Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey
For General Support
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Amount$135,000
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Program
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Date Awarded7/21/2008
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Term36.0 Months
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Type of SupportGeneral Support/Organization
Overview
Founded in 1979, Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey (CO) produces original work rooted in African American music, dance, and theatrical traditions. The organization’s original programming consists three to four annual productions performed before 4,000 locals and a further 15,000 who see their work on national and international tours. Mr. Ackamoor achieved notoriety in the 1970s with his fusion jazz band The Pyramids, collaborated with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and currently produces jazz-based performances in San Francisco and curates the National Black Theater Festival in North Carolina. Ms. Jones is an actress and singer who has pioneered artistic processes to transform the lives of incarcerated women through her Medea Project. Having performed at Lincoln Center and in San Quentin Prison, Ms. Jones was named a 2008 United States Artist Fellow.
Renewed support of CO will facilitate the development of a new work in collaboration with African-American patients in treatment at the UC Medical Center's Women's HIV Program at UCSF. CO runs on a $300,000 annual budget and, though it has run operating deficits in the recent grant period, has a healthy cash reserve and is on secure financial footing. Ongoing general operating support will allow the two senior artists to design a comprehensive retirement package ”“and to share this model with other small arts organizations who, typically, have little to no mechanism for supporting life-long artists after they retire.
About the Grantee
Grantee Website
www.culturalodyssey.org
Address
Post Office Box 156620, San Francisco, CA, 94115-6680, United States
Grants to this Grantee
for general operating support
Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey supports the work of jazz musician and recording artist Idris Ackamoor and theater artist and teacher Rhodessa Jones. The artists create, produce, and present work rooted in the African American experience. They present and tour throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, nationally, and internationally. Cultural Odyssey provides performing arts training and performance opportunities to women who have experienced the ill effects of incarceration and HIV/AIDS, and leads a consortium of San Francisco African American performing arts organizations, with the goals of providing mutual support, building organizational capacity, and better serving audiences. Support of Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey aligns with the Performing Arts Program’s Communities strategy.
for an equity, inclusion, and diversity capacity-building project
Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey supports the creation, production, and presenting of work supports the work of two Bay Area jazz and theater artists rooted in the contemporary African American experience. This organizational effectiveness grant supports internal capacity building to deepen the organization’s awareness, knowledge, skill, policies, and practices around equity, inclusion, and diversity. Strengthening an organizations’ equity-focused competencies supports its practices and outcomes and contributes to a Bay Area arts ecosystem that has examined and reflects an understanding of equity in the arts. Support for Idris Ackamoor and Cultural Odyssey advances the Performing Arts Program’s Communities strategy.
for general operating support
Cultural Odyssey supports the work of its two founders, jazz musician and recording artist Idris Ackamoor, and theater artist and teacher Rhodessa Jones. The artists create, produce, and present work rooted in the contemporary African American experience in the Bay Area, nationally and internationally. Through the Medea Project, Rhodessa Jones works in and out of prison settings with women who have experienced the effects of incarceration and HIV/AIDS. In addition, the organization engages in collaborations and projects that help ensure the co-founders’ artistic knowledge and legacy are shared with scholars, journalists, and artists.
