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The Offbeat Grant title is given
to an existing grant that the Board of Directors elects
and
names
annually based solely on the unique (and sometimes amusing)
quality of the project.
2006: To California Shakespeare Theatre,
Berkeley, California to support Hamlet: Blood in the Brain project.
During the time of the suspension of the Foundation's grant program,
the Directors decided to select a recent discretionary grant which indicates
the breadth of interest and creativity in the Foundation grant making. At the
November, 2005, Board meeting, the Directors selected as their offbeat grant
of the year for 2006 a project of the California Shakespeare Theatre which has
been supported by the Foundation in 2004 and 2005. The Theatre has created an
initiative entitled New Works/New Communities whose goal is to bring disparate
communities together to participate directly in the creation of new works of
theatre inspired by classic literature. For its first major commission, the Theatre
has undertaken placing Hamlet in the modern day Oakland, California, community.
The project is ongoing; the premiere of the result will be in October, 2006.
Please read the July 2005 Project Update prepared by California Shakespeare Theatre
to see the full scope of the project and the Foundation's grant.
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ON THIS INTERESTING GRANT...
2005: To Institute of Nautical
Archeology College Station, Texas to support Persian War
Shipwrecks Archaeological Project.
This project surveys the seas off the Mt. Athos Peninsula,
Greece, in search of remains for a Persian armada which sank
there in about 492 B.C. during Darius the Great's first attempt
to invade Greece. According to Herodotus (VI:44), nearly
300 ships were lost and over 20,000 men perished in a storm.
Research is conducted by the Institute jointly with the Hellenic
Center for Marine Research and the Canadian Archeological
Institute of Athens and uses submersibles and remote-operated
vehicles. Selected target areas were searched in two successful
field seasons in 2003, and 2004, locating numerous artifacts
including some with potential dating to the 492 B.C. storm.
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ON THIS INTERESTING GRANT...
2004: To Chanticleer of San Francisco,
California for support of a commissioned work that explores
the life of the twelfth century abbess Hildegarde von Bingen.
Chanticleer as part of their program for developing new
works has commissioned a theatrical presentation of the life
of the twelfth century abbess Hildegard von Bingen (visionary,
composer, poet, dramatist, herbalist, moralist and physician).
The playwright is Donna DiNovelli. The presentation will be
directed by Francesca Zambello. Two composers have so far
been selected: Pulitzer Prize winning composer Steven Stucky
and rising French composer Regis Campo. The music will be
chosen from von Bingen's own works and other music based on
her texts including three pieces especially composed for this
work. The twelve members of the Chanticleer chorus will represent
twelve cardinals in Rome who meet to determine whether Hildegarde
von Bingen would be admitted to sainthood. The results will
be a very portable vehicle for Chanticleer that will be offered
to such festivals as Edinburgh, Spoletto, and the BBC Proms.
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ON THIS INTERESTING GRANT...
2003: To
the University of Iowa, Iowa City, for support of the production
of The Devil's Rope, a documentary video on the history
and development of barbed wire.
The Devil's Rope is
a documentary video that focuses on a small band of avid
collectors of barbed wire to tell
the colorful, and brutal, story of this American invention.
The collectors are men in their 70s and 80s from the Middle
West and Western U.S. who gather together at small conventions
across the Plains States to buy, sell, trade and dicker about
barbed wire. Using their stories as a theme, the documentary
explores the beauty and ingenuity and horror of this most
American of inventions, beginning with its humble forerunner,
the "Wooden Strip with Metallic Points," first
shown at an 1873 county fair in Illinois to its adoption
by Amnesty
International as a symbol of political repression.
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ON THIS INTERESTING GRANT...
2002: To
the University of Hawaii at Monoa, Honolulu, for field work
for archeological
research of wrecks of Civil War whaling ships destroyed by
the C.S.S. Shenandoah in April 1865, in Pohnpei, Federated
States of Micronesia.
Under the auspices of the
American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service,
U.S. Department of Interior,
maritime archeologists are investigating Pohnahtik Harbor
on Pohnpei. Pohnahtik is the harbor where four whaling
vessels were captured and sunk by the C.S.S. Shenandoah,
a Confederate raider sent to the Pacific to destroy the merchant
whaling fleet sailing from American ports.
The Confederate government hoped that the loss of these valuable
vessels would encourage the ship owners to petition the U.S.
Government for a settlement with the Confederate States before
they were forced to surrender. From the sailing charts
captured during the attack at Pohnpei, the Shenandoah
was able to locate and virtually destroy the whaling fleet
during the months of April through August, 1865. Ironically,
all of the destruction occurred after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
While the action did not have an effect on the outcome of
the Civil War, the whaling industry, already suffering a decline
due to a decrease in the number of whales and an increase
in the use of petroleum as an alternate fuel source, never
recovered from the destruction of the 1865 whaling fleet.
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ON THIS INTERESTING GRANT...
2001: To the Salisbury
and South Wiltshire Museum, England for purchase of the Warminster
Jewel
Discovered in a field near Wiltshire, England, the Warminster
Jewel is an aestel (manuscript pointer) made of rock crystal
and gold with an inset of lapis lazuli. The Skaggs Foundation
was able to assist in its purchase after it was discovered
that the museum did not qualify for the usual sources of funding
for acquiring British antiquities. The Jewel dates from the
ninth century.
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2000: To
the Textile Conservation Centre in Winchester, England for
conservation
of "deliberately concealed garments".
In the construction of medieval buildings, workers would conceal
garments and shoes to ward off evil spirits and bring good
luck to the inhabitants. When surprised modern workers discovered
these untouched objects bricked into the walls of houses during
the renovation of homes, they were brought to the attention
of the University of Southampton's Textile Conservation Centre.
A three-year grant totaling $30,000 from the Skaggs Foundation
has been used to assist the collection, conservation and description
of the fascinating artifacts of this curious practice from
an age now long gone.
1999: To the Cobbe Foundation
for restoration of Gustav Mahler's Graf piano
In a world where music collections are silent, the Cobbe Foundation
offers a veritable gallery of sound. It collects and restores
to playing, historic keyboard instruments such as those played
by the likes of Bach, Chopin and Elgar. Austrian conductor
and composer, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), possessed a unique
piano that has come into the Cobbe collection. The Skaggs
Foundation contributed to the restoration of Mahler's Graf
piano, one of only three surviving quadruple-string Grafs
(Beethoven's being one of the other two).
1999: To the world-famous
male vocal chorus, Chanticleer in order to purchase matching
tuxedos
How could this group be expected to perform in mis-matched
suits? The Skaggs Foundation helped with a modest grant to
take care of this critical need.
The singers used to supply their own white tie and tails
concert dress. Some outfits were new, some inherited, some
tailored, some altered. The result was a mish-mash. The Skaggs
grant provided for a complete set of new concert dress for
each singer from Brooks Brothers!
More recently, Chanticleer has been given a grant to
assist in the commissioning of a work to celebrate the 25th
anniversary season of Chanticleer. Sir John Tavener,
one of the preeminent living composers for choral works, will
prepare a work Lamintations and Praises which draws
upon Sir John's Greek Orthodox background in presenting a
liturgical drama which depicts the Orthodox conception of
Good Friday. The Libretto for Lamentations and Praises
will be written by Orthodox Abbess Mother Thekla. The work
will have its world premiere in 2002.
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ON THIS GRANT...
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