The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced the recipients of 80 “Our Town” grants. The Milwaukee Ballet received a $100,000 grant for the Harmony Initiative and was the only recipient in Wisconsin to receive a grant.
The Harmony Initiative is a collaboration of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts and the Medical College of Wisconsin. The group is working on plans to develop a 90,000-square-foot building at the site of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts parking structure, located northwest of North Water Street and East State Street.
The facility would provide space for the Ballet Company’s offices; studios for the Ballet and its school, a small performance center with about 300 to 400 seats for small dance performances and a sports medicine clinic for the Ballet and the general public.
According to Dennis Buehler, executive director of the Milwaukee Ballet, the grant will help underwrite the next phase of the project, which is the schematic design. The Harmony Initiative has selected La Dallman Inc., as its architectural firm.
