Seven Atlanta arts groups awarded American Rescue Plan grants by NEA

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded American Rescue Plan grants to nine Georgia arts organizations, including seven in metro Atlanta, to aid with their Covid-related recovery and reopening.

Full Radius Dance, which brings together disabled and nondisabled dancers through performance, education and advocacy, is receiving $50,000 to support a new part-time Community Engagement Manager for two years. Artistic/Executive Director Douglas Scott said that before the pandemic, the company had the capability to provide more community outreach but lacked the capacity in terms of personnel to do so.

“The hiring of a manager devoted exclusively towards community engagement will have an immediate impact by making outreach more proactive,” Scott said.

Out of Hand Theater also has been awarded a $50,000 grant and will use the funding to save jobs and to fund operations, health and safety supplies and marketing and promotional efforts to encourage participation in its programming.

Those programs include this fall’s “Equitable Dinners: Atlanta,” 500 potluck dinners being organized for 5,000 guests that bring together diverse groups for an evening of art and facilitated conversations around racial justice. The support also will be used to stage “Shows in Homes” performances in Atlanta living rooms of Leviticus Jelks’ play Calf as well as Out of Hand’s ongoing work on vaccine confidence for the CDC Foundation and the troupe’s efforts on child sex trafficking prevention.

“Out of Hand is honored to be able to expand the arts in connection with all of these important issues during the pandemic,” artistic director Ariel Fristoe said.

Here is a list of Atlanta grant recipients:

Art Papers, $100,000

Atlanta Film Society, $150,000

Center for Puppetry Arts, $150,000

Full Radius Dance, $50,000

National Black Arts Festival (NBAF), $100,000

Out of Hand Theater, $50,000

ROOTS, $150,000

The two Georgia grant awardees beyond Atlanta are Augusta’s Jessye Norman School of the Arts ($50,000) and Macon Arts ($100,000).

The American Rescue Plan was signed into law in March 2021, and the NEA was provided $135 million for the arts sector. This third installment provides more than $57.7 million for 567 arts organizations across the country.

In announcing the grants, NEA chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson termed the arts “crucial in helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire, as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”