STAFF

Amir Ali Alibhai, Executive Director
604-681-3535 Ext. 209

Kevin Dale McKeown, Director of Communications
604-681-3535 Ext. 215

Olga Kovalchuk, Member Services Administrator
604-681-3535 Ext. 207

Beverly Edgecombe, Administrative Assistant
604-681-3535 Ext. 201

Artists' Legal Outreach Program (ALO)
604-681-3535 Ext. 213

Our address:

#100 - 938 Howe St., Vancouver, BC V6Z 1N9
p. 604.681.3535 | f. 604.681.7848
info@allianceforarts.com

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BOARD MEMBERS - 2009 / 2010

The Alliance for Arts and Culture is governed by an elected board of directors.

EXECUTIVE

Minna Schendlinger, President

Managing Director of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival Society since 2005, Minna began her career in the cultural arts in Vancouver in 1997 as the Volunteer Coordinator for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. She held that position each year until 2004, and in 2005 was contracted as the temporary Operations Manager for the festival. Minna also worked each fall on short-term full time contract with the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival from 2000 to 2005 as Volunteer Coordinator and coordinated volunteers for First Night 2000 and the World of Children’s Choirs 2001. Minna attended Capilano College part-time from 1995 to 1999 when she discovered there was enough work for an experienced Administrator to keep her busy all year. In addition to her current position (ending this June at the Alliance AGM) as president of the Board of the Alliance for Arts & Culture, Minna is also vice-president of the Board of the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards Society and a sitting member of the professional advisory committee of the Vancouver Community College School of Music.

Ian Forsyth, Past President

After graduating from UBC with a BFA in Theatre, Ian Forsyth worked as a freelance actor, director and writer for several years.  After running the Vancouver TheatreSports League for four years, Ian opened and ran the North Peace Cultural Centre in Fort St. John for six years.  He was Kelowna's first Cultural Services Manager and returned to Vancouver to be the Arts Services Manager for the City of Burnaby in 2001 and now works at the Director of Cultural Affairs in North Vancouver. Ian continues to teach theatre and sits on the board of The Creative City Network, The Cultch, Theatre Under the Stars, and is Chair of the 605 Collective.

Nancy Noble, Vice President

Nancy Noble is the CEO of the Museum of Vancouver. She has worked extensively in the museum community in Canada for over 20 years and came to Vancouver from Winnipeg, where she was the Director of Curatorial Services at the Manitoba Museum.  Nancy also worked in various museums in Saskatchewan, sat on the board of the Museums Association of Saskatchewan and was a founding member of the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada. Nancy holds a Master of Arts degree in museum studies from the University of Leicester, England and is currently a Board Member of the Canadian Museums Association.

Mo Dhaliwal, Treasurer

Mo Dhaliwal is a strategist for Hamazaki Wong Marketing Group, which develops and executes ethnic marketing strategies. Educated in Business Administration from the University of the Fraser Valley, he has over 10 years of experience in the technology sector, including software development and Internet marketing in the Silicon Valley region of California. As a patron of the arts, producer of cultural events, and founder of the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration, Mo has worked to shatter barriers between people and encourage cross-cultural understanding.

DIRECTORS

Trevor Battye

Trevor Battye is from Vancouver and began work in advertising sales in 2005 with Rebus Creative, where he oversaw program guide advertising sales for several arts festivals including The Word on the Street Vancouver and The See 7 Theatre Series. Trevor also handled advertising sales for Geist magazine, which he joined in the fall of 2005. In addition to Rebus and Geist, Trevor was the advertising sales representative for the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Vancity Theatre (online), and Urban Trendz magazine and its website www.urbantrendz.ca. While at Rebus, Trevor also worked on various fund raising initiatives including The BC Book Prizes “Adopt a Library Program”, which to date has raised more than $20,000 worth of books for schools across BC. Trevor continues to do work for VIFF, The Word on the Street and Geist magazine as a part of Clevers Media, a consulting business he cofounded with Clare E. Coughlan in April 2008. Trevor continues to expand on his advertising sales for clients in magazine publishing like Rice Paper, Canadian Dimension, and MusicWorks, among others. Together with Clare, he focuses on developing new revenue streams for clients including sponsorship programs and online marketing strategies, as well as strategies for social networking technologies and the development of online communities.

Jason Dubois

For the past twelve years, Jason has been involved with various dance and theatre organizations throughout western Canada. His credits range from administrator to designer and include work with Curtain Razors, New Dance Horizons, Kidd Pivot, Joe Ink, Martha Carter, Lola Dance, The Holy Body Tattoo, Wen Wei Dance and Vancouver New Music. Since moving to Vancouver in 2004 he spent a two-year term as Production Manager & Technical Director for the ScotiaBank Dance Centre and is currently Production & Tour Manager for Eponymous Productions.

Sandy Garossino

A lawyer by training, Sandy Garossino is a publisher, businessperson, and specialist in arts governance and advocacy. Her experience covers a wide range of business operations, from the transportation industry, publishing, and new media. She is a former VP and director of the MacLean Group, owners of Royal City Taxi and Richmond Cabs until 1997. In 2006, Sandy co-founded House of Parlance Media, which worked with street arts--graffitti, manga, comics, slam poetry, hip-hop and new media applications. Its award-winning and critically acclaimed projects have been translated into 12 languages and distributed world-wide via mobile devices and PDA’s. Sandy is a former vice-chair of the Vancouver International Writers Festival Board, and has sat on the board of Public Dreams. She is a founder of the Citizens Roundtable for the Arts, an arts advocacy group promoting the public interest in arts and culture. She is on the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration Advisory Council, and is former chair of the Vancouver Biennale. Sandy has 14 years experience in board development and arts governance, with special interest in cultural diversity, creative freshness, and accessibility of art in the public realm.

Paul Gravett

Paul Gravett studied piano in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, receiving a degree in piano performance from the University of Manitoba, after which he worked as a freelance accompanist and vocal coach in Toronto. The desire for a stable income eventually took over and Paul shifted careers to artists’ management. After another move and shift in career, Paul became a facility manager and concert presenter, first at ArtSpring on Salt Spring Island and, currently, at Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver. In addition to sitting on the Alliance board, Paul is Chair of the BC Touring Council. Paul was honoured to receive two awards in 2008: the Business Citizen of the Year Award by the West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, and the Unity in Diversity Award from the West Vancouver Bahá’í community.

Joanne Harada

Joanne Harada was appointed Director of Artistic Operations with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2002.  She currently holds the position of Vice-President, Artistic Operations & Education.  In this position, she is responsible for programming the VSO’s season along with Music Director Bramwell Tovey, and for managing the operations side of the Orchestra’s performances. A native of Toronto, Joanne graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a BMus in musicology and piano. She began her career as an arts administrator and publicist with Hart/Murdock Artists Management. Over the years, Joanne has held positions with the University of Toronto Faculty of Music (Programming & Public Relations Officer), the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Associate Director of Artistic Administration), and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Director of Artistic Operations).

Cory Philley

Cory is a writer, performer, producer, director and for over twenty years has worked at every aspect of theatre performance and production, from actor to stage manager and from publicist to performer.

Cory was one of the founding members of La Luna Productions (1999-2007) where she served as co-artistic director and general manager from 2000-2007. She was the production manager for the Jessie nominated “Love Bites” and “Pillar Clock” and wrote and performed for La Luna’s “Shaking the Tree” and Small World, “da big womb, Faith & Two Lip Tango”. Cory’s one-woman show, “Contrary”, premiered as part of La Luna’s commissioned performance series “Stripped” at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in November 2006. For the third installment of the series in April 2007, “Stripped (3)”, she directed “Hurted”, a new work by Adrienne Wong. Cory has worked as a freelance theatre publicist and production manager for such Vancouver-based companies as Ruby Slippers, NeWorld Theatre and Boca del Lupo. She is currently the Facility and Events Services Coordinator at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby, where she programs the theatre season and supervises the festivals and special events. She is a graduate of the Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts.

Fernanda Viveiros

Fernanda Viveiros is the producer of the BC Book Prizes and the Word On The Street Vancouver festival. Formerly the executive director of the Federation of BC Writers and the founding publisher of The Steveston Phoenix, Fernanda has worked in the fields of journalism, editing, publicity and publishing for over twenty-five years.  She has served on the board of directors for the Alliance for Arts and Culture since 2006 and is a consultant to the board of the Portuguese Community Centre of BC.

Gillian Wilder

A sociologist by background, Gillian graduated from the London School of Economics with a B.Sc. and pursued graduate studies at UBC where she obtained her master’s degree. She began her career in arts administration in London, England, and became Manager of Vancouver’s Early Music Society in 1976. A year later she was appointed General Manager of the Vancouver Bach Choir and has continued in that post ever since. Besides general management, a very broad job description in the case of the choir, encompassing public relations, marketing, concert and stage management and the usual endless grant applications, Gillian has also managed numerous national and international tours for the choir. Over the past 20 years Gillian was Chair of the Music Alliance for a number of terms. She has been Chair of Chorfest, the annual conference of the BC Choral Federation, on two occasions and Chair of the Four Choirs Festival in Vancouver which gave rise to the Choral Federation.