The Arts Council for Long Beach announced Wednesday the addition of a $5,000 Risk and Innovation Grant to its roster of funds given to the local arts community. The grant is designed to spur innovation in communities through “experimental, art-based problem solving,” stated the release.
Local filmmaker Donovan Vim Crony was awarded the grant to complete Anarchy Nowadays, a narrative short film about young punk rockers of color from Long Beach. Crony said it would have been “incredibly difficult” to approach the film without the Arts Council’s generous grant.
“Young people of color around the world have been stuck in the same narratives of tragedy and pain through media and film for many years now,” he said in a statement. “Our collaborative effort to create something that shows we can grow, experience love, create art and learn from each within the context of a rock and roll film will be such a great experience.”
Arts Council President Marco Schindelmann said that the grant offers the Arts Council a way to fund projects outside of mainstream culture and they are happy to set that precedent.
“This grant not only offers risk to the grantee but also allows the Arts Council to invest in risk as an alternative mode towards future innovation,” he said in a statement.
Alongside the Risk and Innovation Grant, the Arts Council announced that a record number of Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) classrooms were awarded an Arts Education Enrichment Grant for the 2015-16 school year, tripling the number of recipients to 32 classrooms at 24 schools. The increased funding came from the Ruth and Joseph C. Reed Foundation for the Arts, while ongoing funding is made possible by support from Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe’s office, according to the release.
“Arts education is integral to the lives of youth in Long Beach,” said Executive Director Griselda Suárez in a statement. “When we fund arts education, we invest in our future creative sector. I am pleased that, through this grant, the Arts Council will serve 3,533 students in all nine council districts.”
The 2015–16 Arts Education Enrichment Grant recipients are Barton Elementary, Bixby Elementary, Cabrillo High, Franklin Classical Middle, Fremont Elementary, Garfield Elementary, Gompers K-8, Hudson K-8, Hughes Middle, International Elementary, Jackie Robinson K-8 Academy, Kettering Elementary, Lafayette Elementary, Lakewood High, Longfellow Elementary, Marshall Middle Academy of the Arts, Millikan High, Muir Elementary, Powell Elementary, Prisk Elementary, Renaissance High, Stevenson Elementary, Washington Middle and Wilson High.
For more information about the Arts Council for Long Beach, click here.
Images from Anarchy Nowadays courtesy of the Arts Council for Long Beach.