Creative Research Grants
Ian Andrew Askew
Performance Art/Theater
Brooklyn, NY
2025
Ian Andrew Askew, an artist working in music and performance, will develop a new interactive sonic instrument and performance installation exploring the moshpit as a site of ritual and release. Askew will spend time with core collaborators and community to design and prototype the SLAMDANCE pit simulator—a new instrument that converts physical impact into live sound. (Photo by Machel Ross)
Morgan Bassichis
Performance Art/Theater
Brooklyn, NY
2025
Morgan Bassichis, a comedic performer and writer, will begin their research for a new performance about Amy Winehouse. They will convene an ensemble of musicians to revisit her first show in the US (at Joe's Pub in 2007) and participate in fan-led walking tours in London to commune with Winehouse as musician, messenger, and martyr. (Photo by Bronwen Sharp)
Rashida Bumbray
Performance Art/Theater
Baltimore, MD
2025
Rashida Bumbray, a choreographer and curator, will develop a new performance work inspired by the porch parties of Piedmont Blues musician and dancer Algia Mae Hinton. Bumbray will travel with collaborators to North Carolina to study the Blues and flatfooting traditions associated with Hinton, whose dynamic buck dancing style and porch performances embodied community, music, and movement.
Yanira Castro
Performance Art/Theater
Brooklyn, NY
2025
Yanira Castro, an interdisciplinary artist, will travel to Puerto Rico to study traditional Vejigante mask-making alongside local artists. Castro will deepen her ongoing practice of using masks as portals for transformation and collective experience. This research will mark a return to ancestral ritual and a critical expansion of her artistic methods of engagement, imagination, and truth-telling. (Photo by Josefina Santos)
Erin Markey
Performance Art/Theater
Brooklyn, NY
2025
Erin Markey, a performance artist, will embark on a yearlong, collaborative experiment in deepening their musicianship—specifically through piano, voice, and composition—to support their embodied, somatic approach to songwriting and live performance. Markey aims to become a stronger composer, band leader, and performer through lessons in piano, music theory, improvisation, and classical notation.
Jessica Mehta
Performance Art/Theater
Hillsboro, OR
2025
Jessica Mehta, a poet and interdisciplinary artist, will research the origins and cultural implications of the Cherokee tear dress to develop a public installation and ceremonial burn on July 4, 2026. Mehta will relocate to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma to access archives, sewing classes, and work with elder tear dress designers to investigate the dress as a symbol.
Ahamefule Oluo
Performance Art/Theater
Quilcene, WA
2025
Ahamefule Oluo, a writer, composer and performer, will conduct research on the 1889 workers’ riot on Navassa Island to develop a new musical about race, freedom, and the founding of the American empire. Oluo will conduct on-the-ground research in Baltimore with a research assistant and creative producer to explore the Black community’s social and political context in the late 1800s. (Photo by Nick Ward)
Buffy
Performance Art/Theater
Brooklyn, NY
2025
Buffy, an artist and musician, will research transfeminist aesthetic lineages through experimental musical composition, developing work that sonifies transbiological and cosmological data from medical and personal archives. The grant will support her travel to Barcelona with collaborators as they explore the sonic, felt, and extratemporal dimensions of transgender life through electronic music. (Photo by MTHR TRSA)
