{"id":3750,"date":"2016-11-08T15:22:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T21:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/for-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=3750"},"modified":"2017-08-08T08:19:11","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T13:19:11","slug":"anne-basting-named-uw-milwaukees-first-macarthur-genius","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/anne-basting-named-uw-milwaukees-first-macarthur-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Basting named UW-Milwaukee\u2019s first MacArthur \u2018genius\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ann<\/a>
Ann Basting meets with UWM Chancellor Mark Mone after the announcement that she had been named a MacArthur Fellow. (UWM Photo\/Troye Fox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Theater professor Anne Basting has been named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, making her the first UWM faculty member to earn the esteemed MacArthur Foundation\u2019s highest honor.<\/p>\n

Basting, 51, was one of 23 new fellows<\/a> announced by the foundation late Wednesday night, and each will receive $625,000 to pursue whatever projects they desire. The unrestricted fellowships, colloquially known as \u201cgenius\u201d grants, are awarded to people who have shown \u201cextraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basting sees the fellowship as an award shared by the many people she\u2019s worked with through the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of my work is collaborative,\u201d Basting said, \u201cand I feel suddenly like I\u2019m standing by myself, and it\u2019s not where I\u2019m comfortable. So waves of gratitude go to all the people that have ever said yes to agreeing to do a project with me over the years, and in Milwaukee, that\u2019s a huge network now. I\u2019ve done national and international work, too, but the depth of collaboration and support from Milwaukee has been huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anne<\/a>
Anne Basting says she turned to storytelling as a way to help seniors with memory issues. (UWM Photo\/Alan Magayne-Roshak)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Basting\u00a0learned of the fellowship\u00a0via phone a few weeks ago\u00a0while driving in the Holy Hill area on the outskirts of Milwaukee. Although she didn\u2019t recognize the incoming number, she always answers calls, just in case it\u2019s regarding one of her two sons.<\/p>\n

But this call was from was Cecilia Conrad, managing director of the MacArthur Foundation, who asked if Basting was in a private place where she could talk. Basting explained she was driving\u00a0her car.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018I think you need to pull over,\u2019\u201d Basting recalls. \u201cShe told me, and I just burst into tears, and said, \u2018Thank you for making me pull over.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Basting\u00a0told\u00a0her husband, filmmaker\u00a0Brad Lichtenstein, about the honor, but she was sworn to secrecy and couldn\u2019t tell anyone else until Wednesday\u2019s late-night announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been three excruciating weeks,\u201d Basting said. \u201cI think some of my colleagues thought I was sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basting\u2019s focus at UWM\u2019s Peck School of the Arts is on community-engaged performance, and she\u2019s an expert on integrating arts into aging services and long-term care. She\u2019s founder of the Creative Trust, an alliance that fosters lifelong learning through the arts, and which supports a Student Artists in Residence<\/a>program that trains and embeds students with aging services organizations.<\/p>\n

Among Basting\u2019s many other projects are TimeSlips Creative Storytelling<\/a>, The Penelope Project<\/a> and the Islands of Milwaukee. They all exhibit the kind of creativity and community involvement to which Basting has devoted her professional career, and which ultimately drew the foundation\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our communities, our nation and our world face both historic and emerging challenges, these 23 extraordinary individuals give us ample reason for hope,\u201d MacArthur President Julia Stasch said. \u201cThey are breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways. Their creativity, dedication and impact inspire us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basting is\u00a0the sixth person to earn a fellowship while living in Wisconsin, and the first since Milwaukee\u2019s Will Allen, founder of Growing Power, was honored in 2008.<\/p>\n

News of Basting\u2019s honor spread quickly, and she\u2019s been prominently featured in the\u00a0Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/a>, The\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0American Theatre\u2019s website<\/a>. The MacArthur Foundation also has produced a\u00a0video and brief history<\/a>\u00a0of her work.<\/p>\n

[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=b4C74kpuFiA&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theater professor Anne Basting has been named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, making her the first UWM faculty member to earn the esteemed MacArthur Foundation\u2019s highest honor. Basting, 51, was one of 23 new fellows announced by the foundation late Wednesday night, and each will receive $625,000 to pursue whatever projects they desire. The unrestricted fellowships, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-3750","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/3750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=3750"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=3750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}