The Office for the Arts yesterday awarded 18 grants totalling $9000 to students planning projects in theater, dance, music and the visual arts.

A standing commitee consisting of Myra A. Mayman, the office's director, and five professors from the Music, English, VES and Art departments gave the annual awards to original projects it judged most innovative and likely to generate interest in the arts, Mayman said yesterday.

Mayman declined to give the names or projects of the recipients, who will be notified next week.

Mayman added almost 50 individuals and student arts organizations requested close to $50,000 in grants for projects they argued would benefit undergraduates.

She said the committee eliminated many proposals for the funding of ongoing activities and only considered grants for specific projects.

Furthermore, she said the committee found it easy to distinguish especially innovative proposals from those "that one would like to see happen but which aren't breaking any new ground artistically."

Past awards have gone to projects expected to have a "ripple effect" on the whole Harvard community--for instance, the committee gave grants to Peter Sellars '80, who put on theater productions in 27 different places on campus, and a student architecture and design group which placed plastic penguins all over Sever Quad last spring. Mayman said, adding she felt those projects beneficially stirred up the community.

Mayman called the penguin display "creative, intriguing, and wacky" and said that this year's grants had likewise gone to projects that would "make people stop in their ordinary to-and-fro."

Mayman she was delighted with the unusually high number of requests.

"It means there are some really creative people out there that are very interested in the arts and that have a lot of very good ideas," she concluded.