* Latham and Mel
The Critical Fierceness Grant is a twice-yearly microgrant awarded to a queer artist, funded by the money Chances Dances makes through its dance parties. Tonight, the 2nd winner of the Critical Fierceness Grant will be announced at their oldest haunt, Subterranean. I’m so happy that the organizers have been able to make good on their promise and nurture the artistic queers in Chicago with this opportunity and I’ll be profiling the winner this week, so stay tuned for that. Before that exciting announcement, I’ve got an interview with 2 reps from Chances, Latham Zearfoss and Mel Racho. They graciously answered some questions I sent them about the grant, Chicago and its invaluable queers. Here are some quotes, (Mel is in BLUE and Latham is in GREEN, just cuz) read the full interviews after the jump.
…we still wanted to provide a venue for queer expression, formerly manifested in our themes, contests and channeled through our amazing former host Miss Teena Angst. Simultaneously we received an increase in the percentage of bar sales from the Subterranean, so suddenly we had this conundrum of how to spend the money now that we’d called it quits on theme nights (not a finite thing, just a general shift), while also re-negotiating Chances’ role as a creative outlet for the community. The Critical Fierceness Grant answered all of these problems while being an exciting endeavor for all of us…
…the Crit Fierceness works is perhaps what makes it stand out from other micro-grants that I am aware of (also sit on the city’s CAAP media panel), is the level of trust and connection we have with the artist and their work. The grant application process is comprehensive and finalists go through an outside board for review. Yet, at the day’s end, it is really cash money for the queer artist: here is money, get your work done, we believe in you and the project. This kind of faith is rare in most things that involve money – and, let’s face it increasingly rare in this world…
