Region of Waterloo Arts Fund awards 41 grants

Waterloo Region - The Region of Waterloo Arts Fund announces 41 grants for a total of $201,300 in response to proposals submitted by artists and arts organizations throughout Waterloo Region.

The Arts Fund initially received 70 requests, for a total of $524,220. After the first round of evaluations, 50 applicants seeking a total of $277,625 were invited to submit more detailed Stage 2 applications from which the 41 grants were ultimately selected. Since it was established in 2002, the Arts Fund has supported 672 projects for a total community investment of $3,607,420.

Proposals selected for full or partial funding in the fall 2018 round include organizations, collectives and individual artists.  Grant recipients are:

Organizations and Collectives:

The Ayr-Paris Band (Ayr) $4,200 for a community based Christmas recording. 

Ayr (Dumfries) Pipe Band (Ayr) $7,000 to assist with the start-up of a musical hub, and cultural community centre.

Backyard Theatre (Kitchener) $8,900 for the production of “The Other Side of the River”.

Fly Away Arts (New Hamburg) $4,000 for “Dancing on the Elephant”, an original play by Lisa Hagen.  To be staged at The Nook in Baden. 

Foto:RE Collective Review (Waterloo) $5,000 to support the start-up of a new photography magazine in Waterloo Region.

FRESH Stories (Cambridge) $1,000 for a story telling project at Freeport Hospital for people in long term care. 

Frog Song Collective (Cambridge) $8,200 for a new fairy tale opera for children – exploring themes of identity, community and self-expression. 

The Grebel Gallery, Conrad Grebel University College (Waterloo) $2,000 to support an exhibition of works by Megan Harder entitled “New Fraktur”.

Irish Real Life Festival KW (Kitchener) $4,000 to support the artistic elements of the festival, promoting Irish culture in our local community.

Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (Kitchener) $7,200 to produce 4 to 8 short videos featuring local artists and enthusiasts who will illuminate the gallery’s permanent collection.

Kitchener-Waterloo Poetry Slam (Kitchener) $5,200 to support an audience development project for an established event series.

Lightning Banjo Productions (Kitchener) $3,200 for a remount of “The Velveteen Rabbit” at the Steckle Heritage Farm. 

Lost & Found Theatre (Kitchener) $2,000 for an experimental theatre performance called “Blind Date Musical Theatre”.

The Multicultural Theatre Space (MT Space) (Kitchener) $10,200 for “The Shoe Project”, a 12 week writing and performance workshop on stories of transitions.

Neruda Arts (Waterloo) $3,000 for “If These Walls Could Talk”, phase one of a theatre project focussed on immigration stories. 

Numus Inc.(Waterloo) $4,200 for the start-up development of the “NUMUS Orchestra”.

Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound (Kitchener) $3,000 for “Under the Stars Experience” – Grisley’s “Le Noir de L’Etoile” performed outside on the lawn at Perimeter Institute. 

Pins and Needles Fabric Company (New Dundee) $9,700 for a pilot project to capture Indigenous and pre-colonial stories in various formats at 10 sites.

Seth Ratzlaff & Clarence Cachagee (Kitchener) $3,000 for phase two of “North Wind Man”, a biographical novel of Clarence Cachagee’s healing journey.

Safe As Houses (Kitchener) $4,700 for a music video for their original song “Bird on Display”.

Spiritus Ensemble (Kitchener) $2,500 to support a performance of Bach’s St. Mark’s Passion, featuring spoken words by actor Scott Wentworth.

Rebecca Swabey and Erin MacIndoe Sproule (Kitchener) $4,200 for an audio documentary on séances conducted in 1960’s Kitchener - “The Ghost of Thomas Lacey”.

Textile (Waterloo) $7,200 to assist with the start-up of a new literary magazine in Waterloo Region, featuring local writers. 

Waterloo Chamber Players (Waterloo) $5,000 for a production of “Nanabush and the Giant Beaver” in collaboration with John Rice of Wasauksing First Nation. 

The Yacht Club (Waterloo) $2,000 to support two multi-disciplinary shows – “Art Inspiring Nature” and “Nature – the Beauty and the Brutal”.

Individual Artists:

Owen Bloomfield ( Cambridge) $3,000 for the creation of new music for flute and piano. 

Stephanie Boutari (New Hamburg) $7,000 for an exterior mural to be created for a specific location – the store at 223 Mill Street in Kitchener called “Torreense”. 

Douglas W Campbell (Waterloo) $3,900 to develop the script, and produce a pilot for a web series entitled “Vlad”.

Suzanne Church (Kitchener) $4,000 for the first draft of a novel entitled “Aunt Cheerful, Uncle Gloom” on the theme of gender identity.

Ernest Daetwlyer (Atwood) $ 7,700 to support the creation of a public sculpture to raise awareness and memorialize people who have been street-involved or homeless.

Viktorija Kovac (Waterloo) $5,200 for “Deconstruction” a theatre project which combines “Exit the King” and “Saint Joan”.

Kathryn Ladano (Kitchener) $4,000 for the creation of her second solo album “The Masks We Wear”.

Jennifer Lloyd (Waterloo) $5,000 for a film entitled “Lover Boy” on the theme of human trafficking.

Amanda Lowry (Waterloo) $4,200 for her first album “Find Your Light”.

Jesse Matas (Waterloo) $4,000 for “Regarding Grand” - original music inspired by the Grand River.

Brian Riddell (Cambridge) $5,950 to support a photography exhibition project to raise awareness within our Region of global warming and featuring photographs of glaciers in Iceland and Greenland.

Joseph Shugan (Kitchener) $7,200 for a documentary entitled “Kospure – The Art Behind the Creations” on the theme of comic-con events. 

Cameron Slipp (Waterloo) $3,300 for “501” a one act musical theatre piece based on a real train accident. 

Andrew James Smith (Cambridge) $4,000 for a painting project called “Local Constellations” on the theme of night scenes throughout the Region.

Ava Torres (Kitchener) $6,000 for a film entitled “The Things that Shape Us” with a theme of intergenerational conflict.

Bonita Wagler (Waterloo) $6,250 to finish the documentary on the “Elmira Water Project.”

The mandate of the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund is to make art happen in our community by providing meaningful grants and other advocacy support to individual artists and to arts and culture organizations.

In 2017, Region of Waterloo Council increased the annual allocation to the Arts Fund by $150,000. Waterloo Region now generously allocates the equivalent of 67 cents per capita to the Arts Fund so that the people of Waterloo Region may benefit from the vibrancy of the arts and culture sectors.

Created in 2002, the Arts Fund is a not-for-profit corporation served by a volunteer Board of Directors. The Arts Fund provides arms-length funding for the performing, visual, media and literary arts. It welcomes grant applications in all arts disciplines from individual artists and arts organizations based in the Region of Waterloo (comprising the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo and the townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich).

The Arts Fund Board invites applications in the spring and fall of each year for projects that will occur within the following 12 months. The goal in the longer term is to enhance the ability of an artist or arts organization to make more art happen through future projects.

The Arts Fund is one of the few granting bodies in Canada that awards grants directly to artist-led projects. Often these supported projects are able to attract additional funds through earned revenue, grants from provincial, federal or private sources, sponsorships, private and in-kind donations.

For more information about initiatives such as peer-to-peer grant writing assistance, Board-hosted open houses before application deadlines, Artist-at-Large Advisers and previous grant recipients, please visit the website: www.artsfund.ca.

The next Arts Fund Open House for grant applicants before the spring 2019 round is on Tuesday, February 5 from 5-7 p.m. at the Region of Waterloo Headquarters, Room 110, 150 Frederick Street, Kitchener. There will be a brief presentation at 5:15 to provide an overview of the Arts Fund guidelines, with plenty of time for questions. First time applicants are encouraged to attend this brief presentation. Board members will be available until 7 .p.m to respond to questions and to share general information about the fund and its mandate. 

The next deadline for applications to the Arts Fund is 4 p.m. on Friday, March 1, 2019; full details are available on the website: www.artsfund.ca.

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For more information, please contact staff and Board members via email: info@artsfund.ca