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As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the arts, a $970,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has become a ray of hope for L.A.-based Lula Washington Dance Theatre and signals a breakthrough for a Black arts group historically passed over for foundation funding of this magnitude.
The Mellon award is the second-largest in the company’s 40-year history, said Executive Director Erwin Washington, who worked on the grant application throughout 2020 and received news of the award in December. It’s second only to the $1.3 million that came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed the company’s building.