Cactus Club, others win big grants from Ruth Foundation for the Arts
Ten small and midsize Wisconsin arts and cultural organizations, including four in Milwaukee, are receiving major special project grants of $100,000 to $200,000 from Milwaukee-based Ruth Foundation for the Arts, the foundation announced Wednesday.
The Milwaukee-based projects and organizations include:
Academia Bembé, a communitybased, public, cultural arts academy, from Bembé Drum & Dance, 611 S. Layton Blvd.
Cactus+ Accessibility Initiative, a combination of infrastructure improvements, artist resourcing and community programming, from Cactus+, the arts education and community building arm of Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave.
Disability Theater - Expanding the Canon, a multiyear initiative to create up to 20 new plays that include disabled artists and actors on and off stage, from Pink Umbrella Theater Company.
(W)here in the World Dance Festival, an event planned for spring 2025 that would feature choreographers from five world dance traditions, from Studio K Flamenco.
The other Wisconsin recipients are: Bad River Ojibwe Artist in Residence Program, which would enable Ojibwe artists to share both traditional and contemporary artistic methods, from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Bizhiki: Unbound, a touring multidisciplinary music and video performance about contemporary Ojibwe culture, from Chevelon Music.
GEEX Shorts, bite-sized videos of BIPOC and queer artists sharing their knowledge and creative practice in glass arts, from Madison-based GEEX.
Hmoob Zaj Dab Neeg aka The Hmong Story, a program to preserve Hmong culture and language, from the Hmong American Center of Wausau.
LAB^4: A Community Curation Project, featuring interdisciplinary teams of artists, writers, performers, community advisers and students developing eight weeks of cultural programming, from Madison’s Arts & Literature Laboratory.
Wažookj Hosto (Family Gathers), seasonal arts and traditional skills workshops, from the Ho-Chunk Nation based in Black River Falls.
The grants are for a two-year period.
More than 80 state-based organizations with operating budgets under $2 million applied for Wisconsin special project grants, the first time Ruth Foundation for the Arts has made these awards and its only current open application program. A national panel of jurors selected the grant recipients.
Launched in 2022, the Ruth Foundation began with an endowment of $440 million, making it one of the largest arts givers in the country.
The foundation was funded by a bequest from the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II and has called itself “Midwestern at heart, and national in scope.”