Press Release: Regional Arts & Culture Council awards Performing Arts Fellowship to Robin Lane

Regional Arts & Culture Council  awards Performing Arts  Fellowship to Robin Lane

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is pleased to announce the winner of this year’s Individual Artist Fellowship in Performing Arts: Robin Lane. This fellowship carries a cash award of $20,000.

“Robin Lane is a legend in Portland,” said Eloise Damrosch, Executive Director of RACC. “It is our honor to recognize the contributions of this extraordinary artist, and to support her in the year ahead.”

In 1977 Lane founded Do Jump!, which became a full time performing company in residence at the Echo Theater by 1983. Over the years she has created 20 full-length works combining acrobatics, dance, theater and original music.  Some of her more memorable pieces include Such a Dizzy Height and Tiger Lilly and Sunny Lu.  Her work is accessible to audiences of all ages -- playful, poetic and profoundly humorous.  Lane’s works have toured the United States and Canada for nearly three decades, and she has taught generations of children and teachers acro-aerial and ensemble performance through the Do Jump School and Youth Company.

RACC’s Fellowship award will allow Lane to pursue some new artistic development opportunities. She states in her application that now is the time for “open-ended reflection, fearless investigation and the emptying and filling of the self that is necessary to continue to create worthwhile work.”   Sustaining Do Jump! has been more than a full-time job over the last 34 years; Lane intends to take time out from her performing, creating and administration duties to study playwriting and pursue her interest in writing graphic novels to determine how these forms can relate to her creative process as a creator of original physical theatre. 

The RACC Artists Fellowship Award, established in 1999, is one of the largest and most prestigious grants to individual artists in the Pacific Northwest, supporting exceptional artists who enrich the communities in our region.  One fellowship is awarded each year, rotating through four artistic disciplines. Next year, a visual artist will be honored. For more information, visit www.racc.org/grants/individual-artist-fellowships. 

To be eligible for consideration, professional artists must have worked in their field for 10 years and have lived in the Portland tri-county area for five years. Applications, which include three narrative questions, artist resumes, two letters of recommendation, and examples of the artist’s work, are reviewed through a panel process of community representatives from the discipline being honored. 

Alan Alexander, Michelle Fujii, Courtenay Hameister, Justin Kagan, Katherine Longstreth, Michele Mariana, Luciana Proano, and Jonathan Walters served as panelists for the Performing Arts Fellowship this year.

Lane joins a prestigious group of local artists who have received the RACC Fellowship award, including:

·       1999, Performing Arts – Obo Addy and Mary Oslund

·       2000, Visual Arts – Terry Toedtemeier and Christine Bourdette

·       2001, Literary & Media Arts – Michele Glazer and Jim Blashfield

·       2002, Performing Arts – Tomas Svoboda and Keith Scales

·       2003, Visual Arts – Michael Brophy and Judy Cooke

·       2004, Literary & Media Arts – Craig Lesley and Chel White

·       2005, Performing Arts – Thara Memory

·       2006, Visual Arts – Henk Pander

·       2007, Media Arts – Joanna Priestley

·       2008, Literary Arts – Kim Stafford

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Mary Bauer

Communications Associate

Regional Arts & Culture Council

108 NW 9th Avenue, #300

Portland, OR 97209

503.823.5426

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