• Jonah Hooper
• Atlanta Ballet will support their New Works Series with a grant from the NEA

The National Endowment for the Arts announced the recipients of their 2011 Grant Awards earlier this week, including 22 from the state of Georgia. The Literature Fellowship, which alternates years between fiction and poetry, went to the poet Sandra Meek, a professor at Berry College in Mt. Berry, GA. Organizations who have received grants in years past like Art Papers, the Center for Puppetry Arts, Atlanta Ballet, and the National Black Arts Festival were represented again this year. Check out a full list of Georgia's recipients after the jump or head over to the National Endowment for the Arts to check out recent grants across the country.

Albany State University Foundation, Inc.
Albany, GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support a performance and lecture-demonstration by the Dance Theater of Harlem (DTH) Ensemble. In addition to performances at the Municipal Auditorium for the general public, the DTH Ensemble will conduct a lecture-demonstration for Albany State University students and junior and senior high school students from Dougherty and Lee Counties.

Albany Symphony Association, Inc.
Albany , GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support the Symphonic Gospel Celebration, featuring double bassist Joseph Conyers and combined choirs of area African American churches. Conyers, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will perform Prayers of Wind and Rain, a work composed for him by Philadelphia-based composer John B. Hedges.

Alternate ROOTS, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$40,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Presenting
To support ROOTS 35, a festival featuring the work of local and regional theater, dance, music, visual arts, spoken word, film, puppetry artists, and street performers. Celebrating the organization's 35th anniversary, performing, visual, and media artists will present works on Baltimore's Route 40 (the "Highway to Nowhere") in collaboration with local art organizations.

American Jewish Committee
Atlanta , GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, an annual cinematic examination of Jewish life, culture, and history. The festival will showcase narrative and documentary films accompanied with question-and-answer sessions with selected filmmakers, actors, and academics.

Art Papers, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$40,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Visual Arts
To support Art Papers' print, online, and public lecture series. Project activities include the publication of six issues of Art Papers magazine; the addition of 48 issues of the magazine to the Art Papers website; the commissioning of new writing for web and mobile devices; and the expansion of the Arts Papers Live! lecture series to include six national public lectures offered free-of-charge.

Atlanta Ballet, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$20,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Dance
To support the New Works Series, a commissioning program for new works by mid-career choreographers. Poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph will join with choreographer Amy Seiwert to create a new work for the company that will be performed at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.

Center for Puppetry Arts
Atlanta, GA
$35,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater
To support the development and production of a bilingual puppet theater adaptation of Beauty and the Beast directed by artistic director Jon Ludwig. Staged for a contemporary setting and using original modern music, the cross-cultural production will feature a cast of five puppeteers, with an emphasis on found-object puppetry (puppets made from everyday objects).

Clayton State University (on behalf of Spivey Hall)
Morrow, GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Music
To support Project Jupiter, a residency by the Jupiter String Quartet at Spivey Hall. During the two, one-week sessions, the quartet members will coach area high school students and perform in schools and at a culminating concert that will be recorded for future broadcast on WABE-FM.

Georgia State University Research Foundation (on behalf of Rialto Center for the Arts)
Atlanta, GA
$25,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Presenting
To support the Rialto International Series and related educational programs at the Rialto Center for the Arts. World music and dance artists will perform and participate in pre-concert lectures, narrative programming, question-and-answer sessions, master classes, demonstrations, residencies, and audience discussions.

Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences, Inc.
Rabun Gap, GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Artists Communities
To support the Hambidge New Artist Initiative residencies. The initiative will provide residencies to both emerging and established artists with a special focus on targeting applicants who broaden diversity.

LaGrange Symphony Orchestra, Inc.
LaGrange , GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support the creation and presentation of a new work by composer Lee Johnson. The piece will celebrate 19th-century African American architect Horace King, who worked throughout the South and settled in Troup County where the LaGrange Symphony is located.

Meek, Sandra
Rome, GA
$25,000
CATEGORY: Literature Fellowships FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Literature

National Black Arts Festival, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$35,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Dance
To support the creation and presentation of new dance works by choreographers and dancers Camille A. Brown, Kyle Abraham, and Gesel Mason. The artists will travel to their ancestral homelands in Africa, as determined by an analysis of their DNA, and will link with an African-based choreographer in the country of their origin to create joint works which will then be presented as part of the festival's DUETS project.

Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc. (on behalf of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) (Consortium)
Atlanta, GA
$35,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Music
To support the Atlanta Symphony's A King Celebration project. In partnership with Morehouse College, the project will highlight the legacy of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through performances, educational outreach activities, and a national radio broadcast.

Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc. (on behalf of Alliance Theatre)
Atlanta, GA
$30,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater
To support the Alliance Theatre's world premiere of Carapace by David Mitchell Robinson and a readings series for finalists in the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition. Set in Minneapolis one year after the 2007 interstate bridge collapse, Carapace tells the story of a Midwestern man struggling with alcoholism and his own limitations.

Sautee Nacoochee Community Association, Inc.
Sautee Nacoochee, GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater
To support the commission and development of a new play in the Headwaters community story performance series. Community residents will participate in story collecting. The material will then be transcribed and given to playwrights Jo Carson and Jerry Grillo, who will create theatrical material designed for performance by local residents.

Savannah Music Festival, Inc.
Savannah, GA
$50,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Music
To support the annual Savannah Music Festival presenting artists of different genres including world music, music and dance traditions of Latin America, traditional songs from coastal Georgia, chamber music masterworks from Europe, and American jazz musicians performing in the jazz tradition. The 18-day, 100-program strong festival will take place in Savannah's Historic District.

Southern Poetry Review, Inc.
Savannah, GA
$5,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Literature
To support the publication and promotion of the Southern Poetry Review. Celebrating more than 50 years of continuous publication, the Southern Poetry Review has featured some of the most distinguished contemporary poets in American history.

Statesboro Arts Council (aka Averitt Center for the Arts)
Statesboro , GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support the exhibition Greg Mort: The Art of Stewardship. The visual arts exhibition will encourage environmental stewardship and environmental awareness, along with presentations by Mort for students and the general public to explore ideas supporting environmental sustainability.

Theatrical Outfit, Inc.
Atlanta , GA
$10,000
CATEGORY: Challenge America FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Challenge America
To support American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and audio description for performances of Young Man From Atlanta by Horton Foote and Caroline, Or Change by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori. StageHands of VSA arts of Georgia will provide the ASL interpretation.

True Colors Theatre Company, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
$20,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Theater
To support the production of a new play titled Broke-ology by playwright Nathan Louis Jackson. Winner of two Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Awards, this young playwright has infused into his play humor, love, and realism while telling a story about the African American King family as two brothers are called home to a Kansas City ghetto to take care of their ailing father.

University of Georgia (on behalf of Georgia Musem of Art)
Athens, GA
$30,000
CATEGORY: Access to Artistic Excellence FIELD/DISCIPLINE: Museum
To support the touring exhibition Cercle et Carré at the Georgia Museum of Art, with accompanying catalogue and educational programs. The exhibition will feature approximately 75 art works by a group of artists centered in Paris in 1929-30 and devoted to the idea of abstraction as a source of truth, a universal language that transcended national boundaries.

Number of Grants: 22 Total Amount: $379,000