The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has received a hefty $1m grant from the New York-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will fund a three-and-a-half year initiative promoting the museum’s multidisciplinary programme. Performance art will be boosted under the new initiative which launches this month, culminating in nine large-scale commissioned events by artists including "jazz/visual artist Jason Moran, dance/living installation artist Maria Hassabi, and French/British video/performance artist Laure Prouvost," says a museum statement. The grant will also create two fellowships aimed at the study of such art, and build to a conference in 2019 ("a presentation of the initiative’s findings in addition to a national conversation among curators, artists, producers, and scholars"). A key exhibition dedicated to the late US choreographer Merce Cunningham, with works by Tacita Dean and Jasper Johns among others, is due to launch at the Walker next year (8 February-10 September 2017).