So-called genius grants are won by 24 new recipients
CHICAGO — A director who has taken opera from the concert hall to the streets of Los Angeles and an organizer who helped put a human face on the plight of young undocumented immigrants are among this year’s MacArthur fellows and recipients of the so-called genius grants.
The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Wednesday announced the 24 fellows, who each receive $625,000 over five years to spend any way they choose. The recipients work in a variety of fields, from computer science to theater, immunology and photography.
The foundation has awarded the fellowships annually since 1981 to people who show “exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.” Previous winners include “Hamilton” playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda and author-journalist TaNehisi Coates.
For opera director and producer Yuval Sharon, the news that he had been selected was “an enormous shock and honor.” When the foundation called, he assumed they were seeking a referral for someone else who’d been nominated.
“I’m totally amazed,” said Sharon, 37, the founder and artistic director of the Industry, a Los Angeles production company that produces operas in nontraditional spaces and formats.
A 2015 production transported audience members and performers to various locations in Los Angeles via limousines, with singers and musicians performing along the way and at each stop.
His next work, an adaptation of the radio program “War of the Worlds,” will utilize decommissioned World War II sirens to broadcast the performance occurring inside the theater onto the streets.
Another fellow, Cristina Jiménez Moreta, is co-founder and executive director of United We Dream, a national network of groups led by immigrant youth.
She was instrumental in pressing for the 2012 adoption of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the now-endangered executive order that allowed thousands of undocumented young people to live without fear of deportation. Others winners include: Taylor Mac, 44, the creator of the 24-hour piece “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” whose musical history recently played at San Francisco’s Curran Theater.
Viet Thanh Nguyen,46, — whose novel, “The Sympathizer,” about a communist double agent, won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Derek Peterson, 46, a historian of East Africa and professor at the University of Michigan.
Rhiannon Giddens, 40, the Grammy-winning musician who became the first woman and first nonwhite person to win a major prize for excellence on the banjo.