Grantee Database

Clara CHOW

• 2026
• Literature
• Singapore to Japan

To participate in Japan’s traditional fire festivals, expanding her understanding of this tradition and its relation to similar practices in Singapore and China. Chow’s fellowship will take her to fire festivals across Japan, offering opportunities to interview festival organizers, participants, artisans of Japanese paper and fire festival goods, and fellow artists and writers whose practices center on fire. Engaging with locals will also offer an opportunity to share paper-burning traditions from her Singaporean-Chinese heritage. Through conversations and observing and participating in these events, Chow hopes to better understand the psychology behind the use of fire, how related beliefs and practices change and in some cases conflict with one another, and how fire festivals and related burning practices have been sustained across cultures and over time.

Ihot Sinlay CIHEK

• 2026
• Theater
• Taiwan to United States

To examine the dramaturgy of identity in New York’s theater ecosystem. Ihot Sinlay Cihek proposes a fellowship focused on dismantling and reimagining the dramaturgy of equitable collaboration between indigenous and settler artists within a globalized creative environment. Over the six-month fellowship, she will conduct institutional research, visit vanguard experimental venues, and engage in dialogues with playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs whose work actively navigates complex racial and ethnic politics. Ihot Sinlay Cihek hopes the fellowship will help her develop a transnational comparative framework for future decolonial theatre-making while at the same time seeding a vital, reciprocal knowledge transfer between Taiwan’s Indigenous performing arts community and New York’s vanguard theatre scene, establishing new global models for creative alliance.

Alain DE ASIS

• 2026
• Music
• Philippines to United States

To pursue a MA in Music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, currently in his second and final year, focusing on the technical aspects of playing the violin, studying the piano, music theory, and music history. De Asis is pursuing an MA in Music (Violin Performance) at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. Currently in his second and final year, his dissertation recital will consist of music composed during the romantic and contemporary eras while his final output is a one-hour performance recital consisting of pieces in collaboration with his instrument teachers. De Asis hopes this fellowship will help enrich his musical journey and add to his credibility as a teacher and musician, furthering his intention to contribute to the advancement of violin playing in the Philippines.

Daniel DOÑA

• 2026
• Music
• United States to Philippines

To research music written by Filipinx composers for the viola and how their music is presented in the Philippines. Doña’s research will focus on Filipinx composers’ music written for the viola in both solo and chamber music settings. He aims to study scores and manuscripts archived at University of the Philippines, the University of Santo Tomas, and St. Scholastica College. He also seeks insights from local historical musicologists and ethnomusicologists, as well as living composers and members of the string-playing community. Doña hopes that his research and engagement with fellow composers, scholars, and musicians will support his efforts to amplify the voices and contributions of Filipinx composers in the classrooms and concert halls in the Philippines and back home.

TAKIDO Dorita

• 2026
• Visual Art
• Japan to United States

To research interconnected environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and practices of environmental care and coexistence in New York. Takido will conduct research through dialogues, interviews, and visits with communities that connect nature and art, including museums, community gardens, urban agriculture, bio-labs, and environmentally oriented art projects, while participating in citizen-led initiatives that pursue holistic approaches to ecology and sustainability. Through conversations with artists, researchers, local residents, and participants in educational programs, she will examine the structures of these practices and modes of access, and reflect on them in relation to the situation in Japan.

Mai ENDO

• 2026
• Visual Art
• Japan to Indonesia

To study the embodied history and practice of Japanese American dancer Teiko Ito (1913–1958), investigating how “Oriental Dance” was transmitted and transformed across Indonesia, Japan, and the United States in the 1930s. Centered in Yogyakarta and Denpasar, Endo’s research will combine archival and oral history collections with dialogue and embodied practice involving local dancers and scholars, exploring how marginalized bodily knowledge and somatic techniques are translated and reconfigured across cultures. In particular, she seeks to reposition the practices of Japanese-American women dancers historically marginalized in wartime Japanese dance studies, examining how Asian diasporic bodies negotiated expressive possibilities under colonial cultural policies and global imaginaries. She aims to make overlooked practices visible and to offer new models and perspectives for intercultural knowledge exchange mediated through the body.

Jose Marie Paraiso ESERJOSE

• 2026
• Music
• Philippines to United States

To commence the Master of Music in Historical Performance program at the Juilliard School. As a Historical Performance major, Eserjose will have the opportunity to join Juilliard 415, the school’s premier baroque ensemble, receive specialized coaching, and participate in master classes. These experiences will equip him with the essential tools to contribute meaningfully to the field and to promote and establish the first historical performance ensemble in the Philippines. Eserjose completed his Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance at the University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music under a full scholarship from the Original Pilipino Performing Arts Foundation. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Violin Performance at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Haruna FURUKAWA

• 2026
• Ethnomusicology
• Japan to Cambodia

To investigate the transmission of Khmer traditional music and embodied knowledge through participatory observation, including performance-based learning. Centering on the bamboo flute, Furukawa will work closely with and interview local musicians and instrument makers, seeking to internalize their tacit knowledge and embodied techniques through her own playing. She will also record performances and experiment with session-based music-making to document musical practices tied to annual rituals and life-cycle ceremonies, as well as narratives of musical experience rooted in personal and collective memory. Furukawa aims to contribute to sustained international networks, promote understanding and research of traditional music, deepen her own performance practice, and establish a foundation for future collaborative research and cross-cultural artistic initiatives.

Alec GOLDFARB

• 2026
• Music
• United States to India

To pursue an immersive study of Hindustani classical music and expand his understanding of related South Indian approaches. Through a period of focused musical study and cultural immersion, Goldfarb will refine his approach to Indian ragas as a guitarist by learning from artists in Kolkata, Chennai, and other regions and comparing the evolution of traditions across geography, language, and performance practice. He aims to meet performers, scholars, instrument-makers, and archivists whose work intersects with his questions about intonation, tuning, and adapting classical forms to new instruments. In addition to his own growth, Goldfarb hopes that exchanges with these music communities will also advance opportunities to demonstrate how their traditions and ideas resonate on a different instrument and in a different cultural context.

Bisakha Goswami

Country / Region:
• India

• 2026
• Theater
• India to United States

To explore how pedagogical drama informs educators’ professional development and creative learning in schools. Goswami will engage with institutions and practitioners in New York who employ drama as a transformative pedagogical tool, including Lincoln Center Education, New York University’s Program in Educational Theatre, and The New Victory Theater, as well as community-based art educators working in diverse cultural and socio-economic contexts. Through exchanges with these institutions and communities, Goswami will study how drama processes, including role play, image theatre, and ensemble building, can help teachers develop creative confidence, critical thinking, and emotional literacy. He further hopes to share insights from his own work and experience in India, where theater has been used to empower teachers and youth in multilingual, multicultural environments.

Jau-lan GUO

• 2026
• Art History
• Taiwan to United States

To explore the intersection of the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) and the history of Taiwanese art. Guo aims to examine the influence of ACC and its predecessor, the JDR 3rd Fund, on the development of modern art in Taiwan during the 1960s and 70s, through archival research and interviews. She will conduct research at the Rockefeller Archive Center, consulting relevant archival materials related to ACC Taiwan grantees, including Liu Kuo-Sung (ACC 1964, 1966), Chuang Che (ACC 1966, 1968), and Fong Ray (ACC 1971). Guo seeks to reexamine the relationships between grantmaking, international exchange, and the development of modern art in Taiwan within the context of the Cold War, and to contribute further historical materials and perspectives to the study of Taiwanese art history.

Saori HALA

• 2026
• Japan to United States

To investigate the history of bodily performance in New York, the relationship between art and entertainment, and their impact on postwar Japan. Through archival research at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Kitchen, and MoMA, Hala will trace a lineage from 1960s postmodern dance to interdisciplinary practices since the 2000s. She will examine how bodily performance is valued within the contexts of art and entertainment, and reconsider the history of the American entertainment industry and its influence on postwar Asia in relation to current U.S.–Japan dynamics. She will also explore artist-led initiatives and platforms and models of cross-disciplinary cultural transmission, applying these insights to her platform for performing artists in Japan.