NEFA Announces New Dance Projects with Touring Support Available

(Boston, MA) The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) has awarded $280,000 through the National Dance Project (NDP) to support touring by dance companies in 2017-2018. NEFA’s National Dance Project is widely recognized as one of the country’s major sources of funding for the creation and touring of dance.

“This group of projects has unique breadth. Artists are working in forms including vertical dance, Kathak, contemporary dance theater, Maya dance, and more, and these grants will enable presenters to bring high caliber dance to their communities with NDP support,” said NEFA executive director Cathy Edwards.

Eight dance companies have received NDP Touring Awards of up to $35,000 each that will support U.S. tours of the awarded projects during an 18 month tour period of June 1, 2017-November 30, 2018. These projects were selected from a highly competitive pool of 55 U.S. and international applicants and are available to tour with NDP support. A publication of the eight Touring Award projects will be available in January 2017, each with its own tour coordinator. U.S. organizations interested in presenting any of these projects should contact the tour coordinators prior to March 17, 2017, in order to be considered for funding through NDP Presentation Grants. Tour coordinator contacts and other information for all projects currently eligible for NDP Presentation grants can be found in the online directory on NEFA’s website. 

2016 Touring Award Recipients:

• BANDALOOP (Oakland, CA) for #PublicCanvas 
• Cardell Dance Theater (Philadelphia, PA) for Supper, People on the Move!
• Doug Varone and Dancers (New York, NY) for in the shelter of the fold
• Farah Yasmeen Shaikh (Menlo Park, CA) for The Twentieth Wife
• Grupo Sotz’il (Sololá, Guatemala) Uk’u’x Ulew: Heart of the Earth 
• Raphael Xavier (Philadelphia, PA) Point of Interest
• Sara Juli (Falmouth, ME) for Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis
• Spectrum Dance Theater (Seattle, WA) for A RAP ON RACE

About NDP
NEFA’s National Dance Project (NDP) supports the creation and touring of new dance works in the United States. Since 1996, the program has distributed more than $33 million in funding to support the dance field in ways that enhance partnerships between artists and presenters with the equally important goals of engaging and expanding audiences for dance. To date, NDP has supported 351 artists to create and tour 646 dance works at 787 cultural organizations across all 50 states, Washington, DC,  reaching over 2.7 million audience members.

NEFA's National Dance Project is supported with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and funding for special initiatives from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French American Cultural Exchange, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. 

About NEFA
The New England Foundation for the Arts invests in the arts to enrich communities in New England and beyond.  NEFA accomplishes this by granting fund to artists and cultural organizations, connecting them to each other and their audiences, and analyzing their economic contributions.  NEFA serves as a regional partner for the National Endowment for the Arts, New England’s state arts agencies and private foundations.  For more information, please visit nefa.org.

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CONTACT: Ann Wicks | 617.951.0010 x534