Author: Jon W. Sparks

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ArtsMemphis Gives Another Round of Operating Support Grants

ArtsMemphis has announced its second round of fiscal year 2021 operating support grants – for a total of $850,000 – benefitting 48 local arts organizations.

Funding evaluation criteria includes: grantee narrative reports surrounding organizations’ COVID-19 responses and commitments to advancing racial equity and inclusion; financials from 2019 and 2020 coupled with 2021 projections; and staffing data, including total artist engagement.

As the Mid-South’s primary arts funder, ArtsMemphis invested $2.8 million in 71 arts groups and 137 artists in 2020. During the COVID pandemic, the organization elevated its role as convener and connector for the arts sector by helping arts organizations maintain or rework business plans, create virtual arts events, and develop reopening protocols.

“We recognize that unrestricted operating support is necessary to shape a dynamic and sustainable arts community,” said ArtsMemphis president & CEO Elizabeth Rouse. “In addition to the COVID-prompted Artist Emergency Fund, we continue to prioritize our cornerstone operating support grant initiative, which is made possible each year by our corporate, foundation, and individual donors.”

Of the 48 awarded organizations, 41 percent are led by a person of color, and 77 percent are serving majority people of color participants.

“We are establishing equitable practices through not only the size, history, or genre of our awarded grantees — we are also covering a higher percentage of smaller organizations’ operating budgets, especially since their access to additional relief funds during COVID, such as PPP, has been limited,” said Rouse. “We felt this financial relief should be an immediate priority.”

Prior to the pandemic, 20 percent of ArtsMemphis’ grantees’ budgets were related to 1,300 staff. Arts organizations have reported an 80 percent reduction in the number of artists engaged in 2020 versus 2019, resulting in 8,570 artist engagements lost. Layoffs or furloughs were reported by 53 percent of arts organizations, impacting 560 positions, or 44 percent of the arts sector workforce.

The grantees are:

  1. AngelStreet
  2. Arrow Creative
  3. Ballet Memphis
  4. Ballet on Wheels Dance School & Company
  5. Beale Street Caravan
  6. Blues City Cultural Center
  7. Carpenter Art Garden
  8. Cazateatro Bilingual Theatre Group
  9. Children’s Ballet Theatre
  10. Circuit Playhouse, Inc.
  11. Collage Dance Collective
  12. Creative Aging Memphis
  13. Germantown Community Theatre
  14. GPAC
  15. Harmonic South String Orchestra
  16. Hattiloo Theatre
  17. Indie Memphis
  18. IRIS Orchestra
  19. Levitt Shell
  20. Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Inc.
  21. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
  22. Memphis Jazz Workshop
  23. Memphis Music Initiative
  24. Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul, Inc.
  25. Memphis Slim Collaboratory
  26. Memphis Symphony Orchestra
  27. Memphis Youth Symphony Program
  28. Metal Museum, Inc.
  29. Music Export Memphis
  30. New Ballet Ensemble & School
  31. New Day Children’s Theatre
  32. On Location: Memphis
  33. Opera Memphis, Inc.
  34. Orpheum Theatre Group
  35. Perfecting Gifts Incorporated
  36. Playback Memphis
  37. PRIZM Ensemble
  38. RiverArtsFest, Inc.
  39. Soulsville Foundation
  40. SubRoy Movement
  41. Tennessee Shakespeare Company
  42. The Blues Foundation
  43. The CLTV (Collective)
  44. Theatre Memphis
  45. Theatreworks
  46. UrbanArt Commission
  47. Young Actors Guild
  48. Youth Artist Development Academy

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News News Blog

Lag in Corporate, Foundation Funding Hurting Arts Groups

Local arts organizations are looking at a 25 percent decrease in 2021 income compared to pre-pandemic figures.

The data comes from ArtsMemphis on the arts groups it funds. It says that contributions from individuals increased in 2020 and that trend is continuing in 2021, but a decrease in corporate and foundation giving is reducing earned revenue for 2020-21 over 2019.

“Our arts organizations have made strategic shifts in operations and programs in order to continue harnessing an audience and providing artists a platform to create,” said Elizabeth Rouse, president and CEO of ArtsMemphis. “Hope and anticipation for a sense of recovery are brimming, but this recovery period requires major support. We’ll need community support to return to the economic powerhouse position the nonprofit arts sector was for the county prior to the pandemic.”

Arts organizations have reported an 80 percent reduction in the number of artists hired in 2020 versus 2019, resulting in 8,570 arts jobs lost. Layoffs or furloughs were reported by 53 percent of arts organizations, impacting 560 positions, or 44 percent of the arts sector workforce.

Hattiloo Theatre’s Ekundayo Bandele, speaking to a group of ArtsMemphis donors recently, said, “As we continue to modify our strategic plan, we’re putting our earned revenue in a separate column. We’re not counting on it, however, we are setting ourselves up for the long haul so we may remain a strong cultural resource for our community and one that is at the tip of the spear for the Black theater network.”

ArtsMemphis distributed $2.8 million in fiscal year 2020 to 137 individual artists and 71 organizations. It also hosted more than 30 convenings of the arts sector, and provided grantees with assistance in CARES funding opportunities. It will award its latest round of operating support grants this quarter.

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News News Blog

Small Businesses to Receive COVID Relief Money

Eric Robertson of Community LIFT and River City Capital.

The Community Foundation has announced a $750,000 grant to River City Capital for small businesses through the COVID-19 Relief Grant program. Businesses will be able to apply for $20,000 in grant support which, unlike loans, do not require repayment.

Preference will be given to businesses owned by people of color and to restaurants. Community LIFT will announce the process for obtaining grants soon.

Eric Robertson, president of Community LIFT and River City Capital, said, “It has been widely reported that 40 percent of all Black businesses in America have closed due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. At a time when the pandemic has lingered much longer than expected, this effort will target neighborhoods that are often forgotten and the hardest hit.”

The grant is one of a series of efforts by the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund – totaling about $9.1 – million to build resilience for those hardest-hit by the coronavirus crisis. The Fund invests in efforts to sustain small, minority-owned businesses; help homeowners keep their houses; address the trauma and mental health effects exacerbated by the consequences of COVID-19; and build support systems for people and families in dire need.

“We’re ready to help the Mid-South rebound,” said Community Foundation president Robert M. Fockler. “We’ve moved from a triage situation to one in which we are building long-term resilience, especially for the segments of our community that have had their stability drastically threatened by the persistent consequences of this devastating crisis.”

The Fund will also award $4 million in general operating support to nonprofits, with half of those funds earmarked for small- to mid-size agencies serving priority populations. Recipients of the first $2 million in funding will be announced in the spring.

Support for 2021 grantmaking comes from several sources, most significantly philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who in December donated $8 million to the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund, part of a $4 billion investment in effective nonprofits across the U.S. The Community Foundation was the only Memphis agency and one of 11 in Tennessee to receive funding from Scott.

In 2020, the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund awarded $4.9 million to nonprofits across the community in immediate relief and recovery dollars.

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News News Blog

Pay It Forward Campaign Boosts Hospitality Worker Relief Fund

The six-week-long Pay It Forward Mid-South campaign, which raised $473,721 for restaurant, hospitality, and service industry workers, has ended.

The volunteer driven effort sought contributions to the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund, hosted by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis.

All donations from December 21, 2020 through January 31, 2021 went directly to financial assistance for hospitality and service industry workers. The proceeds were split evenly between Welcome to Memphis and the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association.  

The volunteer leaders were Dr. Reginald Coopwood, president and CEO of Regional One Health, and his wife, Erica Stiff-Coopwood. The campaign was supported by 244 individual and company donors. 


Since it was started last March, the Fund has given $4.9 million to 138 distinct organizations for relief, recovery, and resiliency efforts. It continues to take donations for these other efforts. More information is here. 
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News News Blog

Temporary Downtown Gallery Features Regional Artists

Pop-up gallery site at 55 South Main.

The pandemic has dealt a blow to artists, but the creatives, undaunted, are fighting back.

For the next several months, the space at 55 South Main will be the home of 2021 Projects, a temporary gallery featuring the work of established and up-and-coming artists from the region. It’s part of the Downtown Memphis Commission’s (DMC) Open on Main initiative to energize and bring attention to available spaces.

Over the six-month schedule, the gallery will host a series of virtual and physical exhibits, opening receptions, lectures, and artist talks to engage the community.

The 2021 Projects schedule:

  • January 15th to February 12th: AtTest by Cat & Nick Peña, with a live Zoom interview Friday, January 22nd from 6-7 p.m.
  • February 19 to March 19: Andrea Morales & Khara Woods
  • March 26 to April 23: Maritza Davila & Carl Moore
  • April 30 to May 28: Johana Moscoso & Scott Carter
  • June 4 to June 25: Nelson Gutierrez Retrospective Show

“Blight and vacancy drag down property values, curtail a vibrant street life, and make it harder for our existing businesses to thrive,” says Brett Roler, VP of Planning for the DMC. “Filling high-profile gaps in street-level vibrancy is a top priority. In addition to showcasing available property, Open on Main offers entrepreneurs, artists, and small business owners a low-risk opportunity to test their concepts Downtown.”

The pop-up gallery offers safe viewing opportunities from outside the gallery on Main Street. Nelson Gutierrez is resident artist, curator and director of 2021 Projects. Carl Moore is advising artist for the project.

Other art-related Open on Main activations include Memphis Modern Market relocating to 65 Monroe from February to May 2021, and the continuation of Mary Ellen’s Kelly’s ArtChat series, which began as a part of her 2020 pop-up gallery and will continue in 2021.
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News News Blog

Regional Response Fund Giving to MIFA, Hospitality Workers

All donations to the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund through the end of January will go directly for the relief of hospitality and service industry workers. As part of the Pay It Forward Mid-South campaign, the funds will go to those workers who lose wages or employment as a result of restrictions imposed by the Health Department.

The Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund, administered by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, made its first set of grant awards, totaling $165,000, to two organizations:

  • Welcome to Memphis ($82,500) for individual relief funds to hospitality service employees. Eligible recipients are hourly workers of hotels, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions, convention services, or tour operators.
  • MIFA ($82,500) to provide rent, mortgage, and utility assistance for Memphis and Shelby County residents who have experienced a temporary crisis due to COVID-19, such as a job loss or reduction in pay.

The grants are expected to help more than 300 local workers. The Fund’s Advisory Committee anticipates making another set of grant awards at the end of the month, with a total determined by the amount of Pay It Forward Mid-South dollars raised. For more information, go here.

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News News Blog

Civil Rights Activist, Author, and Academic Miriam DeCosta-Willis Dies

Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis, a trailblazing activist, distinguished academic, and prolific author died Thursday at her home. She was 86. 

Dr. DeCosta-Willis was honored last month with a historical marker that will be placed on the University of Memphis campus. It celebrates her being the first Black professor at the school even though years before, in 1957, she was denied entrance to then-Memphis State University because of her race.

Miriam DeCosta-Willis

In a Memphis magazine profile in 2019, she talked about her life in social justice reform and her writing. “I kept on being rebellious,” she said, “but my activism took the form of my books because I was very influenced by other liberation movements in the 1970s, particularly the feminist rebellion and the gay rebellion. I protested in front of the White House and participated in the gay rights movement.”

U of M President M. David Rudd said in a statement, “We are forever grateful for the remarkable courage, sacrifice and service of Dr. DeCosta-Willis over many years at the University of Memphis. There are moments in the history of every institution that need to be memorialized. The great courage of Dr. DeCosta-Willis is one of those moments that will forever be remembered on our campus.”

In more than 40 years in academia, she also taught at LeMoyne-Owen College, Howard University, George Mason University, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She authored or edited 15 books, including Notable Black Memphians and Black Memphis Landmarks.

In 1955, she married attorney Russell B. Sugarmon, with whom she had four children — Tarik, Elena, Erika, and Monique — and in 1972, she married attorney A. W. Willis, who predeceased her. She is survived by her four children, eight grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Graveside services will be for immediate family. Donations may be sent to the U of M Miriam DeCosta Sugarmon Scholarship Fund at supportum.memphis.edu/decostascholarship.

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Museums’ COVID Closings Extend Into January

CREDIT: Jon W. Sparks

Jon W. Sparks

Spring, Summer, Fall at the Brooks Museum by Wheeler Williams

Most museums are temporarily closing their doors due to recent COVID restrictions. This list will be updated as needed.

  • Memphis Brooks Museum of Art will remain closed until Wednesday, January 6th. This includes all public programming.
  • The National Civil Rights Museum is temporarily closed until further notice.
  • The Pink Palace Museum closes December 24th at 2 p.m. through January 23rd.
  • The Metal Museum buildings and grounds will remain closed through the New Year and will reopen to the public on Friday, January 8th.
  • Stax Museum will be closed from December 24th through January 4th.
  • The Dixon Gallery and Gardens will continue to be open except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. It has a strict capacity limit and requires guests to wear masks and social distance during their visit.
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Theater Theater Feature

Lights! Camera! Nutcracker!

Pivot is a common term in dance, but at Ballet Memphis, it’s taken on a crucial new meaning. In these days of pandemic, it means taking a reliable annual favorite (Nutcracker) and reimagining how it can be presented with all the grace, charm, music, and wonder people are accustomed to, while keeping things safe for the performers and audience.

“When nothing is certain, anything is possible,” says Gretchen McLennon, CEO and president of Ballet Memphis. “For some people, Nutcracker is it for them, a holiday show that is their entrée into ballet and Ballet Memphis. It might be the only time we see them all year, but they’re committed to it.”

So she gathered the staff and asked how to get it out into the community. At first, there was the idea of doing a video of the stage performance, but McLennon wanted something different. “Ours is a more immersive, cinematic version,” she says. 

Rather than on the Orpheum stage, this production was filmed at the Mallory-Neely House and at Ballet Memphis. And its first showing will be Friday, December 11th, on WKNO-TV, free for all to see.

For Ballet Memphis artistic director Steven McMahon, the task was to significantly adapt the choreography for a shorter and slimmed down version of the classic. The usual huge cast has dozens of children, but because of safety considerations, the scenes with the little ones are absent. There were other parameters as well, a key one being that the dancers weren’t partnering with each other, so it is solos all around. Further, the party scene of Act One was restaged to fit the contours of the Mallory-Neely House.

Mei Kotani as Clara in Ballet Memphis’ Nutcracker

“There were obviously limitations in space and how we use the space and where you could dance and how you could dance,” McMahon says. “And even the camera can become the dancer at a certain point.”

It was an additional challenge to bring in the filmmakers who literally provide different perspectives and methods to the process. “I would stage something that I thought looked okay,” McMahon says, “but then you would see the camera angle and it’d be beautiful and so warm and inviting and not what I’m imagining, but so much better with the choice of lighting or camera movement.”

For the performers, it was a different mind-set entirely. Dancers are accustomed to one-and-done. “When they do something, then it’s done, whether it was good or bad,” McMahon says. “But here they would film it from one angle and then the whole thing from another angle. It was challenging to keep their energy up and to keep their consistency. But they rallied behind it. Nutcracker performances are special to people and the dancers want more than anything to dance.”

That’s why the performers were willing to do things differently during the production as well as to go through the process of testing, of wearing masks until the moment the camera started rolling, to slip it back on when the director said, “Cut!”

There are other benefits to having Nutcracker on a different-than-usual medium. “We have seven or eight international dancers [who] could not get home this year,” McLennon says. But now that the film version will be online, far-away friends and relatives will be able to see the dancers perform in a year that has largely taken that privilege away.

Cecily Khuner as the Dew Drop Fairy in Ballet Memphis’ Nutcracker

McLennon had been tapped some time ago to succeed Ballet Memphis founder Dorothy Gunther Pugh in the summer. She has long been involved with the organization and the idea was she knew it well enough to keep it vital. But the status quo fell victim to a global health crisis and clearly the immediate mission McLennon faced was to weather the situation and maybe even make the most of it.

Looking ahead, she says, “I think everyone recognizes we’re in a pandemic and arts organizations just want to be present and be part of their community and still top of mind. There’s grace and mercy around how people are monetizing this year for us to build friends and keep engagement going.”

Brandon Ramey as Herr Stahlbaum and Eileen Frazer as Frau Stahlbaum in Ballet Memphis’ Nutcracker

In February, Ballet Memphis will release additional virtual installments that are part of the “Say It” series of six short dance films by company members. Usually in April there’s a major presentation at the Orpheum, but that won’t happen in this atypical year. But there will be an alternative. “We all have to be flexible and be ready and be nimble for changing circumstances,” McLennon says. “Maybe in April we could do a ticketed event at an outdoor venue, like the Botanic Garden, like the Grove at GPAC, and offer a night or perhaps even a weekend of dance. Our dancers are so hungry to perform live again.”

Ballet Memphis’ Nutcracker

Friday, December 11th, at 8 p.m. on WKNO-TV. Subsequent TV showings are listed here. 

Then beginning at 8 a.m. on Saturday, December 12th, and throughout the holiday season it’s available for streaming on the Ballet Memphis website.

New Ballet Ensemble’s Nut Remix

The production starring Charles “Lil Buck” Riley will screen at the Malco Summer Avenue Drive-In December 10th and 17th. Set on Beale Street, Nut Remix is a modern reinvention of Tchaikovsky’s classic Nutcracker. The fundraiser is a pay-what-you-can event to support scholarships at New Ballet. Gates open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 6:30 p.m. Tickets must be purchased online in advance here.

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State, County Showing Economic Bounce Back

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett

Even though economic activity is still below pre-pandemic peak levels, Tennessee — and particularly Shelby County — is showing signs of economic recovery.

The Tennessee Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report for the third quarter of 2020 showed 16,470 new entity filings, representing a 42.2 percent increase over the same quarter in 2019. Initial filings have now seen positive year-over-year growth for 35 consecutive quarters. “The pandemic made a significant impact on our economy, but Tennessee’s entrepreneurial spirit and business-friendly environment has seen some Tennesseans start their own businesses,” said Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

Growth in new entity filings is generally a good indicator for employment, personal income, and revenue growth in Tennessee. However, due to the pandemic, future economic growth will depend on public policy measures and the reactions of businesses and private consumers, Hargett said.

Shelby County saw the largest number of new entity filings and the highest rate of growth, with Davidson County a close second, followed by Hamilton and Knox counties. These four counties accounted for 56 percent of all new entity filings in Tennessee.

After spiking at 15.5 percent in April, Tennessee’s unemployment rate has trended downward, falling to 6.3 percent in September. By comparison, the national unemployment rate reached 14.7 percent in April and fell to 7.9 percent in September. 

“Tennesseans’ business ingenuity has really shone through over the past half year or so,” said Dr. Bill Fox, the director of the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research. “More than 16,000 new entity filings this quarter show that people across the state are embarking on new journeys like making masks, delivering food, providing enhanced cleaning services and more to make the best of the situation we are all in together.”

The Tennessee Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report provides a snapshot of the state’s economy based on various key indicators, including new business data from the Secretary of State’s Division of Business Services. It’s published through a partnership with the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research and the Secretary of State.