Announcing the Latest AIP Opportunity Fund Awardees

Native Artist Opportunity Fund: Microgrants for Indigenous Performing Artists

Congratulations to the latest Native Artist Opportunity Fund recipients, Joseph Running Crane and Timothy White Eagle!

Joseph Running Crane; image credit: Tim Arrowtop

Timothy White Eagle

Joseph Running Crane, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe, is a singer-songwriter based in Montana.

Having spent his formative musical years in second-or-third-hand vans traveling the country playing deafening punk, metal and hardcore, Joseph brings similarly confrontational lyrical ideas into his solo work. With a lucid belief in letting the stories tell themselves, he leaves his songs mostly unadorned, and this austere approach seeks to highlight the interplay between his exhaustively constructed lyrics and the complex and sometimes harsh stories they convey. Imbued with a unique humor and levity, Joseph’s live show rarely fails to elicit laughter, contemplation and the dancing spirit, oftentimes from one song to the next.

Joseph will use the grant to upgrade his recording studio equipment, enabling him to better represent and promote his work and support him in his goal to extend his performance circuit.

Seattle based performance artist and ritualist and Mohave descendant, Timothy White Eagle, is a graduate of the University of Utah where he obtained a BFA in Theater. His work mixes genres to create installed spaces, rituals, objects and experiences.

Timothy’s grant will support his travel to New York, where he will bring his show The Indigo Room to La Mama as part of the Under the Radar — an international theater festival highlighting new theater works, January 4 - 22, 2023.

The Indigo Room is an immersive ritualistic theater and installation piece rooted in ancient mythology, developed by Timothy in collaboration with The Violet Triangle; it explores one of the oldest and most universal myths — the story of a hero being swallowed alive and then returned.

The AIP Native Artist Opportunity Fund provides subsidies of up to $750 to assist U.S.-based Indigenous performing artists. The program, which has a rolling monthly deadline, supports the creation of promotional and showcasing assets, networking travel, virtual presentation skills-building, and other development activities.

Learn more about the program here.