Faculty Projects Receive Arts & Science Council Grants

Five College of Arts + Architecture professors are receiving grants from the Arts & Science Council (ASC) in the most recent round of funding allocations. Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Audrey Baran, Assistant Professor of Architecture Rachel Dickey, and Associate Professor of Painting Andrew Leventis have been named Artist Support Grant recipients. Projects by Associate Professor of Theatre Carlos Cruz and Associate Professor of Dance Kim Jones will receive Cultural Vision Grant funding.

Artist Support Grants, provided in partnership with the North Carolina Arts Council, support individual artists in the completion/presentation of new work, career promotion, training and travel. Each of the CoA+A faculty will receive $2000. Baran will use her grant to support rental space for company classes and artist fees for her company Baran Dance’s Spring 2021 concert, “Big Moves.” Dickey’s grant will allow her to purchase a router and laser cutting machine to support production of sculpture maquettes and prototypes for current and future artworks and public art proposals. Leventis will use his grant to create a new series of paintings.

Cultural Vision Grants provide funds of up to $10,000 for Mecklenburg County-based creative individuals and nonprofit groups to pursue projects that build community, activate nontraditional performance or exhibition spaces, or provide participatory experiences that reflect the diverse and changing Charlotte area.

Cruz, founder of the Nouveau Sud urban circus project, will receive $7,200 to support the development and subsequent community tour of Nouveau Sud’s newest work, La Bestia. La Bestia addresses immigration and migration through acrobatics, music, and spoken word. Earlier this fall, the project won a prestigious National Theater Project Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA).

Movement Migration, a dance company founded by Jones in 2017, will receive $4,200 to support a summer workshop and performance that bridges traditional and social Latin Dance forms and American modern dance, embedding the traditional forms in their historical context and exploring their interplay with modern concert dance. The program will be led by Jones and Movement Migration member Daniel Fetecua, a native of Colombia who danced with the José Limón Dance Company and the Pina Bausch Dance Company.

Read more about Movement Migration in this recent article in The Charlotte Observer.

Photos by Jeff Cravotta.