There was some disappointing news a week or so ago when the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced the sunsetting after 28 years of the National Theater Project and National Dance Project due to a priority shift by the Mellon Foundation.
Across the course of my career, I availed myself of the opportunity to present dance companies supported by the National Dance Project. The support helped to cultivate an audience for dance in a couple communities in which I worked. The funding helped remove some of the risk inherent to introducing dance to communities who had low to no familiarity with the art form.
The deadline for the last phase of the National Theater Project is in October and the final iteration of the National Dance Project will be in Januar/February.
The preliminary application for the final NTP grant cycle in its current form opens on September 6, 2024, and closes on October 10, 2024.
The preliminary application for the final NDP grant cycle in its current form will open in January 2025.
The statement released by NEFA says the following about the Mellon Foundation priority shift:
…Mellon partners as they do the important work of aligning their resources to best serve social justice in the performing arts for future generations
My first impression was that they would be supporting internal capacity of arts organizations to be more equitable and inclusive along the lines of creating a better working environment by establishing fairer pay and work hours. But as I re-read the statement I realized it encompasses one of ten thousand different options. I guess we will see when Mellon chooses to clarify their new goals.