Spoleto Festival USA awarded $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

Spoleto Festival USA announced it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $25,000. This grant will support Spoleto’s new full-length chamber opera Ruinous Gods, which will premiere at the Festival on May 24, 2024. Tickets are available now at spoletousa.org.

“This original production directly serves our mission of presenting programs of the highest artistic caliber while uplifting diverse voices and stories,” says Mena Mark Hanna, general director and CEO of Spoleto Festival USA. “We are grateful that the NEA has chosen to support this remarkable world premiere opera and the continuing success of Spoleto Festival USA.”

Co-produced and co-commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA, Opera Wuppertal, and Nederlandse Reisopera, Ruinous Gods explores the trauma of refugee syndrome through an operatic dreamscape depicting resignation syndrome, a child’s psychological response to displacement. Grounded in testimonies from survivors and families of those afflicted with resignation syndrome, the evocative opera follows the experiences of a mother, Hannah, and her 12-year-old daughter, H’ala, who suffers from a traumatic response to the state of living in the limbo of displacement. Evident in refugee camps around the world, resignation syndrome causes the child, most often between the ages of 8 to 15, to fall into a non-responsive sleep.

“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to Spoleto Festival USA, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.”

In total, the NEA will award 958 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling more than $27.1 million that were announced as part of its first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.