Home > News > Ford Foundation Awards Second $600,000 Grant to UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance

Ford Foundation Awards Second $600,000 Grant to UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance

Carolyn Campbell (ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu) (310) 825-6540
For Immediate Use Tuesday, November 10, 1998.

The UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance (CIP) has received a second three-year $600,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to continue the Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) Artists Fellowship through the year 2001. The award was announced by Professor Judy Mitoma, director of the CIP, who administers the program with associate director Sue Fan. The program will place artists in an interactive six-week summer program on the UCLA campus.

In 1995, as part of an initiative designed to strengthen international exchange and collaboration in the arts, the Ford Foundation awarded one of five national grants to the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures’ newly-established Center for Intercultural Performance.

APPEX is an international residency program that promotes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary understanding. Since its inception in 1995, it has brought together more than 45 traditional and contemporary performing artists from throughout the United States and Asia -- including Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam -- for intensive residency sessions on the UCLA campus.

"Funding from the Ford Foundation gives the Center for Intercultural Performance an opportunity to build institutional capacity and formulate long term plans," said Mitoma. "The next three years will see important changes in our APPEX program and will give us an opportunity to establish relationships with other organizations."

The program's activities fosters the development of rigorous strategies for art-making that reflect the nuances of cultural differences as well as new ways to experiment, collaborate and interpret artistic expression. Work created during the program demonstrates an intercultural sensibility that inspires new creative expressions.

The CIP has established the new Asia Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX) Writers Fellowship Program, which will complement the Artists Fellowship Program by placing writers and scholars in an interactive residency program along with the artists. Twenty-eight artists and four writers from Asia and the United States will be chosen from a competitive application process for the 1999 and 2000 programs. Applications for the APPEX Fellowships can be requested by calling (310) 206-1335. Information and applications can be downloaded from the CIP web site at http://www.arts.ucla.educ/centers/cip/cip.html. Applications are due by Dec. 1, 1998.

The Center for Intercultural Performance, an integral part of the Department of World Arts and Cultures in the UCLA School of the Art and Architecture, supports interdisciplinary research, creative experimentation and education at a national and international level. It serves as a link to the outside professional world by initiating and supporting intercultural exchange and collaboration. Its ultimate purpose is to connect multicultural arts education and research within the university to the work of artists from diverse communities and traditions.


Contact: Carolyn Campbell
Phone: (310) 825-6540
Email: ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu