CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Two professors in the University of Illinois’ College of Fine and Applied Arts are among a select group of artists receiving 2009 grants from Creative Capital, the nation’s premier national artists support organization.
Terre O’Connor
Tere O’Connor, a professor of dance, and Deke Weaver, a professor in the School of Art and Design‘s New Media Program, each will receive an initial award of $10,000 to support new projects. They are among 61 artists – from a field of 2,068 applicants – to receive grants in support of 41 projects in emerging fields, innovative literature and performing arts.
Grantees also will participate in Creative Capital’s Artist Services Program, which, according to the organization, translates to a $25,000 value per artist. The program provides assistance with fund-raising, networking, marketing and strategic planning skills aimed at promoting the artists’ projects and careers.
O’Connor, a dance maker since 1982 who has created more than 34 works for his New York-based company and numerous others for companies around the world, received a grant in the performing arts/dance category. He will use the Creative Capital award to create a work for eight dancers, with music by composer James Baker. The piece will center on the nature of authority and on change as a generative force.
A former ballet instructor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, O’Connor is a 1993 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award and three “Bessie” New York Dance and Performance Awards, including one for sustained achievement.
Deke Weaver
Weaver, a writer, performer, and video and graphic artist who has presented his work throughout the United States and beyond, was awarded a grant in the performing arts/interdisciplinary category. The grant will support “The Unreliable Bestiary,” a project that encompasses a series of site-specific performances as well as a video, book and Web site about “our precarious moment in natural history.” Collaborating with Weaver on the piece – which also is supported by a U. of I. Center for Advanced Study Fellowship and an Arnold O. Beckman Research Award – is composer and improviser Chris Peck.
Weaver’s past awards have included a Zellerbach Foundation grant and three regional grants in film/video-making from the National Endowment of the Arts. He has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; the Ucross Foundation in northeastern Wyoming; and the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. His new performance piece, “Monkey,” will be presented Feb. 12-15 and Feb. 18-21 at the Station Theater in Urbana.
