In 2011, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation awarded $2,300,000 in grants to support health, education and the arts. These grants are designed to address the Foundation’s mission to enhance quality of life by supporting research that will lead to relief for those with chronic disease, promoting equitable access to a baseline of literacy and enabling inspiration through the arts. The Foundation is pleased to support the important work of these recipients who reflect its core values of innovation, collaboration and connection.

Health

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovator Awards Program supports “out-of-the-box” innovative research projects that are potentially transformative to efforts to diagnose, treat and/or cure Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

The Foundation established its Breakthrough Awards Program this year designed to enable investigators to further their Inflammatory Bowel Disease research and increase the likelihood of a breakthrough discovery. These grants were awarded to existing KRF-funded Innovator Award recipients that have demonstrated significant research progress along their proposed “proof of principle” experiments during their initial year’s work.

Innovator Awards:

Tiffany Horng, Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, for her project A novel mouse model to study the molecular basis of chronic inflammation in IBD.

Fred Levine, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Director and Hudson Freeze, Ph.D., Professor, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, La Jolla, CA, for their project Treating Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Enhancing HNF-4a Activity.

Gwen Randolph, Ph.D., Washington University, St. Louis, MO, for her project Interface between adispose antigen-presenting cells, lympahtics, and the expansion of adispose tissue in inflammatory intestinal disease.

Thaddeus S. Stappenbeck M.D., Ph.D. and Herbert W. Virgin, IV, Professor and Chair, Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, MO, for their project Identification of microbial triggers of colitis in genetically relevant, transmissible mouse model.

Breakthrough Awards:

Andrew S. Neish, M.D., Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, and Julie A. Champion, Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, for their research project Bioengineering Bacterially Derived Immunomodulants: A Novel Therapeutic Approach to IBD.

Dan Peer, Ph.D., Tel Aviv University, Israel and Eran Elinav, M.D., Ph.D., Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Israel, for their research project Harnessing Immuno-nanotechnology for Therapy of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

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.

Visibility Awards in Dance:

Amy Seiwert’s Imagery for SKETCH : New Works 2, The Women Choreographers – world premieres by local and national choreographers with a mission to expand the definition of ballet by exploding preconceptions of what ballet is and can be

Antenna Theater & San Francisco International Arts Festival for Harder Right, a collaboration between Antenna Theater and Lizz Roman + Dancers on a multi-media performance evoking the military to be presented at Fort Mason Center

Community Works West, Inc. for Well Contested Sites, a dance video piece created by Amie Dowling, Austin Forbord and formerly incarcerated men that will use movement to examine the impact of incarceration on the body

CounterPULSE for the Artist Residency Commissioning (ARC) Program, a residency program that identifies local emerging and mid-career choreographers whose work is ready to be appreciated by a larger audience, and provides space, administrative and technical support for these artists to create new works

DanceArt, Inc for WestWave Dance 2011, the 20th anniversary season presenting contemporary choreography from in and beyond the San Francisco Bay Area: Alonzo King, Amy Seiwert, Robert Moses, Annie Parr, Alex Ketley, Kara Davis and more

Dance Brigade for The Great Liberation Touring Project, a series of local, national and international performances at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), Havana, Cuba, St. Maarten, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest

Dance/USA for scholarships to enable 35 Bay Area dance artists and administrators to attend the 2012 Annual Conference in San Francisco

Dancers’ Group for a new site-specific dance and video performance in San Francisco’s Central Market corridor, Niagara Falling by choreographer Jo Kreiter, with filmmakers David and Hi-Jin Hodge as part of the ONSITE series

Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater for Botany’s Breath, a site-specific contemporary dance work with music and video to premiere at the Conservatory of Flowers, a spectacular living museum of rare and beautiful tropical plants that will utilize the Victorian edifice as provocateur, stage, musical instrument, and projection screen

Headlands Center for the Arts for the Dance/Choreography Artist in Residence Program in 2012, awarding 3 artists residencies of up to 10 weeks each, which include stipends, meals, studio space, and housing in Headland’s remarkable campus of historic buildings in a National Park

Hope Mohr Dance for Reluctant Light, a new dance by choreographer Hope Mohr that explores emotional surrender through vivid imagery and formal inquiry into the dancing body accompanied by cellist Helen Money and featuring a set by designer Zakary Zide

inkBoat for Line Between, an evening-length performance work utilizing Korean shamanism and Butoh to explore the state of mind between waking and sleeping

Jess Curtis/Gravity for Performance Research Experiment #2, a new work by choreographer Jess Curtis in collaboration with renowned French/German dance and circus performer Jorg Muller and Iranian neuroscientist Ida Mommenejad that will examine the collaboration/collision of science and art – and the relationship of live art to the body – by measuring specific physical reactions experienced by audience members throughout a sequence of performative events

Robert Moses’ Kin for Grace, a trans-disciplinary, original artistic work exploring how historically racist and otherwise offensive cultural iconography has become scrubbed of its original meanings over time

ODC Theater for the Opportunity Fund that will support self-producing artists through ODC Theater’s open access rental program

Visibility Awards in Theater:

Aurora Theatre Company for Salomania, a play written and directed by Mark Jackson based on the extraordinary story of Canadian dancer Maud Allan who became internationally known as The Salome Dancer

Brava Theater for the Me, Myself & I Series, the production of three plays: Unveiled by Rohina Malik, 52 Man Pick Up by Desiree Burch and Boys of Prey by D’Lo

Campo Santo for Alleluia, The Road, a new play by MacArthur Genius Award Winning writer Luis Alfaro, inspired by August Strindberg’s The Road To Damascus, exploring 7 stops on California’s Highway 99 from Disneyland to the Golden Gate Bridge

Crowded Fire Theater Company for Exit, Pursued by a Bear, the rolling world premiere of the potent and hilarious play by Bay Area playwright Lauren Gunderson

Cutting Ball Theater to support the New Experimental Plays Initiative in 2011-12, world premiere productions of NEPI commissioned plays Tenderloin and Tontlawald; commission a new translation of Strindberg’s The Black Glove; and support the early development of Paul Walsh’s new translations of five Strindberg plays and two new plays by Bay Area playwrights Christopher Chen and Anthony Clarvoe

Intersection for the Arts for The Innovation Studio, a unique organizational residency program that offers theatre artists and emerging and/or small companies a home-base, shared infrastructural support, access to new resources, and participation in an innovative learning community

Just Theater for plays developed by five Bay Area playwrights paired with five directors from conception to first draft

Musical Traditions, Inc./The Paul Dresher Ensemble for Max Understood, the premiere production of a music theater work about the life of a 7 year-old boy with autism by playwright Nancy Carlin and composer/sound designer Michael Rasbury

New Conservatory Theatre Center for Waiting for Giovanni, a play that explores the emotional and professional dilemmas looming over the late author James Baldwin by local playwright Jewelle Gomez in collaboration with Harry Waters Jr.

Playwrights Foundation for the Resident Playwrights Initiative: Artistic Career Development and Production Fund to support the creative and career development of exceptional Bay Area Playwrights, and provide a production fund for Residents’ work

San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) for SFIAF online marketing and social media strategic plan

San Francisco Mime Troupe for 2012 – The Musical!, a musical exploration of the 24-hour news cycle that produces much noise but little information, to be performed in Bay Area parks, surrounding suburban areas, and on tour to underserved areas in Northern California and the Central Valley

Stagebridge for Counter Culture, the world premiere production of a Joan Holden adaptation of Candacy Taylor’s critically-acclaimed book about women who have worked their whole lives as waitresses in roadside and urban diners across America

The African and African American Performing Arts Coalition (AAAPAC) for Word Becomes Flesh, a provocative multi-player work of theater inspired by hip-hop culture, personal truths, and passionate reflections by artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph

The Custom Made Theatre Company for world premiere of Josh Costello’s Little Brother, adapted from the NY Times bestseller by Cory Doctorow

Awards in Film:

Eric Escobar for One Good Thing. A jaded and bitter locksmith spends his days locking families out of their foreclosed homes. When a morning lockout turns up the abandoned child of a long-lost friend, his cynicism is put in check as he races to find the missing parents. Screenwriting.

Carlton Evans and Matthew Lessner for Ross, a hardworking young man’s well-established and staid life is upended after he posts an off-hand comment to his Facebook profile, drawing the attention of numerous secretive government agencies and setting off a bizarre chain of events. Forced to abandon the only life he has ever known in an instant, he finds himself in the midst of a minefield of paranoia and mistaken identity, struggling to determine who can be trusted. Screenwriting.

Aurora Guerrero for Mosquita y Mari, the friendship between two young Chicanas develops into a tender love and challenges their well-established familial responsibilities, forcing them to choose between their obligations to others and staying true to each other. Post-production.

Ian Hendrie & Jyson McLean for Mercy Road. Based on true events, Mercy Road traces the political and spiritual odyssey of a small-town Christian housewife as she slowly turns from a peaceful pro-life activist to an underground militant willing to commit violence and murder in the name of God. Screenwriting.

Chris Mason Johnson for Test. The year is 1985. The youngest, skinniest and most mocked member of San Francisco’s new contemporary ballet company begins a friendship with a brilliant dancer with a bad boy reputation in the same troupe. As lurid headlines threaten a gay quarantine, the two friends navigate a world full of risk that is also full of promise. Production.

Adam Keker for National Park, seven years after America and its allies defeated an alien invasion, the final battlefield is about to become a national park. The country is in a period of national soul-searching and the very few enemy aliens who were not exterminated have been released into the park in a program to save them from extinction. They are a lightning rod of controversy that threatens to become a national conflagration when hikers find the body of a child. Screenwriting.

Timothy Kelly for The Cherokee Word for Water, a single mother moves back to Oklahoma from Oakland to raise her two daughters in her Cherokee childhood home. Deplorable conditions are driving families apart, and she resolves to find a way to help her tribe stay intact by spearheading a project to provide running water to the community. The success of the project inspires other Cherokee people to start their own community projects and launches the political career of Wilma Mankiller, who became the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. Production.

Oden Roberts & Azura Skye for Rosie Got Her Gun. Following a series of arrests, a troubled young woman struggling to avoid prison time is visited by an opportunistic Army recruiter. Production.

Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of a Southern Wild, in this mythological epic inspired by the coastal erosion crisis caused by the ruination of America’s wetlands, a heroic young girl fights to save her father, who has been stricken by a mysterious illness, and her rapidly sinking island home. As temperatures skyrocket and the ice caps melt, an army of ferocious prehistoric beasts, freed by the melting of the glaciers, approaches. Convinced that her father’s sickness and the environmental disaster are inextricably linked, the girl sets out to find the one woman who can save them. Post-production.

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:

Jumpstart for Young Children for Jumpstart Oakland, to recruit and train approximately 85 Corps members from St. Mary’s College and University of California-Berkeley to serve more than 300 children in underserved Oakland preschool classrooms, giving these children the crucial language, literacy and social initiative skills they need to prepare for kindergarten

Oakland Ready to Learn for Early Learning & Literacy Connections, a program with the Oakland Housing Authority, Lockwood Elementary and other community groups to support school readiness and early literacy development in East Oakland

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

The Brookfield Literacy Zone a collaboration with The Oakland Literacy Coalition, the Brookfield Elementary School, the Brookfield Child Development Center (OUSD), Brookfield Head Start and the Oakland Public Library (including the Brookfield Branch) to create a coordinated coalition of programs and resources that will result in all Brookfield Elementary third grade students reading at a proficient level by the end of 2013