NET/TEN Virtual Exploration Grants

About the Program

Given the continuing precautions around fully resuming travel and congregating indoors,  NET member feedback, and the valuable relationships resulting from the past remote NET/TEN grants, we will offer Fall 2021 NET/TEN Virtual Exploration Grants of $500 and $1,000 (based on the applicant’s membership category) for NET member artists and ensembles to build relationships across distance by exploring remote opportunities for artistic and administrative connections, exchanges, peer learning, and research.

The Virtual Exploration Grants continue the NET/TEN program’s intention to support members in connecting with learning and relationships outside their own ensembles, to inform their artistic practice. With this Fall 2021 funding round, we also want to resist unhealthy expectations around productivity, and intentionally push against the urgency and pull to return to “business as usual.”  Many areas are still under strong travel advisories, and performance venues have not fully reopened across the country. We are deeply concerned by the racial disparities of COVID19’s impact, and must prioritize the safety, care, and wellbeing of our community above all else.  We support and are encouraging our members to root themselves in restorative practices of learning, inquiry, and reflection.

We will return to offering NET/TEN Winter Exchange Grants and Spring Travel Grants in 2022, and will post timelines for these upcoming cycles online soon.

Key Changes from Previous Virtual Exploration Process

The Fall 2021 Virtual Exploration application will have an extended deadline of November 29, 2021at 3pm PST/6pm EST and be adjudicated through a peer panelist process. We expect to award approximately 25 grants, depending on the distribution of individual/student ($500) and ensemble/affiliate ($1,000) applicants.

If you need help accessing the form or have any questions, please contact the NET/TEN staff at netten@ensembletheaters.net.

NET/TEN Fall 2021 Virtual Exploration Grants:
Building Learning Relationships

APPLICATIONS NOW CLOSED

Eligible Activities and Expenses

Virtual Exploration grants are intended to support relationship-building activities that take place virtually or remotely from January 1-June 30, 2022. They support physically-distant connectivity using technology such as video conferencing, or any other digital, analog, or communication tools or collaboration methods.

Virtual Exploration Grants are intended for building an outside relationship beyond your ensemble (i.e. an exchange with an individual who is already affiliated with your ensemble would not be eligible, even if they are located in a different geographic region).

Eligible expenses must relate to the remote relationship-building activities, and may include:

  • artistic and administrative fees/wages/honoraria for time spent arranging, preparing for, and engaging in the relationship-building;

  • Other costs related to relationship building and exchange of knowledge, including:

    • research materials, remote learning, and other knowledge building materials;

    • cost of video conferencing services or other communication tools/materials used to support the relationship-building/knowledge-exchange activities.

Travel expenses, production expenses, production tours, capital equipment purchases, and publicly-available professional development offerings (e.g. using funds to register for online or in-person conferences, festivals, or other pre-existing public workshops or trainings) are not supported by this Grant.