Arts Fund invests $130,750 to make art happen in Waterloo Region, including:

August 01, 2025
  • The Studio Theatre, a project of The New Hamburg Community Players
  •  Voicemale, an auto-ethnographic inter-media performance created by Cassandra Cline;
  •  Art of Marriage, a new theatre work co-created by Pam Patel and Tawiah M’Carthy 
  • A recording for solo lute tablature to Magdalena Tominska

Waterloo Region – The Region of Waterloo Arts Fund announces that it has awarded grants totaling $130,750 to artists and arts organizations in response to proposals submitted from throughout the Region of Waterloo. 

A total of 27 grants are being made in the Arts Fund’s Spring 2013 grants cycle. The Arts Fund has invested more than $1,898,750 since its inception in 2002. The funds are generously made available through Regional Council’s allocation of 40 cents per capita.

Proposals selected for funding in this round were:

  • $3,500 to The Community Players of New Hamburg (TCP) for The Studio Project
  • $3,350 to the Grand River Film Festival for a new outreach series
  •  $5,650 for the 2013 A Day and a Night in Hespeler: Art Meets Music Festival
  •  $2,000 to the Renaissance Singers for a performance series in smaller centres of the region
  • $6,900 to Morph Dance Arts for a new choreography of The Nutcracker
  • $3,500 to Lori Crewe for MindSounds, a series of photographic portraits with a video component
  • $1,800 to Nicole Waddick for Burgeon, a sculptural installation at the Waterloo Community Arts Centre
  •  $6,600 to Scott Clevely for Suddenly Super, a short dramatic film project
  •  $10,000 to Paul Campsall & Tom Knowlton for When the Blues Come to Town, a documentary
  •  $2,500 to Jeremy Singer for Hank: Commentator, a Super 8 format music video
  •  $12,000 to Gary Kirkham for Crystal Aggregate, a made-for-television movie
  •  $7,500 to High Rise Studio for Extraction Day, a feature film
  •  $4,000 to Rufus John and Urban X Entertainment for Growing Pains, a short film/music video
  •  $1,000 to Suzanne Church for The Magic Storm, a children’s book project
  •  $1,000 to Kate Cox & Ryan Leandres for a Waterloo Region-themed, pocket-sized, illustrated poem
  • $2,000 to Dan Belgue for a debut solo recording
  • $4,000 to Magdalena Tomsinska for the premier recording of the Gdansk Lute Tablature D-B 4022 manuscript
  • $3,000 to Acquaintance for the creation and recording of 10 original songs
  •  $3,000 to Kyle Krische for Wayfarer, an audio recording project
  • $4,250 to Kathryn Ladano and Stealth to commission a composition from Kitchener composer Nick Storring
  • $8,000 to Kitchener Waterloo Arab Canadian Theatre/KW-ACT for the creation of My Name is Dakhel Faraj
  •  $3,500 to Lost & Found Theatre for a workshop performance of Naked, a play by Lea Daniel
  • $5,500 to Leslie Ting for a musical performance/installation that assimilates the limitations of low vision/blindness
  • $4,600 to Cassandra Cline for the creation of Voicemale, an auto-ethnographic inter-media performance
  •  $4,100 to Flush Ink Productions for the Urban Scrawlers playwrighting project  
  •  $8,000 to Pam Patel and Tawiah M’Carthy for Art of Marriage, a new theatre work
  •  $9,500 to the LINK Picnic Festival for building Carnival King and Queen costumes

Created in 2002, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund is a not-for-profit corporation which provides arms-length funding for the performing, visual and literary arts in the Region of Waterloo. The Arts Fund invites applications in the spring and fall of each year. Applicants are first asked to submit a Stage 1 application outlining their project. On the basis of a review of those applications, a short list of applicants is then asked to submit more detailed proposals.

The objective of the Arts Fund is to “make art happen” – stimulate arts activity – immediately through projects that will happen within the next 12 months, and over the longer term through projects that will enhance the ability of an artist or arts organization to make more art happen in the future.

Applications in all arts disciplines are welcomed from individual artists and arts organizations in the Region of Waterloo (comprising the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo and the townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich). Adjudication of applications is done by the Arts Fund’s broadly based 14-member Board of Directors. 

The next deadline for applications to the Arts Fund is 4:00 pm on Friday, September 6, 2013; information is available on the website: www.artsfund.ca

The Arts Fund will hold two grant writing workshops:

Tuesday, August 20, 2013 from 3:00 to 4:30 pm at the Waterloo Region Museum, 10 Huron Road, Kitchener ON N2P 2R7  (Classroom B)

Wednesday, August 21, 2013 from 7:30 to 8:30 at FELT Lab, 1440 King Street North, St. Jacobs, ON N0B 2N0.

The workshops are free and everyone is welcome.

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For more information, contact Isabella Stefanescu  isabella.stefanescu@gmail.com