PNC Arts Alive: Snapshot of Grantees
Overview
The PNC Foundation has always believed that engagement in the arts enriches lives and builds stronger, more vibrant communities. Since 2009, the PNC Foundation has supported more than 350 programs in four regions served by PNC, through PNC Arts Alive.
Below is a snapshot of recent PNC Arts Alive grant programming. This list is meant to provide a glimpse into the types of organizations and initiatives that we hand select year over year, challenging visual and performing arts organizations to put forth their best, most original thinking in expanding audience participation and engagement.
Grant Recipient Snapshot
Central Ohio
Columbus Dance Theatre
The Columbus Dance Theatre’s world premiere of Wonderment will replace the company’s longtime running holiday ballet, Matchgirl. Wonderment, based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale, The Snow Queen is an innovative work that features a new take on the tale with live music, produced by Converging Arts Columbus, a new chamber music group led by Jason Hiester.
The Columbus Museum of Art
LISTEN is the Columbus Museum of Art’s new programming stream coproduced in partnership with Columbus black artists and creatives. The initiative aims to decenter the dominate narrative and center the experiences people of color in art museums. Programs will highlight black and brown makers while also creating strategies to question power inequities that often create barriers for audiences who have felt marginalized by past museum or art experiences.
The McConnell Arts Center
POST NO ILLS at the MAC is a multi-disciplinary celebration of urban art placed in a suburban setting. The exhibition features works by Columbus artist Lance Johnson. Lance is an aerosol artist originally from New York City whose work is a vehicle for urban development, using improvised collage to tell stories in a celebration of urban life.
The Newark Granville Symphony
The Newark Granville Symphony Orchestra’s Music 4U! consists of a series of classical music concerts performed in unconventional venues including parks, museums, libraries, and schools. This series of free concerts allows the NGSO to bring the beauty of music to a wide array of community members.
Opera Columbus
In celebration of its 40th season, Opera Columbus will present 40 Days of Opera, a citywide celebration of multidisciplinary performances, activities, and exchanges. 40 Days of Opera will kick off with an immersive production La Traviata . Other operatic experiences will include: anqui, an opera about the Underground Railroad commissioned and premiered by Opera Columbus in 1999. With music by Leslie Burrs and libretto by John A. Williams, the opera will be presented as a community partner for The Ohio State University Journeys to Equity. Additionally, 40 Days will include Opera under the Stars at COSI’s planetarium; Sunrise Opera; Opera and Poetry; and the world premiere of The Puppy Episode with music by Matthew Recio, libretto by Royce Vavrek, directed by Christopher Mirto, and created with a new partnership with Oberlin Conservatory.
We Amplify Voices
Lift All Voices, a grand showcase of talent, will feature performances by We Amplify Voices’ program participants at the Ohio Theatre. The showcase will feature the work of students and other groups who take part in We Amplify Voices’ innovative year-round programming. In addition to live performances, the lobby of the Ohio Theatre be transformed into a gallery to exhibit the various pieces of art created by program participants including paintings, drawings, and songwriting samples.
Southeast Florida
Old Dillard Foundation
Live At the Arts and Heritage House (AAHH) provides free access to the public. The ODF AAHH is located in the Historic Sistrunk Corridor. The AAHH is surrounded by untapped, emerging, and professional visual and performing artists. Our vision is to create a small mecca for artists to exhibit and perform. ODF will regularly transform the space from an art exhibition to a stage for an intimate play or cultural dance, or to a jazz/blues supper club or use the backyard for a shindig to bridge our sometimes-isolated communities. ODF envisions Arts and Heritage House (AAHH) as a mecca, attracting the adult residents of the immediate neighborhood as well as residents in the tri-county area and tourists to become active participants in the various art forms. On the 4th Saturday of each month, the AAHH will be a place of gathering to celebrate and promote the richness of the community.
Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens
Morikami is a 21st century museum, and as such must go beyond the traditional physically on-site experience to fulfill its mission and its obligation to its community. Virtual Morikami, by intention and definition, is primarily designed to make Morikami art and gardens more accessible and attractive to an expanded diverse audience, using existing and developing digital technologies, combined with traditional methods. Virtual Morikami will offer varied experiences across age, social, ethnic and economic backgrounds. They believe it will become a fundamental community building block of the total Morikami experiential offerings going forward. Marketed and distributed across multiple media platforms, at no cost to users, Virtual Morikami targets their entire visitor/member/fan base and beyond: young families, students, manga/anime/marital arts devotees; artists, scholars, collectors; local residents and tourists; retirees and professionals.
Greater St. Louis
- Big Muddy Dance Company
- Circus Harmony
- Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
- Laumeier Sculpture Park
- Metro Theater Company
Philadelphia, Delaware & Southern New Jersey
Barnes Foundation
In Summer 2022, the Barnes Foundation will expand its Barnes on the Block initiative in celebration of the Barnes' Centennial anniversary. This all-day outdoor event will allow the Barnes to reach new and increasingly diverse audiences, while at the same time welcoming back repeat visitors with a Centennial event in Jazz Age style. Barnes on the Block will connect and enliven the neighborhood streets immediately surrounding its location on Philadelphia's Ben Franklin Parkway, while at the same time engaging audiences who may not have historically visited the museum. The Block Party will activate all four sides of the Foundation's exterior grounds and surrounding city streets with live interactive dance and musical performances celebrating the collective history of the Barnes; artist demonstrations in wood, glass, metal, and clay mediums; family-friendly programming and activities for all ages; plus pay-as-you-go food and beverage truck vendors. The Museum will also open the doors to its inside galleries at no charge for maximum community enjoyment, with indoor program highlights including a new, specially commissioned multimedia exhibition, Statues Never Die, by Isaac Julien. Statues Never Die will explore the mutual influence of Barnes' Founder Albert C. Barnes, collector of African material cultural and civil rights activist, and Alain Locke, philosopher, cultural critic, and the oft named "Father of the Harlem Renaissance". Tentative program partners include Dandy Wellington, a jazz singer, dancer, and bandleader in 1920s style; woodworker Peter Park; Mural Arts; and the Spiral Q Puppet Theatre.
Clay Studio
Hands on Clay brings The Clay Studio's ceramic arts programming out of its studios and into the Philadelphia community, through socially-distanced in-person events, take-home Clay Kits, and virtual programs. Hands on Clay targets the Philadelphia area communities who experience economic or geographic barriers to arts and cultural activities, with the goal of removing these obstacles through frequent, consistent, and free public arts programming. Historically, Clay Studio Teaching Artists have traveled with everything they've needed to create a fun and inspiring hands-on clay activity within Philadelphia neighborhoods, partnering with established festivals and community events where possible for maximum community impact and fun. With the ongoing realities of the COVID health crisis, the Clay Studio has and will continue to modify Hands on Clay events, distributing individual take-home Clay Kits to the city's most under resourced children and families through partnerships with Play Streets Philadelphia and other community organizations, as well as hosting virtual clay tutorials in lieu of large community festival events. Once allowed by City and State authorities, The Clay Studio plans to host smaller but more frequent outdoor activities in the outdoor covered events pavilion at their new facility in Fishtown / South Kensington.
Expressive Path
Expressive Path's annual Art in the Park festival returns after a year of virtual-only programming, bringing artists and performers to Norristown's Elmwood Park Zoo for a Fall 2021 event filled with art, music, and live performances. Art in the Park will showcase a wide variety of emerging artists and performers on stages throughout the zoo, including three live bands plus a large area for dancing. Later in the day, these stages will host a play by the nearby Centre Theatre, a classical dance performance, as well as talented singers performing a wide variety of musical genres. Plein Air artists will capture the full excitement of the festival and offer live demonstrations throughout the day, while pop-up performances will bring innovative and interactive acts to round out the event. Many regional Arts and Music events are typically hosted in the City of Philadelphia proper, and therefore surrounding suburbs often miss out on significant cultural opportunities. Norristown presents a unique location for greater arts opportunities and the Art in the Park event in particular. For many in the area, Art in the Park may very well be their first time seeing a play or dance performance live and in person, and it's all happening -- right where they live -- in Norristown, Montgomery County.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
This year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, kids and their grown-ups are invited to experience a wide variety of creative and engaging art activities, on-site as well as online. Art Kids includes art making activities in the new Art Kids Studio in the Museum’s recently opened South Vaulted Walkway, art classes in its new classrooms, and outdoor art programs in the Anne d’Harnoncourt Sculpture Garden when weather permits. Online, kids can participate in virtual Art Playdates at Home via Zoom. Through the museum's partnership with CraftNow, the museum will also make over 2,000 free art kits available at local camp sites to kids taking part in the City’s Summer Camp program, further extending its educational resources and reach in the community this summer.
SRUTI, The India Music & Dance Society
Now in its 35th program year, Sruti presents high quality Indian classical music and dance concerts, by nationally and internationally renowned artists. With support from PNC, Sruti will host a series of events showcasing the twin traditions of Hindustani and Carnatic music and Indian classical dance. Specifically, Sruti plans to host a BBC Radio Award winning vocalist (Kaushiki Chakraborty, a leading exponent of Hindustani classical music); two young ambassadors of Bharathanatyam dance (Shijith & Parvathy Nambiar), and a unique lecture demonstration by musicologist Professor T.S. Satyavathi, coupled with the Sruti Composers Day -- a day-long community engagement event within the region's Indian & South Asian cultural community that will feature individual and group singing by youth, adults, and music teachers within the area. These programs will engage and impact the Indian diaspora and diverse arts enthusiasts in Greater Philadelphia.
Southern New Jersey »
350+
Funded Arts Programs
Since 2009, PNC Arts Alive funded programs have extended the ability of arts communities, in four regions served by PNC, to create innovative exhibits and experiences that have reached hundreds of thousands of people.
PNC Arts Alive
Keeping the Arts Thriving
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