West Hollywood awards $211,000 in arts grant program

Wave Staff Report

WEST HOLLYWOOD — The city has awarded $211,000 as part of its 2023-24 Arts Grant Program.

The city received 49 applications and $315,604 in funding requests from artists and nonprofit arts organizations proposing art projects in the city in 2023. The city awarded 20 new grants and 16 multi-year grants representing a variety of arts disciplines and excellent proposals.

Nonprofit arts organizations receiving grants include the Brockus Project Dance Company, Grand Performances, International Eye Los Angeles, Mashup Contemporary Dance Company, Oasis Players, Pieter, Pride Poets and Saturday Night Bath Concert Fund.

The Transgender Arts Initiative Grant category supports and enhances the presentation of artworks in West Hollywood by transgender artists, artist collectives or groups, and nonprofit organizations with a history of supporting transgender artists.

Last year, the city received four eligible applications; this year 16 applications were received. The 2023 grant recipients in this category are: Celebration Theatre, Cleveland Wright Lopez, Drian Juarez, Lauren Woods and Marval A Rechsteiner.

The Community Arts Grant intends to support nonprofit arts organizations with a history of supporting Black and indigenous people of color and/or female artists and audiences. The grant recipients in this category include: Age Inclusion in Media, the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, Chicana Directors Initiative and East West Players.

The WeHo Artist Grant aims to nurture and support the long-term development of an artist’s ideas by providing funds that increase the capacity for artists to realize work, advance the conditions of creation and navigate the complexities of both making art and making a career. The West Hollywood resident artist grant recipients for 2023 are Ignacio Darnaude, Sharmin Rahman and Steven Reigns.

In addition to these new grant awardees, the city continues to support its multi-year grantees in their second or third year of programming. The multi-year grantees are: Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, Greenway Arts Alliance, Helix Collective, Kontrapunktus Neo-Baroque Chamber Orchestra, LAXART, Look What She Did, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, ONE Archives, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Suarez Dance Theater, the New Arts Foundation, War Toys, Prism Comics, No Easy Props, Arts Bridging the Gap, and Wordsville.

The city has maintained an arts grant program since 1997 through its Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission. The commission made recommendations through the city’s Performing Arts and Cultural Affairs Subcommittee and the City Council approved the recommendations Sept. 19.

For more information, contact Eva Angeloff, grants coordinator in the city’s Arts Division, at (323) 848-6354