The Prairie Landscape

Illinois Humanities Council Awards Major Grants

11/01/2001

CHICAGO -The Illinois Humanities Council Board of Directors has awarded a total of $260,050 to 29 nonprofit organizations for development and production of humanities projects ranging from poetry readings, to an avant-garde dance history program, to a film series on Abraham Lincoln. Community support for these projects totaled $6,533,897.

  • American Poetry at the Millennium Reading and Lecture Series 2001-2002
    Organization: University of Chicago
    The poetry series creates a forum in which established and lesser-known poets can offer lectures on their poetic values and the aims of their art as well as readings of their poetry to the University of Chicago community and also to the greater city of Chicago community.
  • Twenty-Second Annual History Symposium
    Organization: Illinois State Historical Society
    The Historical Society’s annual symposium seeks to stimulate and enhance the state’s cultural heritage. It does so by inviting academics, teachers, other professionals, students and the general public to Springfield for two days to share, discuss and listen to recent research on Illinois history.
  • The Sterling Morton Library Lecture Series
    Organization: Morton Arboretum
    The lecture series will blend the history of science, art, history and human affairs with the actual works produced by the scientists, artists and historians— showing their part in the development of American civilization.
  • Dreams and Disillusion: Karl Teige and the Czech Avant-Garde
    Organization: University of Chicago on behalf of the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
    The first U.S. exhibition devoted to his work—both artistic and literary—it tells the story of this previously forgotten cultural giant to Chicago, and its large Czech and Slovak communities, for the first time.
  • The History of the Family Photograph: Photographs and Memory Connecting the American Past and Present
    Organization: College of Dupage, Humanities Department
    College of Dupage will use the family photograph as a method to bring community history alive. Family photographs emphasizing a rich multi-cultural heritage and submitted by members of the local community will be featured.
  • CineDance 2002: The European Avant-Garde & The Joffrey Ballet: Nijinsky as Dancer and Artist
    Organization: Performing Arts Chicago
    Performing Arts Chicago (PAC) proposes a cinematic celebration of the European avant-garde influence in dance history. CineDance 2002: The European Avant-Garde Influence will feature works of renown choreographers Anna Teresa DeKeersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Edouard Lock and Lloyd Newson.
  • Musicality of Poetry Series XI: Poets and musicians perform and discuss the nuances of the poetry and music collaboration.
    Organization: Guild Complex
    The series will have five events featuring writers and musicians performing their work, as well as discussing and/or conducting workshops in the context of a specific issue; or in the case of workshops, a specific area relative to presenting a poetry/music performance.
  • Tags
    Organization: Independent Filmworks, Inc.
    During the Civil War, soldiers pinned improvised identification tags on their uniforms before going into battle. Today, U.S. soldiers are routinely issued “dog tags.” Tags, a one-hour documentary, will use dog tags as a metaphor to explore how war shapes personal and national identity, as lost dog tags—recently bought at tourist sites in Vietnam—are returned to Vietnam War veterans.
  • Los Ladinos: Mexico’s Hidden Treasure
    Organization: The Mexican Fine Arts Museum
    Los Ladinos: Mexico’s Hidden Treasure is a video documentary about Mexicans of African descent and their communities in Mexico. The film will retrace the footsteps of Mexican anthropologist Dr. Gonzalo Aquirre Beltran, who conducted an extensive study and investigation of these communities beginning in the 1940’s until his death in 1986.
  • Abraham Lincoln Film Project: “Lincoln’s Illinois—Society, Culture and the Legend of the Frontier” and “Abraham Lincoln and the Legacy of Emancipation”
    Organization: Northern Illinois University
    “Lincoln’s Illinois—Society, Culture and the Legend of the Frontier” will use Lincoln’s life and legend as a means to explore and interpret antebellum Illinois, contrasting the historical record of Native American life, white settlement, women’s experiences, religion and culture and African-American life with mythic portrayals found in American cinema. The second film, “Abraham Lincoln and the Legacy of Emancipation,” will examine and discuss Lincoln’s role as the Great Emancipator in American historical memory, again contrasting mythic interpretations in film and literature with available source materials.
  • A Force of Nature: The Life and Work of Jens Jensen
    Organization: Chicago Cultural Center Foundation/ Jens Jensen Legacy Project
    A major exhibition, catalog and related programming about pioneering landscape architect Jens Jensen, developer of the Prairie-Style of Landscape Design, Superintendent of Chicago’s West Parks (1905-1920) and designer of Humboldt, Garfield, Douglas and Columbus Parks.
  • Alija-A Cultural Dance Project
    Organization: Sunlight African Community Center
    Alija-A Cultural Dance Project is designed to reach African immigrant girls ages 6 to 14 and as a form of outreach to youth of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. As part of Sunlight African Community Center’s Cultural Arts and Exchange Program, Alija-A Cultural Dance Project will give lecture/ demonstrations of Igbo traditional dance, music and song of Nigeria.
  • Authorship and Copyright Conference
    Organization: DePaul College of Law Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology (CLIPLIT)
    On April 12, 2002 the DePaul College of Law Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology will sponsor a conference on authorship. This conference will bring together legal scholars, an art historian and dramaturg to consider the concept of authorship from comparative legal, anthropological and historical perspectives in order to explore the relationship between the creative process and incentives to further this process.
  • The Lands of the Cache: The Vanishing Human Presence in the Cache River Basin
    Organization: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
    The proposed exhibit will feature 20 photographs by photojournalist D. Gorton. Gorton will photograph the landscape and built environments of the Cache River region. The exhibit will be accompanied by a public lecture by Dr. Jane Adams and an interpretive brochure.
  • The Essay: A Glimpse of America
    Organization: Quad City Arts
    In April 2002, award-winning essayist, journalist and author Richard Rodriguez will be in the Quad Cities for a three-day, six-event program focusing on the question of “What does America look like today?” Rodriguez utilizes the essay to take an in-depth look at American life, emphasizing issues that include; assimilation, bilingual education, affirmative action, the “browning” of America, religious and ethnic issues and much more.
  • A Time For Honor
    Organization: VFW Effingham Post 1759
    A Time For Honor will be a 60-minute television documentary focusing on stories from Vietnam veterans living in the geographic area surrounding Effingham.
  • The New Americans
    Organization: Kartemquin Educational Films
    The New Americans is a multi-part series for PBS. Informed by the historical, political and economic aspects of America’s immigrant history, the series will explore the multi-faceted experiences of newcomers to this country. The series chronicles immigrants and refugees from Nigeria, India, the Dominican Republic, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Vietnam and Mexico—from their homelands through their first few years in the United States.
  • ZaprasZamy! An American Celebration of Polish Song and Dance
    Organization: The Lira Ensemble
    ZaprasZamy! is a public, humanities-driven performing arts project designed to educate Polish-Americans and Americans of every ethnic background about Polish history and the presence of the people of Polish ancestry in American history.
  • Pegasus Players Lecture Series
    Organization: Pegasus Players Theatre
    Pegasus Players will conduct a series of lectures in conjunction with their newest play “Bronzeville.” The lectures will deal with various humanities issues throughout the history of Chicago’s Historic Bronzeville neighborhood. Subjects will include: Music, History, Art/Architecture, and Literature.
  • Story Week Festival of Writers
    Organization: Fiction Writing Department, Columbia College Chicago
    A week-long series of readings, conversation with authors, and panel discussions by some of the world’s most powerful storytellers. This festival will feature highly acclaimed authors whose writing represents cultural and class conflicts and whose courage and vision have forged a broad path of permission for other writers and thinkers around the world.
  • Greater Chicago Your Vote, Your Choice Campaign
    Organization: Asian American Institute
    The Asian American Institute will coordinate with Asian American community-based organizations to educate the community about the American government system. Through a series of forums and written publications, community members will be able to participate in political discussion and debates.
  • “Freedom Now” Mural Interpretive Kiosk/Black History Month and Kwanzaa Exhibits
    Organization: DuSable Museum of African American History
    Dusable Museum of African American History will develop a touch screen kiosk for its “Freedom Now” mural, a series of traveling displays and small exhibits for Black History Month, and a new permanent exhibit on Kwanzaa that will be displayed annually.
  • American Indian Portraits: Public Programs
    Organization: Newberry Library
    The Newberry Library will present a series of five public programs to accompany “American Indian Portraits,” an exhibition of 62 oils by Chicago painter Elbridge Ayer Burbank.
  • Adult Education Programming 2001-2002
    Organization: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
    Since its founding, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre (CST) has presented audiences with programs that act as its stage works. The Open Door at CST offers introductions as well as in-depth studies of the themes and ideas embodied in Shakespeare and the Theatre’s productions.
  • Literature and Dance Lecture Series
    Organization: River Oak Arts
    The 2001 Literature and Dance Lecture Series will include lectures, master classes, and a final performance that will seek to explore the interconnections between the two disciplines and to examine how these forms influence each other.
  • Heroes of Fire
    Organization: African American TV and Filmakers
    Heroes of Fire will be a sixty-minute television documentary on Engine 21’s African American firemen and the Black Fire of 1874 in Chicago. The program will unfold the early existence of African American firemen in the Chicago Fire Department while providing an in-depth view of the Black Fire which created city ordinances of today.
  • The Music of Morocco and the Cycles of Life
    Organization: Chicago Sister City’s International Program
    The Music of Morocco and the Cycles of Life is a one-hour documentary that traces the richness of Morocco’s musical heritage.
  • Cultural Connections
    Organizations: The Field Museum
    Cultural Connections is a partnership between The Field Museum and eighteen Chicago area ethnic museums and cultural centers that is dedicated to promoting solutions to problems associated with the diversity of urban populations. The program’s focus is on educational events, open to the general public and led by anthropologists, museum curators, scholars and resident experts, that encourage dialogue among people of different cultures.
  • Nuns and Their Habits
    Organization: The Polish Museum of American
    An artist/photographer and a photojournalist will research Polish Catholic nuns of three main orders in Illinois: Franciscan, Nazarethan and Resurrectionist.

For further information about the IHC or our grant program, please contact us at 312.422.5585 extension 233 or visit our website at http://www.prairie.org.

The Illinois Humanities Council is an educational organization dedicated to fostering a culture in which the humanities are a vital part of the lives of individuals and communities. Through its programs and services, the IHC promotes greater understanding of, appreciation for, and involvement in the humanities by the citizens of Illinois, regardless of their economic resources, cultural background, or geographic location. Organized as a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1974, the IHC is now a private nonprofit (501 [c] 3) organization that is funded by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations; by the Illinois General Assembly; and by the NEH.

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