Fall 2019
Calvin University
Project Name: The Undefeated: Presenting Kadir Nelson for Black History Month and Festival of Faith & Writing
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Southwest
Project Summary: For West Michigan and beyond, our project aims to provide impactful humanities experiences through an exhibition of the work of Kadir Nelson, internationally renowned and award-winning artist and author-illustrator. Nelson’s unforgettable paintings have made him an exceptional artist for our times, illuminating the brilliance found in the lives of black heroes, well-known and unsung. This exhibition will serve as the Midwest location for Nelson’s national tour, showcasing work from his 2019 book THE UNDEFEATED, a poetic celebration of black history co-created with writer Kwame Alexander. We will further expand the book’s visual and verbal vision through curriculum, public-school programming, community events & gallery talks, and multimedia resources.
Center for the Arts of Greater Lapeer
Project Name: Women’s Suffrage project
Grant Request: $13,688
Region: Mid-Michigan (Thumb)
Project Summary: This project will tell the story of the sacrifices of the women of the 19th and 20th Centuries. In honor of the ratification of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing all women the right to vote in the United States on August 18, 1920, these 21st century females are creating a presentation about the eighty-year struggle that brought the 19th Amendment to fruition. Centering the story from the perspective of the women in the movement from Michigan.
Charles H. Wright Museum
Project Name: Bird Lives! “Yardbird: Conversations”
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Southeast (Detroit)
Project Summary: Bird Lives! “Yardbird Conversations” is a core component of a larger compendium of programs designed to celebrate the centennial birthday of the legendary saxophonist, Charles Parker, Jr., known as Charlie Parker, Bird and Yardbird. This project will place a national spotlight on Detroit’s centrality in the development of bebop, a musical style the founded by Parker and his cohorts, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk in the 1940s.
Flint Youth Film Festival
Project Name: Flint Youth Film Festival
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Mid-Michigan/Southeast
Project Summary: A youth-driven project to capture and share stories about the Flint water crisis.
Marquette Regional History Center
Project Name: The Great Outdoors: The History of Outdoor Recreation in Marquette County
Grant Request: $5,400
Region: U.P.
Project Summary: Outdoor recreation has always been part of Marquette County’s unique local culture. Marquette County covers more land area than the state of Rhode Island and most of it is wilderness. Outdoor recreation opportunities abound. We seek to give outdoor recreation the serious treatment as a historical subject it deserves. From June 20 through December of 2020, the Marquette Regional History Center (MRHC) will host Great Outdoors: The History of Outdoor Recreation in Marquette County. This special exhibit and program series will engage the public in thinking about outdoor recreation as a humanities topic.
Michigan Opera Theatre
Project Name: Taking the Stage: The Changing Voice of Opera and Dance\
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Southeast (Detroit)
Project Summary: Michigan Opera Theatre (MOT) will continue in the coming year our commitment to interpreting opera and dance performances with humanities-oriented programming. Building on the successes of previous education and community programs, MOT is making this application to support the first phase of a new multi-year program, tentatively titled “Taking the Stage: The Changing Voice of Opera and Dance.” As MOT has planned several productions in the next several years dedicated to the African American experience, we feel it is necessary that we acknowledge and discuss with audiences how artistic canons benefit from the inclusion of a multiplicity of voices. Forums will take the form of a panel discussion and lecture series, film screenings, interpretive educational modules for middle- and high-school students, and pre- and post-performance conversations with audiences, taking place at the Detroit Opera House and across Southeastern Michigan.
Michigan State University
Project Name: Storied Landscapes: Bridging Ecological and Oral Histories on the Corey Marsh Interpretive Trail
Grant Request: $10,718
Region: Mid-Michigan
Project Summary: The Corey Marsh Interpretive Trail will inspire care for ecological systems and special places through stories. The ways people interact with nature have changed significantly over the last century; that change has been accelerated by technological changes that result in youth and adults spending more time with technology than with one another or the outdoors. This project combines ecological education with historical narrative and outdoor activity through an interpretive and educational trail, creating a new opportunity to connect people to nature and enable community members to participate in the re-storying of the land. The site of this project is the Michigan State University (MSU) AgBioResearch Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center (CMERC).
MSU Museum
Project Name: Beyond Black Panther: Visions of Afrofuturism in American Comics exhibit and programs
Grant Request: $10,000
Region: Mid-Michigan
Project Summary: The MSU Museum requests funding to develop an innovative exhibition exploring the themes of Afrofuturism through the lens of comic books. The exhibition includes comics from the Comic Art Collection at the MSU Library to highlight how the black imagination in comics can be a window on Afrofuturism. Large graphic panels of comic book elements will draw visitors in and encourage them to explore beyond what they know of Black Panther to walk away with a clearer understanding of what Afrofuturism is and the importance of the Black Imaginary in envisioning the future. In addition, we will bring two comic book authors to East Lansing to present related programs open to the public.
Museum of Ojibwa Culture
Project Name: Unlocking the Silence/A Path to Empowerment Travelling Exhibit
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: U.P./Statewide
Project Summary: A traveling exhibit will focus on the history of Michigan’s boarding schools. Michigan has a long history of land sharing through the vast and rich sharing among the Indigenous people and Euro-American settlers, since the beginning of statehood. Through this vast and rich history, inevitably displacement and conflict occurred in the development of the state. A part of this history includes the attempted assimilation of the Native American people already residing on the land. Hundreds of thousands of Native people were already residing in the state of Michigan, before settlers came to occupy territories, the first being Sault Ste. Marie in 1668, by Father Jacques Marquette. One way the colonizers of the time tried to assimilate native people of Michigan was by building boarding schools, (residential schools, as they are known in Canada) in 1893. Thousands of Native youth from the surrounding Michigan/Wisconsin/Minnesota area attended the Michigan Boarding schools, and because of that, many generations have been directly or indirectly affected by the largely negative impacts of the boarding school system.
Planet Ant Theater
Project Name: The Detroit Musical
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Southeast
Project Summary: The intent of The Detroit Musical is to present a comprehensive history of Detroit in an entertaining and digestible way in order to revive lost civic pride and remind the community that Detroit has been an important driver in American culture and the global economy. Planet Ant has workshopped this script with three low budget, small-scale productions, and each version has been received with overwhelming enthusiasm. The comment that Planet Ant staff most frequently hears during these smaller runs is “Everyone who lives here should see this show.” Funding from Michigan Humanities can help to upgrade this show from a quirky little independent production that a small number of dedicated theater fans have seen into a powerful full-scale production with impressive sets, elaborate costumes and bigger song and dance numbers. This funding allows Planet Ant to add the final touches that will make for a greater overall experience that will be more attractive to mainstream consumers.
Westshore Community College
Project Name: WSCC’s humankind series: “Dreams, Promises, and Realities: Life in Cuba and the US”
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Mid-Michigan
Project Summary: This is a request to provide partial support of arts and cultural components of West Shore Community College’s 2019-2020 HUMANKIND series, “Dreams, Promises, and Realities: Life in Cuba and the US.” The series includes exhibits, lectures, performances, texts, short residencies, movies, and discussions. We are seeking MHC funds for honoraria, lodging, and/or promotional costs for six presenters, an exhibit, and three movies with discussions.
Youth Arts: Unlocked
Project Name: HerStory: Unlocked Project
Grant Request: $15,000
Region: Southeast/Mid-Michigan
Project Summary: The HERSTORY: UNLOCKED Project empowers justice-involved girls by enabling them to find their own voices and become the tellers of their own stories. Youth Arts: Unlocked (YAU) will provide a year-long series of weekly Women’s History and arts based workshops to girls and LGB/GNC (gender non-conforming) youth housed at GVRC, Flint and Genesee County Michigan’s youth detention facility. HERSTORY: UNLOCKED workshops are trauma-informed, strengths-based and gender-responsive – they have been developed by the YAU team to specifically address the unique needs of incarcerated girls and LGB/GNC youth.