In 2009, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation awarded $457,000 in grants to support education and the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Arts

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports dance and theater organizations that display artistic promise and vision and bring vital performances and programs to the public. In addition, in collaboration with the San Francisco Film Society, the Foundation has created a grantmaking program to support Bay Area filmmakers in the production of narrative features with social justice themes.

Awards in Dance:

• AXIS Dance for the creation of a new work with choreographer David Dorfman
• Dance Brigade for the production of The Great Liberation Upon Hearing
• Dancers’ Group for ONSITE 2.0, the commission of two new site-specific performances that will be free to the public
• Yannis Adoniou’s KUNST-STOFF for the production of their 11th Home Season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum
• Flyaway Productions for the premiere of Singing Praises: Centennial Dances for the Women’s Building, a new sight-specific dance on the Women’s Building in the Mission District, celebrating the Building’s centennial and its role as a gathering space for women
• Janice Garrett + Dancers for the creation of a new work with Charles Moulton, The Experience of Flight in Dreams
• ODC Dance for Architecture of Light, an installation performance to celebrate ODC/Dance’s 40th Anniversary and the re-opening of ODC’s landmark facility, the ODC Theater

Awards in Theater:

• PlayGround for the PlayGround Commissioning Initiative, the development of 6 new full-length plays by the Bay Area’s leading emerging playwrights
• theatre Q for the production of Terrence McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart
• The Marsh for The Marsh Performance Initiative II, the creation and presentation of 5 full-length and 10 short works of solo theater, and training artists in the business of theater
• Berkeley Repertory Theatre for the production of Girlfriend, a new play by Todd Almond with music by indie-rocker Matthew Sweet
• EXITheatre for the expansion of their theatreplex by adding a 49-seat theater and a classroom/rehearsal space
• Theatre Bay Area in support of the New Works Fund, a program that connects local playwrights with local theatre companies, and helps small and mid-size theatres successfully produce new plays
• Z Space Studio for the production of The Companion Piece by Mark Jackson

Awards in Film:

• Richard Levien for Screenwriting and Script Development of the feature film, La Migra
• Amanda Micheli for Screenwriting and Script Development of the feature film, Tomboy
• Jeff Zimbalist for Pre-production on the feature film, The Scribe of Urabá

Education

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports emergent and early literacy programs that serve children from disadvantaged economic backgrounds in Oakland, California.

Awards in Early Literacy:

• Bring Me a Book for the First Teachers Literacy Curriculum to develop an early literacy, read-aloud curriculum for preschool teachers, assistants, and childcare providers, in collaboration with Stanford and the University of Pacific
• Raising a Reader for the Alameda County Project to encourage book sharing and “read-aloud” routines in the homes of low-income families in Oakland