PRESS RELEASE: 3Arts announces recipients of 2025 3Arts Awards
published: Oct. 9, 2025
3ARTS TO COMMIT OVER ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN UNRESTRICTED GRANTS IN ONE YEAR TO SUPPORT OVER 100 ARTISTS NAVIGATING THE SHIFTING FUNDING LANDSCAPE
CELEBRATION ON NOVEMBER 10 AT THE HARRIS THEATER WILL FEATURE PERFORMANCES BY THE CHICAGO IMMIGRANT ORCHESTRA, D-COMPOSED, AND MORE
CHICAGO, IL (October 9, 2025) – 3Arts, the Chicago-based nonprofit grantmaking organization, announces the 17 recipients of this year’s 3Arts Awards: dance artists Wendy Clinard, Chih-Jou Cheng (程之柔), and Torrence “Tea Buggz” Griffin; musicians Tommy Carroll, Ariella Granados,Kara Jackson, and Maxwell Senteney; teaching artists ebere agwuncha, Victoria Boateng, and Tom Lee; theater artists Rammel Chan, Nina Castillo-D’Angier, and Kristin Idaszak; and visual artists Jess Atieno, Leasho Johnson, Fern Logan, and Odette Stout. The organization will honor the new recipients on Monday, November 10 at 5:30pm at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E Randolph Street. Tickets to the 2025 3Arts Awards Celebration include a welcome reception, awards program, and a jubilant after-party. Tickets cost $150-$300 and are available at 3arts.org/tickets. Funds raised during the event will be split between 3Arts and Chicago nonprofit Center for Native Futures.
Across its various grantmaking initiatives, 3Arts will grant over one million dollars to more than 100 artists this year, marking a $400,000 increase from years’ past, to support artists navigating the shifting funding landscape. This significant increase reflects 3Arts’ deep belief that investing in artists is investing in the health and vibrancy of Illinois communities.
Cat Tager, Executive Director of 3Arts, said, “A thriving city depends on a thriving arts community. Right now, our arts community faces mounting challenges with each new day, each news cycle, and each trip to the grocery store. Recognizing this critical moment, so similar to the onset of the pandemic with its requirement for greater resources and greater resolve, 3Arts will dramatically increase our support for artists this year. We will add five new 3Arts Awards, 40 additional Make a Wave Awards, and over $150,000 in emergency funding, all of which will go directly into the hands of artists who shape the soul of our communities.”
This year’s 3Arts Awards Celebration features powerful performances by three past 3Arts awardees, including music from The Chicago Immigrant Orchestra (with 2024 3Arts Awardee Wanees Zarour); D-Composed (with 2021 3Arts Awardee Caitlin Edwards) and JUNTOS; and an aerial dance by Michel Rodriguez (2013 3Arts Awardee) and Jacinda Ratcliffe (2021 Make A Wave Awardee) with choreography by Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi (2014 3Arts Awardee).
The event will shine a spotlight on 17 remarkable artists receiving $30,000 3Arts Awards--an increase from 10 recipients last year--and introduces two new awards in Music and Visual Arts for artists in downstate Illinois, presented in partnership with Artspace Southern Illinois. The ceremony also honors six Next Level Award recipients, each receiving $50,000, and 40 Make a Wave recipients, up from 10 in 2024, who were selected by past 3Arts awardees to receive $2,000 grants in recognition of their impact on Chicago’s creative landscape. In total, 3Arts will distribute more than one million dollars in 2025, including over $150,000 in emergency grants to address urgent and unexpected financial needs in the arts community.
3Arts has distributed more than $8.2 million in grants to over 2,500 Chicagoland artists since 2007. 3Arts awardees reflect 66% women artists, 74% artists of color, and 17% Deaf or disabled artists.
3ARTS AWARDEE BIOS
DANCE
Wendy Clinard (she/her) is a Chicago-based dancer, choreographer, educator, and the founding artistic director of Clinard Dance. Since 1999, she has created nine full-length productions that blend flamenco traditions with contemporary performance, including Unraveling Rhythms, From the Arctic to the Middle East, Jondo Portraits, Chicago’s Watershed, and Flamenco Quartet Project. Her works have been presented nationally and internationally inSpain, India, China, and Syria. She has received two MacArthur International Connections Fund awards for collaborations in India and Spain and has been commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta and Jacob’s Pillow. With more than 25 years of teaching experience, she has led residencies at Columbia College Chicago, Oberlin College, and the University of Peking, as well as extensive community-based programs in Chicago (most notably programming in Pilsen for 30 years). Informed by her Chaplaincy Training Program (2021) and her role as a Community Learning Fellow (2025) at the University of Chicago, Clinard’s current work—the Carcelera Project—partners with justice-impacted communities to explore art as a catalyst for dialogue, healing, and transformation.
Chih-Jou Cheng (程之柔) (she/her) is a Taiwanese movement artist, physical theater creator, and puppeteer based in Chicago. Her performance credits include RHINOCEROS (by KT Shivak), The Dream King (Teatro Vista), The King and I(Drury Lane), and A Chorus Line as Connie (Metropolis), as well as work with Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Chicago Puppet Studio. Her original full-length work includes, Hold your Hand, Above the Water, and Lost & Found. These works explore themes of memories, migration, identity, and grief, combining movement, puppetry, and visual storytelling to spark connection, challenge assumptions, and foster collective healing. Cheng’s interdisciplinary practice is rooted in physical storytelling, community engagement, and the emotional landscape of the body. Her work has been supported by the Ragdale Residency, DCASE, and Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency. She is a recipient of the Chicago Arts & Health Pilot for Creative Workers, the 2024 Princess Grace Honoraria, and the 2025 Princess Grace Fellowship.
Torrence “Tea Buggz” Griffin (he/him) is a Chicago-based dance artist, pop-locker, teacher, and cultural worker. Rooted in the Black American street dance style of popping, his dance blends popping, animation, and robot techniques. In 2002 he developed his own signature style, the Egyptian Bang, inspired by hieroglyphics, two-dimensional movement, and heavy, percussive hits. Griffin began battling in the 1970s as a teenager in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, becoming one of the first local poppers to perform nationally. For nearly two decades, he toured and choreographed for Walter King Jr. (Spellbinder), one of the first Black magicians to headline Las Vegas, fusing street dance with theatrical spectacle. Returning to Chicago in the early 2000s, Griffin became the first popper to teach in Chicago Public Schools and later introduced popping into higher education at institutions such as Columbia College and the University of Chicago. He has led legacy crews including the Electric Funkateers, Pop Patrol, and Robot M.A.F.I.A. After nearly five decades, Griffin continues to preserve, teach, and elevate popping worldwide.
THEATER
Rammel Chan (he/him) is an actor and playwright based in Chicago. He has performed at Lookingglass Theatre, Writers Theatre, The Second City, The Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and the late Victory Gardens, among others. Rammel was a 23/24 New Stages resident playwright at the Goodman Theatre, writing a musical with Matthew C. Yee. He is a recipient of a Kundiman Fellowship, and his speculative fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Riksha Magazine, Empyrean Literary Magazine and The Tiger Moth Review. Through APIDA Arts, his family dramedy Tomato Tattoo received a development grant through Chicago DCASE as part of their inaugural Studio Residency program. He is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity.
Nina Castillo-D’Angier (she/they/siya) explores vulnerability, activism, and mindfulness through production design. Castillo-D’Angier has served as lead artist and designer for several storefront productions, including Exquisite Corpsewith Rough House Puppets, Strawdog Theatre’s The F*ck House by Susan Pak, and an immersive adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. She holds a BFA from Harrington College of Design and an Associate of Arts in Journalism from Pensacola State College.
Kristin Idaszak (she/her) is a playwright, essayist, and dramaturg whose recent work focuses on climate change, gender, and disability. A two-time Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellow and the former Shank Playwriting Fellow at the Goodman Theatre, Idaszak has received commissions from the Goodman, EST/the Sloan Foundation, Cleveland Play House, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, and others. Her play Second Skin received the Kennedy Center ACTF Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, and her play Another Jungle was a Relentless Award Honorable Mention. Idaszak is the Interim Head of Dramaturgy/Criticism at The Theatre School at DePaul University, and she has also taught at Northwestern University and was a visiting scholar at FLAME University in Pune, India. She previously served as the artistic director of Cloudgate Theatre and Associate Artistic Director/Literary Manager of Caffeine Theatre. Her essays appear in The American Scholar, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from University of California, San Diego.
MUSIC
Tommy Carroll (he/him) is a Chicago-based drummer and composer known for his work in modern jazz, folkloric percussion, and electro-acoustic improvisation. He leads the Tommy Carroll Quartet and the groove-driven ensemble Prosthetic, and has released six albums as a bandleader while appearing on over 30 recordings across genres including Puerto Rican folk, indie rock, and hip hop. A totally blind musician, Carroll champions disability culture through his performances and his production company, Calculated Discomfort, which curates innovative musical events. Highlights include activations at the Art Institute of Chicago, Navy Pier’s CHICAGO LIVE! festival, and Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series. His albums blend dance music with improvisation and narrative, notably Dances for Different Bodies and Prosthetic. Carroll performs widely across Chicago and the Midwest, and collaborates with diverse ensembles including All the Wizards Were Here and Piraguas y Piropos.
Ariella Granados (she/they) AKA Sparklmami is a multidisciplinary artist that transcends mediums to build a world untethered to conventional structures. Born in Texas and based in Chicago, Granados introduces us to a new world, engaging us in a story of childhood, memory, and belonging. Having grown up singing in church, Granados uses instinctual improvisation reminiscent of Brazilian jazz, experimental soul, Mexican bolero, and funk to express the sentient nature of being. Her much-anticipated debut album In This Body is composed of kaleidoscopic vignettes that tap into her confessional subconscious. Sweet melodies and spoken word grace polyrhythmic loops as they explore how our perception of the past shapes our present identity.
Kara Jackson (she/her) is a writer, musician, and performer based in Chicago, Illinois. A daughter of country folks, her work draws a map from the Deep South to the Midwest, where she was raised. Through her work she tries to embody the stories of the women in her family, engaging how the experience of the women who came before her informs her reality in the present. Her work has appeared in POETRY, Frontier Poetry, Rookie Mag, Nimrod Literary Journal, The Lily, and Saint Heron. She released her debut album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? in 2023.
Maxwell Senteney (he/him), known as Sad Max, is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer from Carbondale, IL. Raised by record collectors, he was drawn early to the local DIY music scene, performing in punk and experimental bands. In his twenties, he joined Rev Peyton’s Big Damn Band as a guitar tech, later becoming their full-time drummer. Over 11 years, he toured globally and recorded three albums with the group, two of which earned Blues Foundation award nominations. His time with the band deepened his love for roots music and led him to study and perform traditional banjo styles. In 2021, he founded River to River Community Records, a volunteer-run label supporting Southern Illinois artists. Today, he drums for The Woodbox Gang, Lucas Wayne and the Cottonmouths, and doom-metal band Creeper Bud. Senteney continues to write and record across genres, from folk and country to punk and experimental.
TEACHING ARTS
ebere agwuncha (she/they) is a Chicago-born Igbo-American craftsperson and educator whose work honors the collective crafting traditions of Nigerian women. Through intimate installations and ritualized portals, agwuncha explores ancestral memory using techniques like ceramics, woodworking, basket weaving, and jute netting. In 2025, they launched woven together, a free basket weaving workshop celebrating Igbo craft heritage. agwuncha has held residencies at Writing Space, Chicago Artists Coalition, ACRE, and Soaring Gardens, and collaborated with groups including In Care of Black Women and Chuquimarca Projects. Their work has been exhibited nationally, with solo shows at Roman Susan Gallery and Comfort Station, and a major public installation, ode to rhumboogie, on the Arts Lawn with Arts + Public Life. agwuncha was the inaugural Artist-in-Exchange at SAIC’s Sculpture Department and later taught as a Visiting Lecturer. They hold a degree in Industrial Design from Iowa State University and currently serve as Education Programs Manager at Arts + Public Life.
Victoria Boateng (she/her/they/them) is a Black autistic teaching artist, founder of Victoria Djembe Academy, and principal performer for Ayodele Drum and Dance. Through African drumming, she empowers people with disabilities to express themselves, build confidence, and connect with culture. Boateng advocates for inclusion, representation, and accessibility in the arts. She also uses rhythm as a powerful tool for self-advocacy and community.
Tom Lee (he/him) is a teacher, puppet artist, designer, and director based in Chicago. He began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York. Lee’s work often explores manipulated objects, miniatures, and figures in dialogue with animations and projections. Lee is a student of Japanese master puppeteer Koryū Nishikawa V with whom he created Shank’s Mare (2015) and Akutagawa (2023). Professional puppetry performance credits include War Horse(Broadway), Florencia en el Amazonas & Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera) and The Queen of Spades (Lyric Opera Chicago). Lee teaches puppetry nationally and internationally and is the co-director of the Chicago Puppet Studio and Chicago Puppet Lab.
VISUAL ARTS
Jess Atieno (she/her) lives and works between Nairobi, Kenya and Chicago, USA. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is an alum of Asiko Art School. Her work has been shown in Kenya and internationally, most notably at Bamako Biennial (2022), Lagos Biennial (2019), Savvy Contemporary in Berlin (2023), The Armory Show in New York (2023), and recently in Femmes, a group exhibition curated by Pharrell Williams at Perrotin Paris (2025). Her work is included in prestigious collections such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Alfred Taubman Foundation, Africana Art Foundation, KADIST Collection, and the Red Hill Art Gallery Collection. Atieno is the founder of Nairobi Print Project, a platform dedicated to scholarly research and conversation on contemporary art and curatorial practice in Africa and the Black diaspora.
Leasho Johnson (he/him) is a Jamaican-born visual artist working in painting, installation, and sculpture. Raised in Sheffield near Negril, his practice explores Black queer identity within post-colonial contexts, using charcoal, homemade paints, and dyes to create works that blend precision with improvisation. Johnson’s art challenges historical and social narratives surrounding the Black queer experience, often employing fragmentation as a method of disruption and healing. He has exhibited widely, including at the National Gallery of Jamaica’s Biennials and internationally at the Art Gallery of Ontario and EXPO Chicago. In 2025, he was featured in the Liverpool Biennale. Johnson is a former fellow of the Jamaica Art Society and the Leslie Lohman Museum, and a recipient of the New Artist Society Scholarship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he earned his MFA. His work is held in private and museum collections, and he is currently based in Chicago.
Fern Logan (she/her) has been showing widely since the early 1970s when she emerged as a promising photographer from the Apeiron Photographic Workshops. Her work was included in the groundbreaking exhibition, Reflections in Black: Contemporary African American Photographers at the Brooklyn Museum. Logan’s artworks are included in the permanent collections of The Smithsonian Institution, The Harlem State Office Building, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Michigan Technological University, and Depaw University. Logan is Professor Emerita of Cinema & Photography at Southern Illinois University. She has also taught Photography and Graphic Design at Elmhurst University and Michigan Technological University. Her book The Artist Portrait Series, which includes portraits of prominent Black artists such as Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, and Jacob Lawrence was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2021. Logan was recognized for this work with grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and The Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. Her work with digital imagery was previously honored with two Illinois Arts Council Fellowship awards and one finalist award.
Odette Stout (they/them) is an artist and drag performer whose multimedia club performances and experimental handmade silicone costumes are a staple in Chicago underground nightlife. They become and cast collaborators as otherworldly living artworks called on to tell stories from spaces where self-creation is a survival art practice. Their recent work frames the manifestation of individual personas, specifically trans becoming, as a constructive community project, and explores how technology mediates this identity formulation. This practice is driven by three interrelated research explorations: creating new experiences of self-perception for performers and audiences; innovating technological approaches to embedding information gesturally on the body; and exploring how artists can impact the development of the technologies we fuse with, using and misusing them with awareness. In addition, Stout runs Mall Kiosk at the End of the World, an ongoing studio library of their costumes open to local performers. They teach digital media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
About 3Arts
Founded in 1912, with a history centered on women artists, 3Arts is a nonprofit organization that supports artists working in the performing, teaching, and visual arts in the Chicago metropolitan area, including women artists, artists of color, and Deaf or disabled artists. The 3Arts Awards were launched in 2007 to provide unrestricted awards, project funding, residencies, professional development, and promotion to help artists take risks, experiment, and build momentum in their careers over time.
3Arts extends special thanks to the 2025 Award Partners: The HMS Fund, The SIF Fund, Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin, MSUFCU, The Reva & David Logan Foundation, and the estate of Alison Zehr.
One of the 10 3Arts Awards, the 2025 3Arts/MSUFCU Community Award, is named in honor of the 75 community donors who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to fund the award.
3Arts also recognizes support for the Next Level Awards from an anonymous donor at The Chicago Community Foundation, Good Chaos, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and from The Siragusa Family Foundation, our Make a Wave Partner.
3Arts gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its 2025 sponsors: Presenting Partner: Allstate Insurance Company; Lead Sponsors: Morningstar and Comcast; Corporate Friend Sponsor: Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence; and Artist Pass Sponsor: Graziano and Robyn Berto.
For more information about 3Arts, please visit www.3arts.org.
# # #
Contact: Katy O’Malley/Nicole Rizzo
The Silverman Group, Inc.
847.814.1940
katy@silvermangroupchicago.com