By Elise Devlin
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Three members of the Towson University community have recently been honored with the 2021 $2,500 Baker Artist Awards.
The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance recognized Vincent Thomas, a dancer, choreographer and teacher, Taiwanese writer and director Chung-Wei Huang, and Dundalk filmmaker and educator Khalid Ali for their artistic abilities and talent.
“I am creating new work for the Towson University Dance Company and the Towson University Men’s Repertoire and its called Pursuit of Hope,” Thomas explained. “It’s looking at hope. What is it, where do we find it, and why do we need it?”
Thomas said he is most excited about the performance of his upcoming work. And Baker Artist Awards judges noted that his background developed through years of experience shined throughout the application process.
As a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Thomas’s work has been presented at numerous national and international venues, including Velocity Festival and Modern Moves Festival, both in Washington D.C. He has founded VTDance as an outlet for performance projects and is currently working on building the use of contemporary dance, improvisation, text/movement, a variety of sound sources, and collaborations with other artists, he said.
The Baker Artist Award is a highly respected honor given to individual artists and teams of artists in the Baltimore area each year. Mary Sawyers Baker was one of Baltimore’s early philanthropists, who studied voice growing up in Paris and continued to dedicate herself to the arts throughout her life. She established the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund in 1964 to honor her husband, a well-known Baltimore civic leader, and named the Baker Artist Awards after him.
Like everything else this year, the awards have had to change slightly in format because of the many people severely impacted by COVID-19. In a normal year, the $90,000 pool of funding would reach six artists annually. However, this year it was awarded in the amount of $2,500 to 36 artists who will continue to remain eligible to apply in coming years.
Thomas, a professor at Towson University, said that the reconfiguration of the awards this year truly has given many artists a boost after the hit that the art community took in the pandemic.
“I appreciate the foundation and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance for recognizing this as a huge need for the community,” Thomas said. “This speaks volumes to the environment of arts in Baltimore and in Maryland. It is being recognized that this year, we have to make a shift to support our artists.”
To create a portfolio on the Baker Artist Portfolio site, applicants are required to be at least 21 years old and have been a legal resident in the Baltimore region since Sept. 1, 2019. Officials explained that the date is significant because it traces back to one year before the opening of the current portfolio season.
Typically, virtual performances of the awardees are expected to be delivered in the early summer or fall of the year. This, as well as the Baker Artist video episode, allows the public to catch a glimpse of the talent these artists have, and will give recognition and support on a large platform and scale, officials said.
“These awards validate that the work I am doing is being recognized nationally and internationally, which means a lot,” Thomas said.
Huang also is a Towson University professor. Although she has produced many pieces of work that are notable and highly respected, her film Midnight Carnival is one her most popular pieces.
“When I was in my second year of graduate school, I started to think about what I wanted to make for my thesis,” Huang said. “The story is actually based on my own experience. Generally, I was really happy with it.”
Huang explained it took about four nights to shoot at the main scene of the film, the carnival, with working hours from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Ali was originally trained as a commercial filmmaker in Los Angeles and developed an interest in documentary film upon traveling to China with his older brother. He said his experiences in China developed into a series of documentaries about Chinese urban culture. After returning to the United States, Khalid has applied this same type of approach to filmmaking in Baltimore. Khalid has taught digital film at George Washington Carver Center for Arts & Technology since 2010. He received his M.F.A from Towson last year.
The artists’ work in Baltimore is being recognized by many more people because of the Baker Artist Awards. This year especially, it has truly helped.
“Responding to the needs of the community, and with encouragement from the Board of Governors of the William G. Baker, Jr. Fund, we are thrilled to recognize and support our largest pool of awardees ever,” said Board President Connie Imboden.