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While all arts groups of all disciplines struggle to find funding, dance companies face a particular challenge in New York. Since 1999, BUILD (Building Up Infrastructure Levels for Dance) has provided small New York City-based dance companies with financial support to strengthen their administrative capacities and long range planning. Often funding is available to the organizations that present dance companies, but the BUILD program provides direct support to dance companies in support of their long-term goals and artistic vision.
Dance companies can to apply for either $10,000 Category I grants or $20,000 Category II grants, based on their three-year average budget and their number of performances in the same period. In 2003 and 2004, NYFA awarded a total of 12 Level I grants and 4 level II grants, totaling $206,000.
At right: Dancer Carla Rudiger in a work by Donna Unchizono. Photo by Robert Stivers, 2002
With the help of these grants, some companies were able to hire their first administrative staff. Others were able to hire consultants who guided them in crafting a strategic plan to attract and maintain donors, cultivate board members and launch capital campaigns. By providing the financial support these emerging companies need to expand their organizational structures, BUILD helps dance professionals balance their artistic growth with their administrative health.
One BUILD recipient, Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater, was able to retain consultants who helped the company prepare for a capital campaign to secure a new rehearsal and administrative space and expand fundraising efforts through direct mail campaigns. Neil Greenberg of Dance By Neil Greenberg reported to NYFA that “I was able to spend more time in my studio and began developing a string of new performance concepts that I believe will serve as the core of a new long range artistic plan.”
Shen Wei Dance Arts was able to hire its first full-time administrator as well as a development consultant while overhauling its Web site and creating DVDs containing press and performance samples. With BUILD support, Jane Comfort and Company enhanced its company manager’s responsibilities to improve its Web marketing and better handle their increased tour schedule, including new collaborations in theatre with Playwright’s Horizons and Shakespeare in the Park.
Through grants, training and the trusted expertise of our staff, NYFA remains committed to supporting organizations that are committed to sustaining the creative work of individual artists. In collaboration, NYFA and these arts organizations assure that the contributions of individual artists will continue to be celebrated and presented throughout New York state and elsewhere.
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