The winners of the first Akron Knight Arts Challenge are:
• Akron Art Library (Akron Art Museum, $67,200): Any resident with a library card can check out artworks to display at home.
• Akron Songwriters Workshop (Akron Civic Theatre, $18,000): Summer songwriters workshop for Akron residents.
• Theaster Gates (Akron Roundtable, $17,500): Exploring the role of arts in building community by bringing Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates to speak and meet with artists and entrepreneurs.
• Akron Street Art Project (Akron Street Art Project, $25,000): Downtown public art projects.
• BLU Jazz+ Master Class (BLU Jazz+ Akron, $74,500): Master classes for local musicians.
• The Glass Menagerie Through the Prism of Autism (Center for Applied Drama and Autism, $12,000): Theater experience that shows what life is like on the autism spectrum.
• The Heart of Glass (Chad Mason, $50,000): Mobile glass studio that travels to schools and events.
• Developing Alternatives for Women in New Communities (ManjuRastogi, $6,410): Helping Bhutanese women improve sewing and craft-making abilities, and market their products.
• The Optics of Memory (Diane Davis-Sikora and Kasumi, $37,000): Public art series based on Kasumi’s multimedia exhibition The Optics of Memory.
• dreamUP: (Traci Buckner and Dreama Whitfield, $20,000): Bringing together a diverse group of women to create artistic pieces.
• Girls Rock Camp Akron (Dylan Yellowless, $20,000): Camp for girls ages 10-16 to write and perform songs.
• Garage Band (Greater Akron Musical Association, $7,000): Turning the Akron Symphony’s garage bay into a stage for local musicians.
• Highland Square Film Festival (Highland Square Neighborhood Association, $6,650): Film festival of local works.
• Akron Soul Train (Kasota Artist Management, $150,000): Refurbished rail cars and shipping containers will be turned into housing, galleries and studios.
• Nepali Applause (Katie Beck, $10,000): Nepali-American bilingual variety show featuring art, dance and music.
• Dance.r.evolution (Neos Dance Theatre, $40,000): Ballet and hip-hop dancers, graffiti artists and urban/pop musicians create new work.
• The Curated Storefront (Richard Rogers/Woodside management, $100,000): Multimedia art installations in unused downtown storefronts.
• #overlooked (Shane Wynn, $5,000): Photographs of women leaders against the backdrop of underused public spaces, to celebrate their accomplishments while empowering them to improve the city.
• Intensive Music Classes for Akron’s very young (Northeast Ohio Family Music Society, $5,000): Bringing Ohio Conservatory’s music class into classrooms to engage 4- to 7-year-olds.
• Northside Arts District Outdoor Gallery (Testa Companies, $22,850) Outdoor art gallery with digital projections on buildings and yearlong displays of outdoor visual art.
• The Electric Pressure Cooker Presents… Bigger Than a Breadbox (Wandering Aesthetics, $75,000): Quarterly vaudeville show of local talent that will travel to neighborhoods.
• Akron’s Toy Marble Railways (The American Toy Marble Museum, $24,000): Interactive sculpture garden of toy marble railways at Lock 3 Park and other spaces.
• The Cappies (Critics and Awards Program for High School Students) (Allisyn Just, $15,000): Local journalists train high school students in writing reviews, with an awards program.
• Nightlight Productions (The Nightlight Cinema, $20,000): Purchasing equipment that will allow the Nightlight to create broadcast-quality content, including Skype-based Q&A sessions with directors and filmmakers, pre-show content, promotional materials and more.
• Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival (Theron Brown/Open Tone Music, $75,000): Launching a downtown jazz festival.
• Art Bomb Brigade (University of Akron Myers School of Art, $45,000): Traveling artists visit neighborhoods and engage the community in art-making.
• Traveling Stanzas: Writing Across Borders (Wick Poetry Center, $125,000): Residents submit a short video of an original poem, some of which will be displayed on buses and in public spaces.