Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre uses multiple artistic forms (primarily dance and music) to convey intense personal narratives that explore the intersection of heritage, culture, and identity. This grant will support a comprehensive strategic planning process that will include developing and testing some solutions, including branding language and imagery, potential staff role adjustments, and program partnerships and scheduling.
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Chicago Human Rhythm Project presents diverse percussive dance through performance and education, fosters community building through collaborative programs, and supports economic justice through sustained, equitable cultural investments. The grant will support a leadership expansion and development.
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Kalapriya presents India’s artistic diversity through performing arts (dance, music, theater, and story-telling), works to preserve traditional South Asian art forms, and builds bridges between the performing arts and our contemporary lives. This grant will allow the organization to build an arts education platform that is aligned with the multidisciplinary nature of its mission; is culturally and community responsive; and bootstraps its arts education activities to be viable sources of revenue support for the organization.
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Thompson Street Opera Company intentionally and inclusively collaborates with artists to create productions that challenge the status quo through artistic and social innovation. The company will use this grant to work with external experts to perform a deep analysis of its current practices and capacity and build new strategies for increasing revenue and outreach to potential audiences.
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6018North connects artists and audiences through unique artistic experiences. Its work cross-pollinates disciplines to challenge what, and where art is made, with whom, and why. This grant will support a strategic process to reimagine that organization's mission to better serve its community and align with efforts to move forward with service across the city.
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A.B.L.E. provides performing arts opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A.B.L.E. will use this grant to create a plan to restructure its program and establish a paid ensemble of neurodiverse actors. Funding will allow A.B.L.E. to engage its community to ensure the program design meets the needs of the people it serves, learn from peer companies, develop a payment model for actors with disabilities that considers the various needs of each individual, identify venue partnerships, and refine its funding model.
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CIRCA-Pintig serves as the pulse or voice of the Filipino American community and the larger immigrant communities, building their collective power through arts-based, community-centered programs. This grant will explore merging back-office operations and management, collaborating on fundraising and capacity-building initiatives, and implementing shared cultural and arts-based events, with the Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago and the Kapwa Outreach and Information Institute.
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Cultural Access Collaborative facilitates a dynamic community of cultural administrators and people with disabilities to remove barriers in Illinois’ cultural organizations. This grant will the organization as it transitions from one that is run by volunteers to one that is run by paid staff.
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Fourth Coast Ensemble is a classical vocal quartet that embraces repertoire spanning the history of art song (a song for voice and piano, typically set to a poem) and vocal chamber music genres. This grant will support leadership succession planning toward organizational sustainability.
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Refracted Theatre Company uses theatrical storytelling to inspire empathic discourse and civil action and encourage a curiosity-driven approach to disagreement. The company will use this grant to adapt its Role Call public program for corporate and educational settings, creating a new revenue stream.
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Storycatchers amplifies the voices of justice system-impacted young people through program pathways rooted in the creative arts, helping them envision and pursue meaningful futures. This grant will support the development of new evaluation measures, update its Program Methodology Handbook, and author a new theory of action to guide its programs to reflect recent organizational changes and expansion.
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