NCAC Grant Award

 
 
RALEIGH, NC - The United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County announces receipt of funding from the North Carolina Arts Council in four different categories:
 

• Arts in Education - AIE Artist Residencies - $7,500
• Arts in Education - AIE Initiatives - $10,000
• Arts in Communities - Regional Artist Project - $7,000
• Arts in Communities - Grassroots Arts Program - $201,122

 
The AIE Artist Residencies grant will fund residencies in two of Wake County's alternative schools: the Bridges Program and Mt. Vernon Redirection. The AIE Initiatives grant will fund an arts integration institute that will be held at the North Carolina Museum of Art in June 2006. The Regional Artist Project Grant helps fund a grant program that is run collaboratively with United Arts and four other county arts councils to distribute funds to individual artists looking to further their artistic careers. The Grassroots Arts Program grant will help fund grants that United Arts distributes annually to local arts and cultural organizations and Wake County schools. This grant is more than double what United Arts received last year, thanks to the new budget passed by the legislature in September, which increased Grassroots arts funding statewide by $1.58 million.
 
United Arts will work with two teaching artists/performing groups to develop performing arts residencies in Mt. Vernon Redirection School and the Bridges Program, two Wake County Public School System alternative schools serving at-risk students.
 
Each residency is designed specifically for each school's population. The residencies will guide students in creating and performing their own original artwork, and each residency will culminate with student performances and "sharings" of newly acquired skills.
 
At Bridges, members of InterAct Story Theatre will teach students about basic acting tools, such as imagination, voice and body, as well as acting skills such as cooperation, concentration, vocal and physical flexibility, sense memory, commitment and spontaneity. Ms. Kelner will also include a parent/child workshop to provide activities and teach skills for developing language and literacy at home.
 
United Arts has worked with Ms. Kelner in a four-day version of this residency in other elementary schools. After the residency, one teacher observed, "Her first lesson changed my class and my way of teaching forever. During the lesson, my third graders (many of whom are low-ability) began to truly understand the central idea of how we express ourselves through literature. They comprehended the story deeply."
 
At Mt. Vernon, performance poet Glenis Redmond will lead students through the process of creating poetry from reading to writing to performing. Ms. Redmond introduces students to a variety of poems, particularly poems by African-American poets. Students are encouraged to write from their own experiences by knowing themselves and their origins. Each student will have the opportunity to perform a poem and incorporate part of their own poetry into a performance. This residency also includes a performance by Ms. Redmond.
 
United Arts is creating a new program for schools in Wake County and across the state. In June 2006, the first annual Arts Integration Institute will be held at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The Institute will offer 10 elementary schools the chance to send a team of four participants-an administrator, an arts teacher, a classroom teacher and a parent-to study with some of the best artist-educators in the state. In a five-day arts immersion experience, these teams will learn practical ways to use the arts in many areas of the Standard Course of Study.
 
By the close of the Institute, every team will have developed a plan to share what they have learned with the rest of their school. In addition, artist-educators from the Institute will visit each school during the year to provide additional staff development.
 
In the 2006 Institute, the teams will get a backstage look at how science and math work in an art museum. They will learn how to teach language skills through quilt making and social studies through drama. They will travel around the world through song and discover science principles while making their own musical instruments. Overall, they will acquire tools to transform their schools into places where the arts help the curriculum come alive.
 
The Regional Artist Project is a competitive grant process administered each year in cooperation with arts councils in Franklin, Johnston, Vance and Warren counties, which, along with United Arts, provide additional support for the program. Last year, United Arts awarded $12,000 to 14 artists for professional development workshops, conferences, equipment, marketing materials and more.
 
The deadlines for grants from United Arts to nonprofit arts organizations and schools have passed for 2005-2006, but information about applying next year can be found on the United Arts website, www.unitedarts.org.