June 3, 2022 – The Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO!) has been selected to participate in the first phase of The Wallace Foundation’s new five-year arts initiative focused on arts organizations of color[1], created as part of the foundation’s efforts to foster equitable improvements in the arts. Following an open call in 2021 that drew over 250 applicants, PHILADANCO! was selected as one of 18 nonprofit organizations representing dance and a diverse range of artistic disciplines, geographic locations, and communities served. Alongside the other selected organizations, PHILADANCO! will receive five years of funding to develop and pursue a project to address a strategic challenge. Researchers will document each organization’s work with the aim of developing useful insights about the relationship between community orientation, resilience, and relevance.
“We are very honored to be one of two dance companies invited to be part of the initiative,” states Joan Myers Brown, PHILADANCO!’s Founder and Executive Artistic Advisor. “We are looking forward to working with the wonderful cohort of organizations to explore and address issues that affect us all, such as succession, changing community needs, reslience, and sustainability.”
Originally announced in July 2021 as a $53 million endeavor involving about a dozen organizations, Wallace has expanded the initiative to include additional grantees and planned funding of up to $100 million across five years. While Wallace’s support will not eliminate the need for the other funding that sustains PHILADANCO! and the other grantee organizations, it does help provide the time and resources to explore new approaches to urgent challenges, including: succession planning; developing equity-centered practices; developing values-aligned business models; increasing visibility; and creating cultural spaces that nurture the creativity and well-being of artists and communities served.
First, PHILADANCO! will embark alongside the other grantees on a planning year for their individual projects in partnership with Wallace, researchers, consultants, and financial management advisers. While the specifics of each organization’s projects are unique, there are some commonalities and opportunities for shared learning and support. Grantees will work with Wallace to name the initiative and identify any technical supports they might need before beginning four years of project implementation.
The Community Orientation Action Research Team (COART), made up of researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Virginia, has been funded to co-develop the initiative’s research design with the grantees. The research is expected to explore the initiative’s guiding question through the lens of the projects that grantees will implement over four years. Additionally, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is overseeing a fellowship program for 18 early career qualitative researchers, one of whom will be paired with PHILADANCO! to develop an ethnography that documents the organization’s history, practices, and culture.
Complete list of participating organizations:
- 1Hood Media (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
- Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, Mich.)
- BlackStar (Philadelphia, Pa.)
- Chicago Sinfonietta (Chicago, Ill.)
- EastSide Arts Alliance, Black Cultural Zone, and Artist As First Responder (Oakland, Calif.)
- Esperanza Peace and Justice Center (San Antonio, Texas)
- Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture (Charlotte, N.C.)
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
- PHILADANCO! The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
- Pillsbury House + Theatre (Minneapolis, Minn.)
- Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Manhattan and Bronx, N.Y.)
- Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (San Francisco, Calif.)
- Ragamala Dance Company (Minneapolis, Minn.)
- Rebuild Foundation (Chicago, Ill.)
- Self Help Graphics & Art (Los Angeles, Calif.)
- Theater Mu (Saint Paul, Minn.)
- The Laundromat Project (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
- The Union for Contemporary Art (Omaha, Neb.)
The initiative builds on research going back to the 1970s suggesting that community orientation, along with high-quality artistic programming, may be foundational to organizational health. Community orientation has been described, across the literature, as preserving or presenting the artforms of a particular racial, ethnic, or tribal group, supporting artists from the focus community, developing the cultural workforce of that community, and advocating for the community within broader socio-political contexts, among other activities. In addition to building understanding of what community orientation looks like in different organizations, Wallace hopes to learn with the organizations how they define relevance and resilience. For more information, please click here.
About the grantee selection process
To select the first group of grantees, Wallace considered applications submitted from organizations across the visual and performing arts fields, media arts, and community-based organizations focused on artistic practice with budget sizes between $500,000 and $5 million. The foundation sought to create a group of funded organizations serving a variety of communities, focusing on projects that leverage community orientation and addressing different kinds of strategic challenges.
ABOUT PHILADANCO!
Founded in 1970, The Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO) is a 501© 3 organization that is celebrated for its innovation, creativity, and preservation of predominately African American traditions in dance. Recognized for its artistic integrity, superbly trained dancers, and electrifying performances, PHILADANCO! is committed to empowering youth with essential development skills that facilitate achievement and success in the world of dance and everyday life.
ABOUT THE WALLACE FOUNDATION
The Wallace Foundation’s mission is to foster equity and improvements in learning and enrichment for young people, and in the arts for everyone. Wallace works nationally, with a focus on the arts, K-12 education leadership and youth development. In all of its work, Wallace seeks to benefit both its direct grantees as well as the fields in which it works by developing and broadly sharing relevant, useful knowledge that can improve practice and policy. For more information, please visit the Foundation’s Knowledge Center at wallacefoundation.org.
For inquiries about The Wallace Foundation:
Delaney Smith
Resnicow and Associates
212-671-5160
DSmith@resnicow.com
[1] The Wallace Foundation uses the term “arts organizations of color” to describe organizations that have been founded by (in either artistic or administrative leadership) and for communities of color. Wallace recognizes that no one umbrella term can accurately represent the plurality and diversity of arts organizations that serve communities of color including Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx, Arab American, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders.