Cheshire Moon

The Crimson Square Writer's Lab is a program that provides education and development to playwrights and aspiring screenwriters. It is run by an all-female creative team and provides no-cost education and mentoring to aspiring writers age 18+ from all backgrounds and education levels. It provides local performance opportunities in Los Angeles for completed works and mentorship for taking their completed work into the professional workplace.

Our Emerging Writer's Lab will provide guidance and development for new and diverse playwrights who do not have access to expensive university writer's programs. The grant money would go towards instructors fees, room rentals and theatre rentals for staged readings of student's original works.

My idea is for a program that simultaneously creates performance opportunities for emerging artists, additional jobs for dance professionals, and provides art and music education programs to schools in Los Angeles. For the past nine years, I have been developing this program. Now in its 15th production, the annual Dancescape show is a benefit dance performance that donates all of its profits to art and music programs in Los Angeles public schools. It regularly features between 150 and 200 performers at the student, pre-professional, and professional levels, representing various styles of dance ranging from ballet, contemporary and modern to Bollywood, hip-hop, and breakdancing, and everything in between. As Dancescape has grown over the years, we have been able to increase the number of participants in the yearly showcase, which has lead to an increase in the amount of funds raised, which in turn has lead to a greater amount of programs sponsored and students reached. Now that we are officially an incorporated and registered non-profit organization, we will be initiating our own education program in which our roster of professional choreographers and dance teachers will be hired to teach dance in schools around Los Angeles. Ultimately, the program will be timed so that the students participating in a Dancescape Ed program will be able to attend the Dancescape performance with their families, friends, and teachers – and possibly take the stage to perform. My program will greatly impact the arts and cultural indicator of Los Angeles by bringing numerous organizations together to solve city-wide challenges in a unique and sustainable way. The program is designed to cover much of its costs organically, so that as the program grows, so do the funds that are generated to keep the program growing. At the same time, Dancescape is supplementing diminishing arts education budgets in schools. These programs are often the first to be cut, further limiting children’s access to what is already perceived as an expensive pursuit. Dance, in particular, can be a very cost prohibitive activity considering lesson costs, dancewear, and required shoes. By providing dance lessons in LA classrooms or during after school programs located on campus, we not only remove the economic barriers, but also the need for parents to drive students to a different location. Dancescape also creates a nurturing creative environment for arts professionals across Southern California. Emerging artists are given the opportunity to exhibit their work in a professional environment, to gain credentials and footage, and interact with an active network of their peers. The structure of both the performance and the intended educational program helps to make classical, contemporary, modern and urban dance accessible to different demographics. It is not designed to compete with existing arts programs, but rather to bring them together for one cohesive celebration of the impact of dance on the human spirit.