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A hundred-thousand dollars of federal stimulus money is headed to Charlotte through a program helping cultural organizations preserve jobs.
N.C. Dance Theatre and the Levine Museum of the New South will each receive $50,000 from a pool of nearly $30 million established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. NCDT, the museum and five other N.C. groups are among 631 organizations receiving money from the fund, which is administered by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The recession has forced cultural groups across the country to cut jobs and other spending, the Levine Museum's executive director, Emily Zimmern, noted Thursday.
“We're just in a caldron of uncertainty right now,” Zimmern said. The federal money will make it easier for cultural groups to hang onto jobs.
The Levine Museum applied for $50,000 to support the salary of its head of exhibitions, Zimmern said. One of that staffer's main tasks this year will be to supervise an updating – paid for by money from other sources – of the museum's permanent exhibit on Piedmont history, “Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers.”
“‘Banking Boomtown' is not the last chapter at this point,” Zimmern said.
“Obviously, we need a person to oversee that (updating). …This funding ensures that we're able to keep that person.”
NCDT asked for $50,000 to go to the salaries of the six young dancers in the NCDT 2 training troupe, executive director Doug Singleton said. The NCDT 2 dancers handle the bulk of the company's educational performances. They also flesh out the casts of the main troupe's programs.
The federal money “will help keep six young artists alive and well and employed in Charlotte, N.C.,” Singleton said.
The other N.C. grants are:
American Dance Festival, Durham: $50,000.
EnergyXchange, Burnsville: $50,000.
Greensboro Symphony: $50,000.
N.C. Folklife Institute, Durham: $25,000.
Penland School of Crafts, Penland: $50,000.
The five S.C. groups on the recipient list include the Spoleto Festival, which will receive $25,000.
The stimulus package also includes nearly $20 million going mainly to state arts councils, which then will pass the money along to organizations in their states. The N.C. Arts Council will receive $339,100. An announcement from the council said the grants from that fund will be announced in August.
