Nevada Ballet, Arts Council get NEA grants

Nevada Ballet Theatre received a $10,000 grant Wednesday from the National Endowment for the Arts, part of more than $750,000 in grants awarded to Nevada arts organizations.

NBT received $10,000 to help present legendary choreographer George Balanchine’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” to be featured in a 2015 production of the Rodgers and Hart musical “On Your Toes.” The show, which will inaugurate downtown’s new Cultural Corridor Theatre Center (in the former Reed Whipple Cultural Center), represents a collaboration among NBT, the Las Vegas Shakespeare Company and the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

The Nevada Arts Council was awarded $663,500 for the third year of its Partnership Agreement Grant, which supports the council’s programs, outreach activities and various grant categories.

Other Nevada grant recipients include Elko’s Western Folklife Center, which will receive $45,000 for a series of poem-films to be presented at the 2016 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, folk arts conferences, film festivals and gallery installations; and Fallon’s Churchill Arts Council, which was awarded $50,000 to support a series of interrelated musical performances and outreach activities at Fallon’s Oats Park Art Center.

Nationwide, NEA awarded more than $78 million in grants. national panels of artists and arts experts review the grant applications, which are forwarded to the National Council on the Arts for further evaluation. Final grant decision are made by NEA’s acting chair, Joan Shigekawa.

The grant recipients “help to extend the NEA’s reach to thousands of communities across the country, while also carrying out innovative programming in education, creative place making and cultural tourism,” Shigekawa stated in a news release.

“For every dollar invested by the NEA, grantee organizations raise an additional $9 in support from other, non-federal sources,” Shigekawa added. “These NEA-supported projects will have a positive impact on local economies and provide opportunities for people of all ages to participate in the arts, help our communities to become more vibrant, and support our nation’s artists as they contribute to our cultural landscape.”