NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: November 28, 2011

For More Information:
David Wedekindt, Center for the Arts
716-645-6775 or [email protected]

UB Center for the Arts receives NEA grant to support Doug Varone & Dancers and cellist Stephen Katz residency.

Grant part of NEA announcement of 863 grants and $22.543 million in funding nationwide.

Buffalo, NY - The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman announced that the agency will award 863 grants to organizations and individual writers across the country. The Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo is one of the grantees and will receive $30,000 to support the Arts in Healthcare Residency Program. Doug Varone and Dancers and cellist Stephen Katz will perform and conduct hands-on activities with patients, staff, and families at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo for two weeks in March 2012. The 863 grant awards total $22.543 million, encompass 15 artistic disciplines and fields, and support projects in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Since 1997 the Center has conducted more than a dozen professional dance outreach projects to provide arts education for more than 24,000 students at schools primarily in the City of Buffalo. These students have been afforded the opportunity to experience a live professional dance performance in their schools, free of charge, by some of the world's finest companies. In addition, UB dance majors benefit from master classes with members of these professional dance companies. The residency activities have now expanded to our partner hospitals in the Arts in Healthcare initiative - Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo. This grant will expand the residency activities in the two hospitals.

"Art Works is the guiding principle at the NEA," said agency Chairman Rocco Landesman. "And I'm pleased to see that principle represented through the Art Works-funded projects included in this announcement. These projects demonstrate the imaginative and innovative capacities of artists and arts organizations to enhance the quality of life in their communities."

Thomas Burrows, Executive Director of UB Center for the Arts noted "This is the first time the Center for the Arts has received a grant from the NEA. Our Arts in Healthcare initiative is a diverse, multidisciplinary program dedicated to transforming health and healing by connecting people with the arts at key moments in their lives. Support at a national level truly demonstrates the importance and value of our community outreach activities."

In March 2011, the NEA received 1,686 eligible applications for Art Works requesting more than $84 million in funding. The resulting funding rate of 49 percent of eligible applications reflects both the significant demand for support and the ongoing vitality of the not-for-profit arts community despite current financial challenges. Art Works grants are awarded based on the applications received by the NEA and how those applications are assessed by the review panels.

For a complete listing of projects recommended for Art Works grant support, please visit the NEA web site at www.arts.gov.

For more information on the Center for the Arts and its activities, please visit www.ubcfa.org.


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Dave Wedekindt
Director of Marketing
Center for the Arts - University at Buffalo
103 Center for the Arts
Buffalo, NY 14260

716.645.6775 (p)
716.645.6929 (f)
www.ubcfa.org
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