Grants:2007 Large Grant Awards


The Happiness Lecture with the award-winning Bill Irwin included a panel on the art and politics of clowning. Presented by the Philadelphia Theatre Company.

In 2007, PHC funded 13 outstanding Large Humanities Grant projects. The awarded projects demonstrate a strong commitment to innovative humanities programming. With funding from PHC, these grantees are able to provide opportunities for ongoing learning, produce interactive and participatory projects, and create and strengthen communities.

  • American Philosophical Society Museum (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Exploration Never Ends

    Three public projects under the umbrella of Exploration Never Ends are designed to support the museum's exhibition UNDAUNTED: Five American Explorers 1760-2007. The trio of projects includes bookmaking workshops and hands-on science demonstrations, a film series featuring documentaries on explorers, and a seven-day canoe trip on the Schuylkill River. Each is created for the promotion of useful knowledge—from how to record scientific data accurately and artfully, to how to use a compass.

  • Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Chinatown In/flux: Future Landscape

    The title In/flux refers to Chinatown's constant flow of new immigrants, changing ethnic demographics and the growth of the neighborhood's physical boundaries. A collaborative curatorial process between the community and artists, In/flux creates site-specific installations designed to articulate glimpses of Chinatown's future social and physical landscape. Accompanying the installation are workshops, panel presentations, public tours, as well as an interactive website, a printed exhibit catalogue and a gallery show.

  • August Wilson Center for African American Culture (Allegheny County)
    Project: Civil Rites

    As part of a larger project to record the remembrances of hundreds of Pittsburgh residents, Pittsburgh Civil Rites: Oral Histories of Two Generations of Artists records the recollections and creative expressions of individuals who lived in and around Pittsburgh during the post WW II years and Black Power era. Such a record provides context to the lives of the region’s ordinary folk, while highlighting some of the nation’s most influential African American contributors such as jazz greats Billy Strayhorn and Errol Garner, photographer Charles Harris and playwright August Wilson.

  • Dancefusion (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Great Tragic Themes: The Reconstruction of Barren Sceptre

    Barren Sceptre, a 1960 dance work choreographed by American modern dance master Jose Limón, retells the Shakespearean downfall of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Inspired from the line, "Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires," Barren Sceptre is the focal point for a symposium on great tragic themes in literature. The symposium includes three panel discussions, a screening of a video documentary about the reconstruction process, and a lecture/demonstration performance.

  • Elfreth's Alley Association (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Place: Sharing the Stories of Philadelphia's Everyday People

    A national historic landmark district in Philadelphia, Elfreth's Alley has been preserved as an 18th century streetscape for nearly 70 years. In accord with their mission of sharing stories related to the 18th century history of the site, Elfreth's Alley will bring scholars, institutional partners and community members together for meaningful dialogue about the timeless themes that connect ordinary people today with their counterparts in the past.

  • Erie Art Museum (Erie County)
    Project: American Mystic: The Magical Life of Harry Kellar

    Born in 1849, Harry Kellar was an apothecary's apprentice from Erie, Pennsylvania who proved the impossible was indeed possible. Astonishing American audiences with his otherworldly illusions, he became the dean of American magicians, mentor to Houdini and the inspiration for L. Frank Baum's wizard in The Wizard of Oz. An one-hour documentary, website and lecture series explore the effect of traveling illusion shows (such as Kellar's) on small, rural communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

  • Gershman Y of the JCCs of Greater Philadelphia (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Small Survivors: Photographs of the Children of Uganda

    In conjunction with the exhibit Small Survivors: Vulnerable Children of Uganda by noted photographer Stephen Shames, the Gershman Y offers a series of events which contextualize Shames' photos and explore how war and social upheaval have affected the children of Uganda. The exhibit opening features a discussion with Shames and African studies scholars and a performance of East African dance.

  • Historic Philadelphia (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Once Upon A Nation Storytelling Development and Expansion

    Historic heritage experiences help visitors understand intellectually and emotionally why a place and its people are important. Once Upon a Nation is a free public program that presents historically accurate and scripted stories, particularly the rarely-heard stories of women, African Americans and other ethnic minorities, workers, slaves and servants. This project involves the expansion of the program by adding new storytelling sites and also more storytellers, some with bilingual abilities.

  • Huntingdon County Arts Council (Huntingdon County)
    Project: In These Hills and Valleys

    The project is designed to reinforce a sense of place in Huntingdon County as it is linked to the natural environment and cultural traditions. Eight presentations with accompanying literature address a series of topics ranging from music to geography. The presentations are designed to illustrate the interdependence of factors that create the local identity of Huntingdon County and to call upon community members to share their knowledge and personal experience.

  • Mercer Museum of the Bucks County Historical Society (Bucks County)
    Project: Bucks County and the Civil War Exhibit Planning

    In order to develop an exhibit and related projects on the impact of the Civil War on Bucks County, Mercer Museum is conducting a detailed survey on Civil War-era artifacts, images, ephemera and manuscripts in its and other associated collections. This survey (divided into four themes: camp and battlefield, the home front, the African American experience and post-war commemoration) supports a discussion among community scholars and representatives about how to tell a regional Civil War story.

  • Musicopia (Philadelphia County)
    Project: A Voyage of Musical Discovery with Lewis and Clark

    How can educators make a now distant period of American history immediate? Musicopia is revising and presenting a school residency project which teaches students about the instruments and musicians associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition. In addition to learning geography and the social, natural and political history associated with the expedition, students (alongside professional musicians and participating scholars) prepare and perform music of the period in a culminating festival.

  • Northern Tier Cultural Alliance (Bradford County)
    Project: 2008: Year of the Barn

    Rolling hills, deep forests, small towns, lush farmlands—the importance and influence of agriculture on the heritage and culture of Pennsylvania's rural North County is undeniable. At times we forget the role of farming in today's culture and economy. To encourage residents and tourists alike to explore country byways, NTCA is creating an inventory and self-guided tour of regional barn architecture in seven Northern Tier counties. The project also includes a documentation of select farm families and their operations and two celebratory barn dances.

  • Philadelphia Theatre Company (Philadelphia County)
    Project: Stage Door: Where Theater and Community Meet

    A new initiative, this project engages the general public in a season-long humanities discussion on a variety of issues as they relate to American theatre and PTC's 2007-08 production season. Discussed in formats such as interviews, staged readings and panels, topics include stereotypes of Asian American theatre, feminism and the legacy of Wendy Wasserstein, and the crossroads of vaudeville and philosophy.

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