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The Ford Foundation Awards $1.25 Million Grant to UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance

The Ford Foundation has awarded a five-year grant of $1,250,000 to UCLA’s Center for Intercultural Performance (CIP) to establish an endowment to support the center’s core programs, develop new initiatives and continue its ambitious work into the future. The funds will enable CIP to create and implement a strategic plan that will stabilize and institutionalize the center within the University, the greater Los Angeles community, and with its international partners. The center will embark on a fundraising campaign to achieve the two-to-one match required by the foundation’s contribution.

“We are honored to have received this significant grant from The Ford Foundation,” said Christopher Waterman, acting dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. “These funds will make it possible for CIP to continue its important work in performing arts research and experimentation, and in promoting better understanding and appreciation across cultures.”

Core program activities planned during the 2002–07 period include The Art of Rice Traveling Theater, 2002 and 2003, an international and interdisciplinary public performance created by 11 traditional and contemporary artists from Asia and the United States; The Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) Fellowship, 2004 and 2006, an international residency program that promotes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary understanding; The World Festival of Sacred Music Los Angeles, 2005, a citywide multidisciplinary event to promote community dialogue; and special projects that include conferences and convenings, university/community partnerships, and publication and film/video documentation.

“In these turbulent times, it is particularly gratifying that The Ford Foundation recognizes the importance of international cultural exchange and is enabling us to provide a unique context in which open dialogue and creative cross-cultural work can take place,” said Judy Mitoma, director of CIP.

The Ford Foundation is a longtime supporter of the center with ongoing grants since 1995 in direct support of cross-cultural exchange and collaboration in the arts, specifically the international and interdisciplinary performance initiative, APPEX.

The Center for Intercultural Performance, an integral part of the Department of World Arts and Cultures in the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, supports interdisciplinary research, creative experimentation and education at a national and international level. It connects the campus to the broader public, through its culturally inclusive programs that respond to the diversity of the United States, and the work of artists and educators worldwide.