Manhattan before gentrification. The stories document true, extraordinary moments and experiences that the writer was privileged to witness or participate in, and wishes to honor. Sharing these stories can demonstrate how we are all much more alike than we realize, and that differences in class, race, religious beliefs and ethnicity can be bridged to enrich everyone.

    Kristin Pitanza – Speed My Way Up
    Speed My Way Up is a novel/novella that focuses on the people that lived on Staten Island post the Verrazano Bridge being erected in 1964. The work’s themes include race, culture, diffusion, separatism, alcoholism, and isolationism. This project aims to create future cultural aspirations and awareness to individuals that are either indigenous or new to the borough of Staten Island.

    Labyrinth Arts Collective – Port Richmond Artscape Series
    Labyrinth Art Collective will produce a series of interdisciplinary bilingual presentations and public art pieces throughout Port Richmond in 2018. Their programming hopes to provide audiences with exposure to literature, theater, dance, and visual arts.

    Manuel Rondon – Manny’s Mixtape
    Manny’s Mixtape is a video compilation of comedic sketches. The sketches, which will be satirical and slapstick by nature, will be written by Rondon along with other local writers. The goal for this project is to provide local filmmakers, writers, and performers the opportunity to work locally on high quality film/video productions. The sketches will be screened together a 30 minute piece.

    Pastel – Album & Staten Island Art Book
    Pastel will produce a music album and an art book consisting of pieces by Staten Island visual artists. The art book will consist of individually commissioned pieces, in which, each visual artist will choose a song from the album and create a work that is their interpretation of the song/lyrics.

    Paul Landgraf – Back For the Future
    Landgraf will create a new body of work on canvas to be displayed at the Stapleton library. The purpose is to bring attention to the need for early creative assessment in youth. The artist’s hopes to highlight the nourishing efforts our public libraries put forth.

    Projectivity Group – YouthBuild Staten Island Documentary
    Building Urban Innovative Youth through Leadership & Development Program, (B.U.I.L.D or YouthBuild) is the first of its kind in Staten Island, providing a pathway for unemployed, low-income youth (between the ages of 18 -24) an opportunity to reclaim their education, gain the skills they need for employment, and become leaders in rebuilding and shaping their communities. The program has completed 2 successful years, graduating over 50 students from the program with various achievements earned including GEDs, CPR Certifications, OSHA Certified Training Card, Scaffold Safety Certification, and more. Funding will be used to produce a 15-20 minute documentary showcasing the Youthbuild students’ purpose here on Staten Island and the impact they are having on the community.

    Projectivity Group – Beautify Hungerford Special Needs School
    The goal for this project is to provide the Hungerford School with a more colorful and inspiring environment for the students to learn and play. Projectivity will work with a lead artist to paint 250 ft. of wall. The main visuals that will be painted will be series of bright colorful waves. The shapes and colors planned have a calm peaceful feel and are aesthetically pleasing to all different ages and audiences.

    Simone Johnson – Cre-a-tion Dance Collective 2018 Season
    Funding will go towards Cre-a-tion Dance Collective’s 2018 season of dance performances and community dance practices. The group will present 2 process-centered performances that are focused on personal and artistic development, collaboration, community-building, accessible dance-making and having fun.

    Sitewave Cinema – Wavestock: A Celebration of the Arts
    Wavestock is a film festival that celebrates all facets of art, showcasing the works of local artists from the tristate area only. The event is free to the public. The festival aims to give artists a platform to display their work and to create a space where they can network with each other to collaborate on future projects. Disciplines featured at the festival are: filmmaking, live music, sculpture, dance, painting, photography, standup comedy, clothing and jewelry design. Areas are designated for local vendors to sell their homemade products such as jewelry, clothes and paintings. Funding will allow this one day festival to expand to a full weekend of food, drinks, music, film, and art.

    Stefan Barone – Contrast
    “Contrast” serves as the debut LP and intimate live performance series for Hip Hop artist, producer, DJ, activist, entrepreneur, and Staten Island native, Stefan Barone. To represent the dichotomy of being raised in the predominantly white South Shore, and benefitting from time spent in the culturally diverse North Shore, “Contrast” explores common hip hop themes of bravado, violence, activism, and lyrical technicality, attempting to offer deeper introspection on each.

    Summer Minerva – The Death of Anthony
    “The Death of Anthony” is a personal documentary about the filmmaker’s life as a gender queer Italian American coming of age on and returning to Staten Island. The documentary investigates the ways in which the filmmaker interact with their Italian-American family and raises the questions of what belonging is and how we identify with our families, communities, and cultures. This project aims to bring to light the universality of the human quest to belong for those of us who feel irreconcilably different from our blood families.

    Tariq Zaid – Le Royale Tennis
    Le Royale Tennis is a public art installation on a busy corridor along Castleton Ave. in West Brighton. Artist Jeremy Nieves along with approximately 20 youth participants from IS 61 Middle School will transform a 30ft X 40ft exterior wall into a mural that celebrates Staten Island history. The very first game of Tennis played on American soil was right here in Staten Island. In 1872 a Staten Islander traveled to Bermuda and brought back a few tennis balls, some racquets, and a net. The court was set up right in St. George and the very first game was played against her sister. The court was an hourglass shape and set up where the Ferry Terminal is today. The public art installation “Le Royale Tennis” is a colorful, huge mural that pays tribute to the great, historic contribution Mary Ewing Outerbridge has made to the sport & culture of Tennis in America. Mary Ewing Outerbridge was also the sister of Eugenius Outerbridge, first chairman of the interstate agency known then as the Port of New York Authority. The Outerbridge Crossing, a Port Authority bridge, was named for him. The project aims to encourage people to learn something new about their borough.

    Teresa Caliari – #ArtOfTheProtest
    #ArtOfTheProtest is a multifaceted interactive exhibition that features large canvases covered with community donated artifacts and ephemera from recent protest events capturing the debates around healthcare, racial justice, women’s rights, peace, the environment, and immigration. The exhibition includes visual art, participatory art, video, and photography. In an effort to foster a multi-textured discussion across oppositional divides, there will be several workshops in conjunction with the show about the following topics: peace, anti-hate, organizing, and immigration.

  • 2018 Art Fund Grantees

    17 awards, total awarded: $65,728
    Funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

    Brandon Perdomo – MVMT / 3D+
    This presentation will include larger-than-life projection installations, digital prints, and integrative displays including augmented-reality technologies. This series will explore the realm of visual arts with the use of dance and movement-based artists. Public presentations will include live music while pop-up integrative installations alter the landscape of familiar surroundings with use of projections and new technologies. Viewers are encouraged to explore this augmented world as a “living sculpture garden.”

    Christian Penn – O.P.T.I.O.N.S. Anti-Violence Album Part 2
    Penn will produce part two of this series which includes a concert series meant to engage the youth in public schools. This will be a 10-song music album based on the theme of non-violence with a specific focus on racial issues on Staten Island, with stories from the community about their experiences. The participating musicians have faced issues of violence and racial discrimination, both domestic and public. They are also currently working to spread awareness about these issues in their community.

    Dae Monae & David Nudelman – FemaleCentric
    FemaleCentric is an annual music and art festival that includes a themed fashion show, live guest performers, DJ, vendors and educational panels with the main theme being female empowerment. The goal is to remind women as well as men to celebrate feminine prominence and uplift the women in their own lives. The festival specifically showcases the talent of women. The event is meant to support guests by providing a stage for them to meet new people by creating a safe space for people of all ages to network, learn something new, enjoy live music and learn about local businesses owners/crafters.

    Gail Middleton – Staten Island 48:00 (A Second Day in the Life of Staten Island)
    This project is a follow up to Staten Island 24:00 and will be an expanded collective effort to take photos to represent people, places, scenarios and objects that make Staten Island unique. Participating photographers will shoot images with cameras, smart phones and iPads. The shooting day will be June 21, 2018 – the Summer Solstice. The images will be submitted and an exhibit will be created from their efforts. Submissions from Tottenville to St. George covering almost every area on the Island will be collected. This project gives a diverse and vibrant look of a full day on Staten Island.

    Irma Bohórquez-Geisler – Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Staten Island
    This program looks to preserve and promote the Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition in Staten Island, which honors the lives and memories of loved ones who have died. Participants will be immersed in this Mexican tradition through hands-on workshops, learning how to build an alter (ofrenda) for loved ones, food-ways, and music & dance performances. This year’s event will feature a regional ofrenda representing the Mexican state of Guanajuato. This event allows Staten Islanders to have an opportunity to celebrate Mexican heritage and values.

    James Verdi – The Conference House: Loyalty & Rebellion
    Staten Island played a pivotal role during the American Revolution, serving as a British stronghold of loyalists, sympathetic to the crown. While the revolution had begun throughout the thirteen colonies, a peace conference was held that could have dramatically affected the framework of our nation. And it’s chosen location, Staten Island. This documentary film will highlight Staten Island’s role during the American Revolution as a haven for the crown and for a time housed the founders of the British rebellion. It will show the fascinating dichotomy between honor and rebellion as the conference was certainly not held on neutral ground. The film will focus on the events leading up to the Staten Island Peace Conference, using the Billop House as a chief location.

    Janice Patrignani – Nature’s Echo
    Nature’s Echo will include 8 nature printing/eco dying workshops. A trail hike will be included prior to the art-making workshops to gather organic materials to use to create patterns, shapes, colors & textures for the projects. These workshops will promote an appreciation of natural environments as they give people a vehicle to partake in the restorative process of creating from nature surrounded by nature. The project will also feature a variety of eco & Shibori dyed silks created by the artist. The finished pieces will be exhibited at the Greenbelt Nature Center; Everything Goes Book Café, & New Lane Community Center. The lightweight silks installations choreographed by ever changing light & air patterns will offer each viewer a personalized Echo of Nature.

    Kristin Reiersen – Shoestring Baroque
    Shoestring Baroque will produce two concerts. The 2018 season will launch with “Hail Queen, the Grieving Mother.” This concert will feature Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Salve Regina and Stabat Mater. The second concert will visit the Reformation, presenting works by Georg Philip Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach. Taken together, these two concerts present different parts of the Baroque chamber music spectrum. Pergolesi composed pieces that were ahead of their time: his work presaged the advent of opera. Bach, considered the pinnacle of Baroque musical expression, contrasts with Telemann’s German baroque style, characterized by mathematical precision.

    Lys Obsidian – Kala Lolo: A Night of Queer Amusements
    Kala Lolo is a series of variety shows focused on bringing queer programming and avant-garde theatre to Staten Island. The events feature artists of various disciplines, but with an emphasis on experimental theatre/performance art. The project aims to create a welcoming space in Staten Island for artists to present works that are experimental, openly LGBTQ, avant-garde, and/or challenge societal norms. Performances feature a vaudevillian casts of drag queens, gender-bending burlesque dancers, avant-garde sound artists, transgendered performance artists, and gender­queer musical performers. Acts have incorporated songs about LGBTQ experiences, dance pieces that challenge gender perception, and theatrical skits that have explored aspects of femininity and masculinity. This project hopes to build queer visibility in Staten Island.

    Milenka Berengolc & Margaret Chase – Artists Undeterred
    Diversability: Artists Undeterred will increase accessibility for witnessing art and performance by disabled artists via exhibition, performance, and conversation in accessible venues. The project will explore the multi-faceted relationship of disability vis-à-vis contemporary art, through the lens of creators and producers who are disabled and whose work addresses disability. It will include a core, multi-media exhibition amplified by an artist talk; two presentations of dance/performance art; a panel discussion to probe varied viewpoints around artists and disability, identity and perception, cultural and social barriers, and how greater societal awareness and sensitivity may be fostered; and 2 community events at the SI Center for Independent Living: “Artistic Endeavors,” facilitated by a disabled artist/educator, for people with disabilities to artistically transform their medical and assistive devices; and a participatory workshop for the general public in which participants will explore and better comprehend what it is like to function with a physical disability, through experiential exercises, guided discussion, and interchange with a disabled artist.

    Nancy Quin – COASTING
    Quin will design and fabricate a public art steel sculpture inspired by the coast of Staten Island and designed to cultivate a sense of coasting in the viewer. The composition will delve into the sense of moving easily without resistance. This artwork will bring these elements into Maker Park which is nestled between a busy main street in Stapleton and Front Street. Artist Laura Neese will choreograph and perform a dance piece that will explore and interact with the sculpture while bringing the sentiments of the work to life.

    NYSAI Press – NYSAI Press 2018
    NYSAI Press publishes Staten Island-based literary journals. Grant funding will be used to increase the quality of their biannual in-house publications. They will host two magazine release parties that will feature published writers and artists. Funding will also allow them to publish short-run editions of four local zines from Staten Island community members.

    Rachel Caccese – There are Many Ways to Say, I Love You
    Caccese will develop and execute a documentary theater project titled There Are Many Ways to Say, I Love You. The piece will be based on parents and siblings personal experiences raising children with autism. The goal of the piece is to explore the shared experiences among family members living with and or raising children who are diagnosed with autism and does the experiences differ cross culturally. Willing participants will be interviewed, then a script will be constructed based on the interviews of the participants. A group of six actors will perform the script playing multiple roles.

    Sara Valentine – HONK NYC: Staten Island Programming
    HONK NYC will produce a HONK NYC Kids Camp along with a full Staten Island day of programming. The HONK Kids Camp provides Staten Island children with an in-depth introduction to music. In the course of the camp, 12-15 children, ages 6 to 10, are transformed into a marching band. Children find out how instruments create sound and make their own instruments out of recycled materials. They also make costumes, masks, a band banner, and posters to advertise their performance. All this culminates in a performance parade for parents and friends. HONK NYC Staten Island Day will be a full day of interactive performances starting aboard the Staten Island Ferry. 2-3 HONK Bands will perform at Tompkinsville Park, visit 1-2 schools, and end with a free concert at the Everything Goes Cafe and Community Stage.

    Sarah Yuster – Native Soil: Incidence and Homescapes
    A retrospective of Yuster’s works, major and minor, spanning from the late 1980’s through the present exhibiting a prism of images that reference life on Staten Island. The exhibition will feature approx. 75 pieces, primarily oil paintings. Yuster’s work explores the tension and beauty that can occur when man, technology and the natural world convene at random points. These images – plain, familiar, observed from common angles, become visually transposed moments of willed isolation and affection for an inherent sense of belonging. Yuster will provide several gallery talks and additional walk through/talks for public school students throughout the run of the exhibition.

    Melody Alesi-Pazian – W.A. Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro
    The project will be a performance of The Marriage of Figaro in concert, sung in Italian, with orchestra. For this project, the performers will use the alter of an historic church as a backdrop for the performance, using its space as a virtual stage. This makes for a unique experience because the space allows the opera to be “staged” without having to use standard scenery. Funding will be used to hire an orchestra that will play Mozart’s score.

    Virginia Sherry – Vanishing Historic Garages on Staten Island
    This project will document an early 1900s building type that is disappearing in Staten Island neighborhoods: historic detached garages on residential property. These structures go largely unappreciated as elements of the borough’s early 20th century architectural and cultural history. They stand as reminders of the advent of the “Automobile Age” and the impact it had on the built environment. Using photography and interviews with current owners, the goal of this project is to increase public awareness of these vanishing architectural treasures and encourage owners to maintain and not demolish them. The project will inventory detached garages across the borough and describe notable historic architectural features. The project includes design and publication of a website, and a free Power Point presentation at a public library.

  • 2018 Encore Grantees

    11 awards, total awarded: $41,799
    Funded by the New York State Council on the Arts

    Voyces – Angels Cry Aloud
    Voyces will present the oratorio “Jephte” by Carissimi at Trinity Lutheran Church, as part of the concert “Angels Cry Aloud”. This is the first time this historical piece will be presented on Staten Island in its entirety, and will comprise the first half of the concert Angels Cry Aloud, which will also feature works by Victoria and Charpentier.

    Maker Park Radio – Maker Park Radio Programming/Presentations
    Maker Park Radio provides free arts-based programming by streaming live audio and video from their station located in Stapleton, Staten Island. Over 55 DJs volunteer to present two hour shows in their interests, which include, Interviews with female artists, comedy, urban farming, cooking, brewing as well as shows featuring Soul, Latin Jazz, Punk, Ska, Classical, Traditional Jazz, Salsa, HipHop, House, Disco, Prog-Rock, Rockabilly, Rock, Drum & Base, R & B, etc, as well as shows in Sri Lankan and Spanish. The station’s goal is to bring together communities through music and positive arts-based and community minded programming.

    Nigerian-American Community Assoc. – 2nd Annual African Arts & Cultural Festival
    The African Arts and Cultural Festival is a celebration of African arts & culture from across the African Diaspora. During this two day event, participants will have the opportunity to enjoy authentic African cuisine, music, folklore, fashion, poetry, craft and much more. The festival venue will be transformed into African villages from across the Diaspora with vibrant drumming, storytelling, dancing, interactive demonstrations, historical artifacts, colorful and rich textiles, informative health and wellness workshops, as well as various forms of music and dance.

    Richmond Choral Society – Northern Lights
    Richmond Choral Society’s Spring 2018 Concert, entitled Northern Lights will feature works of Scandinavian composers. At the concert RCS will announce its 2018 scholarship winner, who will perform and be presented with his/her award.

    Richmond County Orchestra – RCO Side by Side w/ Curtis HS Chorus and Brighton Heights Youth Orchestra
    This program will combine classical music, opera and popular music on the same program. The Curtis HS Chorus and the New Brighton Heights Youth Orchestra will be accompanied by the Richmond County Orchestra, a 60 piece professional orchestra, in rehearsals and performance.

    Seaview Playwright’s Theatre – Reign of Terror: Two Plays, Bent and Good
    Sea View Playwright’s Theatre will produce two plays in the 2018 season: Bent, by Martin Sherman, and Good, by C.P. Taylor. The two plays will be connected as one project under the encompassing title “Reign of Terror”, as both plays deal with the Nazi regime. Bent deals with the discrimination of homosexuals in Europe by the Nazi party, the Good shows how a “good” man is influenced into joining the Nazi party. Both plays chronicle the erosion of individual rights and show how the breeding of bigotry and hatred can bring out some of the ugliest qualities of humankind.

    Staten Island Philharmonic – American Classics
    The Staten Island Philharmonic will produce a varied, all-American program of classical music that will include music by Gwyneth Walker, Samuel Barber, and William Grant Still along with poetry from Langston Hughes.

    Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre – 2018 Community Classic: Measure for Measure
    The company will produce Shakespeare’s classic Measure for Measure, free to the public, in September 2018 in Fort Wadsworth’s Fort Tompkins. One of Shakespeare’s best known dark comedies, the play depicts the city of Vienna beset with brothels and loose morality. Full of dual natures and hard choices, the play is a study of what happens when conservative and stringent morality is brought to bear on a decadent society. The play will be set in a 1870s Southwestern boom city, with a concept of capturing the tone and feel of a John Ford Western.

    Staten Island Makerspace – Art in the Park
    Art in the Park is a program for sculptors and designed to help them create art for the public realm. This program is intended to be a creative challenge and participating artists are encouraged to expand their creative toolbox of materials and techniques. Staten Island Makerspace will also present four free sculpture programs for families. The programs will introduce additive and subtractive sculptural concepts and techniques to adults and children including: modeling with plasticene, introduction to carving (with soap), cardboard construction, and sculpture with upcycled materials.

    Staten Island OutLOUD – Staten Island OutLOUD 2018
    Staten Island OutLOUD will host a continuing series of grass-roots readings of world classics, historic texts and other compelling works. Most events are intimate participatory readings; some are larger stage performances with music and dance. They meet in historic sites, nature preserves, delis, bookshops, museums, galleries, public housing projects, on the beach, on trains and on the Ferry, in libraries, parks & playgrounds, cafes, community centers, and in churches, temples, mosques and synagogues. In addition to their year-round series of readings and performances for all ages, they host a variety of programs for youth, thus nurturing a new generation of readers and writers. They also offer Memoirs OutLOUD, a creative writing workshop for adults. All events are free & open to the public.

    The Mighty String Demons – Two Concerts: Pulling on Heart Strings and Fantoms, Spooks, & Hairy Toes
    The Mighty String Demons will present two concerts. The first will be a Valentine’s concert entitled “Pulling on Heart Strings” which will feature music that celebrates LOVE. The second concert will be a fun and spooky Halloween concert in which a spooky story called “Hairy Toe” will be orchestrated by using instruments to create creepy creature sounds such as owls, the wind, stomping monsters and ghosts.

  • 2018 Staten Island Heritage Awardee

    The Staten Island Heritage Award, given out by Staten Island Arts Folklife, is meant to honor these deserving individuals or entities who have demonstrated a lifetime of superior stewardship of Staten Island’s living traditions.

    Thomas King

    Tom is the owner of family business Advance Lock & Key on Hylan Boulevard, along the island’s East Shore. He has plied the trade of locksmithing on Staten Island for 50 years, embodying the skilled knowledge and craftsmanship of his occupation, working skillfully with metal and electronics as much as with people. Over the course of his career, Tom has put high security locks on retired ferry boats for their use as jail boats at Rikers Island and is one of the authors who contributed to the book titled, “From Humble Beginnings. . . Success: 21 Business Professionals Tell What It Takes to Reach the Top.”

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Tom helped Staten Islanders get their belonging and valuables out of safes, helped them gain access to their vehicles, and set them up with new keys, turning him into something of a local hero. His own store, a neighborhood staple, flooded with over six feet of water during the storm. And yet, he gallantly rebuilt. When asked why, he said, “I had no other option. That’s what we do when we care about something and something is ours. We don’t back down to a little bad luck.”

    Over the years, Tom has been a contributor to and supporter of SI Arts Folklife program, hosting programs in his shop, contributing to our oral history project Trouble the Water, and participating in the Working Waterfront Initiative as a facilitator for the History Harvests that accompanied the Memories Hold exhibition.

    Tom’s life work, and his renown as a teller of personal stories of culture and resilience, demonstrate the deeper significance of a locksmith’s work: keeping safe that which matters to us most. It’s that sensibility that shows in his lifetime of stewardship to that which matters to Staten Island.

    An early folklorist, Benjamin Botkin, used to talk about the complexity of culture and our inability to fully unlock its mysteries, by saying that “culture, like love, laughs at locksmiths.” But, in this case, I think we can say that the cultural life of Staten Island relies on a locksmith.

  • 2018 ABC (Arts Bring Change) Grantees

    7 awards, total awarded: $12,600
    Funded by the New York State Council on the Arts

    Dan Auerbach with Port Richmond High School – Port Richmond HS and the American Festival of Microtonal Music
    Auerbach along with members of the American Festival of Microtonal Music will work with the Port Richmond orchestra and band programs. This program will provide students the opportunity to study one of the most fundamental and most elusive skills in any music-making, with highly skilled specialists in that area. The program will culminate in a schoolwide assembly and concert.

    Bob Basey with PS 68 – Interactive Storytelling and Music
    Musician Bob Basey (aka Bobaloo) will present multi-cultural stories and songs for pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade. Students will participate in instrumental music activities, group sing-alongs, and storytelling to work towards creating a community performance. The program will use song lyrics to teach the concepts of themes, character traits, visualization, inferring, and more. There will be two family engagement events at the close of the program.

    David Nudelman with PS 21 – Making the World a Better Place with Graphic Design
    Nudelman will work with 35 fifth grade students to create a design for a campaign t-shirt for their elementary school, focusing their campaign on the theme of making the community a better place. Students will be engaged in illustration, graphic design, screen printing and journaling their experience. They will also hone their skills in entrepreneurship, collaboration, production, and marketing.

    DB Lampman with PS 373 – The Patterns of You and Me
    DB Lampman will provide a workshop series for 4th and 5th grade special need students with emotional and developmental disabilities to create a mural for the school. The students will learn pattern and repetitive shapes and colors as they relate to telling a visual story. Sessions will include mural planning and painting as well as supplemental activities exploring a variety of mediums including sculpture, collage, and printmaking. Students will also learn about public art and how an artist goes from sketches to a fully realized public project. They will also visit the SI Makerspace to see how different kinds of art are made. The program will culminate with a presentation of the mural and other works completed at a school-wide reception for students, faculty, staff, and parents.

    Janice Patrignani with PS 19 – Our Bright Future
    Patrignani will work with 95 students, teaching them drawing, painting, collage, & mosaic. Students will learn the elements of design to create works using line/shape/color/texture. The students will work collaboratively on mosaic panels that will depict words/images meant to inspire students to see themselves in future roles that will have a positive impact in the school, community, and the world.

    Sarah Yuster with PS 20 – Small Truths Project
    Yuster will work with 57 second grade students who will use personal, cultural, and family experiences to create art. Students will learn illustration, new vocabulary, and journaling. The project will culminate in a writing and art celebration where students will share their illustrations and writing with other students, staff, and family members.

    Carolyn Clark with Port Richmond High School – Helping the Horns at Port Richmond HS
    This program will provide the brass section of the Port Richmond HS music department, approx. 30 students, with 12 intensive, small group instructional sessions with expert musician Carolyn Clark. The sessions will include technique, musicality, music literacy skills, and teamwork skills. The sessions will also focus on helping students place the music they play in their classes, which range from Mozart to Broadway showtunes, into appropriate historical and cultural contexts. Clark will also discuss with students career opportunities in music while helping them identify higher education programs related to those careers.

  • 2018 SU CASA Grantees

    6 awards, total awarded: $27,000
    Funded by the New York City Council

    Janice Patrignani – Visual Arts Potpourri
    Ms. Patrignani-Munoz will conduct a residency consisting of several mini-series of workshops in various visual art forms to participants at the J.C.C. on Manor Road. Forms will include Chinese Silk Painting, Book Arts, Mosaics, and others.

    Kathy Fieramosca – Watercolor Painting and Design
    Ms. Fieramosca will work with seniors at the Anderson Senior Center on basic watercolor technique, beginning with drawing principles, proceeding to working on simple still-lifes incorporating instruction in color theory and composition.

    William “Watson” Kawecki – The Art of the Laugh: A Comedy and Humor Exploration
    Mr. Kawecki will work with nursing home residents from Archcare at Carmel Richond on exploring forms, developing personal stories, and incorporating comedy techniques into presentation of their own stories, building toward a final performance or video.

    Kelly Gilmore – Dancing for Life
    Mr. Gilmore will work with participants at the Great Kills Senior Center on ballroom dances including Foxtrot, Tango, Swing, Salsa, and Cha-Cha. The program will help each student to develop dancing skills as well as strength and stamina, improved balance and coordination, and an appreciation for the art of ballroom dancing dancing.

    Lindsey Milazzo – Cultivating Community Through Watercolors
    Ms. Milazzo will reprise her successful 2017 program at Mount Loretto Senior Center, conducting a series of fourteen workshops in watercolor painting and other aqueous media. Subject matter will be drawn from participants’ interests and memories in order to foster communication, conversation and connection.

    Joelle Morrison – Looking Back: Seniors Write
    Ms. Morrison will utilize her journalistic skills to enlist participants at Cassidy Coles Senior Center to write short vignettes from their lives, share them with their peers, and have them included in a journal to further share with families and friends. A celebratory reading at the senior center will be the project finale.

  • 2018 Expanding Audiences and Cultural
    Participation Regrant

    10 awards, total awarded: $301,800
    Funded by New York Community Trust, The Staten Island Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and Time Warner Foundation

    Alice Austen House – Intergenerational Storytelling through Photography
    Series of intergenerational photographic storytelling LGBTQIA workshops.

    Art Lab, Inc – Colors of The Carnival: Traditions and Culture of Mazatlan
    Carnival themed gallery exhibit and series of art workshops serving as a pilot towards long term strategic outreach with Spanish speaking community living in Staten Island.

    Maker Park Radio – OPEN AIRWAVES! A Music Celebration, Open House & Concert Series
    A marketing initiative that reaches African American and Latino American audiences with Internal and External Programming opportunities.

    Staten Island Philharmonic – United in Harmony
    Staten Island Philharmonic teaching artists will prepare developmentally disabled adults from On Your Mark to sing as a chorus in 3 SI Philharmonic concerts.

    Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre – The Port Richmond Initiative: Developing Audience and Diversity
    Creating an after school theater education program to connect with disadvantaged children of color and diverse cultural backgrounds in Port Richmond, and develop workshops in collaboration with the neighborhood’s Mexican/Latinx community.

    Staten Island Children’s Museum – OPEN MUSEUM
    Staff from all levels of the institution will participate in a series of professional development trainings to improve cultural competencies to work with a wide and diverse audience.

    Staten Island Historical Society / Historic Richmond Town – Building Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Historic Richmond Town
    Diversity, equity and inclusion training for board, staff, and key stakeholders, with a focus on preparing for outreach to people of the African diaspora on Staten Island.

    Staten Island Museum – Black Lunch Table at Staten Island Museum
    Black Lunch Table at the Staten Island Museum is an artist-led, participant-driven, community building initiative, culminating in a series of 4 free public programs that serves to foster critical dialogue and amplify the voices of people of color.

    Staten Island MakerSpace – SI MakerSpace Parent Creative Alliance
    Hire a Community Outreach Manager to manage a program called SI Makerspace Parent Creative Alliance to engage local parents in our facility and programs.

    Universal Temple of the Arts – Expanding Arts Access for Residents in Staten Island Public Housing Developments
    Universal Temple of the Arts will develop a strategic marketing and community outreach campaign in an effort to engage under-served low-income community residents in arts services offered by our organization and other like-minded cultural institutions.