Membership
Martin De Groot (Chair)Isabella Stefanescu (Vice Chair)
Azam Fouk Aledeh
Isabel Cisterna
Carol Duncan
Kim Jernigan
Dave Mansell
Earl McCluskie
Stephen Preece
Marilyn Scott
Denise Strong
Arlene Thomas
Jean Haalboom (Regional Councillor)
Ken Seiling (Regional Chair)
Directors' biographies
Azam Fouk Aladeh
Isabel Cisterna is an actor, producer, director and playwright whose Neruda Productions has become known for creating “Café Cabarets”, interactive and multicultural celebrations of art, music, and dance in the Region of Waterloo. These have quickly become Neruda`s premier cultural event. Neruda added multicultural workshops to its repertoire including “Arpillera: Tapestry of Life” which brings women together to craft traditional Latin American folk art quilts. (Both the startup of the cafés and the Arpillera project received Arts Fund support.) She has also produced “Art Through Kids Eyes”, which introduces children to different artistic media.
In November 2008 Neruda brought 20 young people and 3 instructors from the Academia de Música “Kids Swing Band” in Puerto Varas, Chile to south-western Ontario as part of a 2-week music and cultural exchange program. Isabel sits on the board of Community Arts Ontario and as a grant committee member of the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation.
She also teaches Spanish at the Waterloo Community Arts Centre
(Button
Factory) and volunteers with the KW Multicultural Centre.
Martin De Groot (Chair) is well known in many arts, cultural and heritage circles in Waterloo Region. He is the Executive Director of the Waterloo Regional Arts Council, sits on the board of Neruda Productions and MT Space Theatre and is a member of the grants committee of the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation. He was a founding member of Globe Studios and has just completed a term on the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation. He was on the original steering committee that launched the Arts Fund.
He is perhaps best known by most people in the region for his weekly arts column in the Record. He was deeply involved in the creation of Culture Plan II for the City of Kitchener and has been a dedicated participant, advisor and friend of almost any artistic or cultural event that takes place in Waterloo Region.
An historian by training and interest, Martin
has taught courses at the University of Waterloo, Brock University,
McMaster University, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of
the West Indies.
Carol B. Duncan is Associate Professor and former chair of the Department of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University. In 2006-2007, she was a Research Associate and Visiting Associate Professor in the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School.
Carol received a Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Award in the literary
category in 2002 and won a teaching award from the Ontario
Confederation of University Faculty Associations in 2006.
Jean Haalboom
Kim
Jernigan has volunteered
her time for the past 30 years as the editor of The
New Quarterly,
an award-winning Canadian literary magazine. In that capacity, she has
also served as panelist, guest speaker, adjudicator and
committee
member for a variety of arts and literary
organizations both locally
and nationally.
Dave Mansell
Earl McCluskie is Producer with Chestnut Hall Music and Artistic Director of the Chestnut Hall Camerata. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Western Ontario and completed the two-year Masters post-graduate program in Sound Recording at McGill University.
He has worked with the CBC and with Access Radio in Alberta, managed concert and conference productions at Stratford Summer Music and Wilfrid Laurier and taught sound recording production at the Ontario Institute of Recording Technology, the State University of New York at Freedonia and has been an Audio Associate at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
His company produces music for artists for release on CD and video, both on the Chestnut Hall label and for independent artists and musicians.
He is vice-chair of the Arts and Advisory Committee for the City of Kitchener, vice-president of the NUMUS board, and Bulletin Editor/Events Coordinator for the Toronto section of the Audio Engineering Society.
Stephen Preece has returned
to the Arts Fund board of which he was an original
member. Dr. Preece has taught Strategic Management at the
School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier since 1993.
His research focuses on cultural industries, in particular the
management of performing arts organizations (dance, music, theatre,
opera). Dr. Preece is currently researching new media applications in
the performing arts. Other research interests include partnerships,
sponsorship, and audience patterns. In his own time, Stephen
sings with the DaCapo Chamber Choir,plays jazz piano, and writes arts
reviews for The Record.
Marilyn Scott is
General Manager of Impresa Communications Limited of Cambridge, a
consulting company to the publishing industry and not-for-profit and
cultural sectors. She was Manager for the Waterloo Regional Arts
Council’s last two print editions of the Cultural Directory; Registrar
for the Waterloo Region Integrated Arts Program at Eastwood Collegiate
in Kitchener (2003-2010); managed a feasibility study on behalf
of Waterloo Regional Arts Council for Your Kitchener Market; Legacy
Cambridge, Linear Park didactic signage; and most recently worked on
the online Cultural Directory for the Waterloo Region Tourism Marketing
Corporation and Creative Enterprise Initiative’s Arts and Culture
website.
Marilyn also volunteers for and advocates on behalf
of arts and culture organizations: Cambridge Galleries volunteer 17
years and counting; Board of Trustees Chair, Cambridge Libraries and
Galleries, 2001/06; Committee chair and member, annual fundraising gala
Arti Gras! 2009; founding member of Cambridge Arts and Culture Advisory
Committee (CACAC); Chair of CACAC subcommittee responsible for national
competition to commission public art for new City Hall Civic Square;
Committee member and Chair, Drayton Entertainment Site Selection and
Feasibility Committee, 2007; Chair, organizing committee, Jazz à la
Mode, Eastwood CI’s Invitational Jazz Festival, 1998/2000; Board
Member, Heritage Cambridge.
In 2007, Marilyn was presented
the YWCA Women of Distinction Arts and Culture award; in 2010, she was
the recipient of The City of Cambridge’s Bernice Adams Special Trustees
Award.
Isabella Stefanescu (Vice-Chair) is a painter, media artist, writer and producer based in Kitchener. In 2007 Stefanescu was awarded the Ontario Arts Council K.M. Hunter Prize for emerging interdisciplinary artists, and in 2008 she completed a multi-media residency at the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab. In 2009 she was part of the Almost Perfect Co-Production Residency at the Banff New Media Institute.
Isabella is active in the Waterloo Region arts community as an
artist, mentor, and volunteer. She was one of the founders of CAFKA
– Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, and one of the
founders of Globe Studios, where she still serves on the board of
directors.
Ken Seiling is a life long resident of Elmira. Ken was first elected as the Regional Chair in 1985 after serving as Mayor and Councillor in Woolwich Township.
He is now serving his ninth term as Regional Chair. Prior to becoming Regional Chair, Ken was a museum director and high school teacher. He is a history buff and church musician.
The creation of the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund came about because of his vision and determination.
Denise Strong is an hotelier by training and was employed at the historic Walper Terrace Hotel for 20 years. During her years as General Manager, she hosted the Berlin Circle and became active in supporting the arts. For many years she was a board member of the Kitchener Downtown Business Association, Soroptimist International (Chair) and at present is co-president of the Waterloo Regional Arts Council.
She operates the “Behind the Red Door Gallery”, where she exhibits mostly local artists and which she also uses as her own studio.
Arlene Thomas grew up in Elmira Ontario and has been active in the arts community of Waterloo Region for many years. She has a BFA in acting from the University of Windsor. Since graduation she has performed in many productions in and outside Waterloo Region.
She has performed in Asphalt Jungle Shorts with Flush INK Productions, as part of the Hysteria Festival in Toronto, at the Halifax Fringe Festival and in numerous productions for Shadow Puppet Theatre. She has also designed and performed in shows at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, The Joseph Schneider Haus and The Cambridge Libraries and Galleries.
Arlene is currently the Artistic Director of Shadow Puppet Theatre and is also the General Manager of Nota Bene Period Orchestra.