Team & Board
Core Staff
Miranda Castravelli
Executive Director
Nick Maturo
Director of Programming
Deborah Forde
Director of Operations
Lauren Katherine Clinton
Communications & Outreach Manager
Antonia Neatby
Membership Coordinator
Francisco Gonzalez-Rosas
Communications Coordinator
Jean-Paul Osta
Capacity Development Manager (Québec Relations & Artist Inspire Grants)
Project Managers
Andre Athanasiadis
IT Coordinator and Consultant
Andre Athanasiadis (he/him/his) has come to be known as the go-to IT professional of the Montreal arts community. With a breadth of experience in computer systems and networks since 1996, Andre has brought his expertise to numerous technical schools, universities, and arts organizations. Over the years, his work has been trusted by, among many others, McGill University, Teesri Duniya Theatre and the Quebec Drama Federation. ELAN is proud to have Andre as one of our longest contributing staff for over ten years.
Fred Azeredo
Trellis Microgrants Project Coordinator
Fred Azeredo (he/him) is a Brazilian theatre practitioner based in Montreal. A graduate of McGill University, he has written and directed extensively for stage and radio, working with companies like Teesri Duniya Theatre, TNC Theatre, and CKUT Radio. His latest play, Pindorama, was produced at the 2024 Montreal Fringe Festival by MBC Productions, a collective he co-founded with Alice Wu and Dana Prather. He is currently working as dramaturge for MBC’s next production, Countercurrents by Alice Wu, due to premiere at the 2025 Montreal Fringe Festival. Fred is also a columnist at the award-winning webzine ImaginAtlas.
Kym Dominique-Ferguson
Project Coordinator: Community Digital Arts Hub’The Hub’
Sheron Edey
Mental Health Initiative Project Manager
Guy Rex Rodgers
ELAN Founder, Waves of Change Project Manager
A graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada, Guy Rex Rodgers has worked in film and television, and specialized in writing large-scale multimedia productions for museums and special events across Canada, as well as the US, Europe and the Middle East. He has also worked in television, interviewing artists for the Montreal International Jazz Festival and writing TV specials. He recently wrote a pictorial history book for Montreal’s Welcome Hall Mission to commemorate their 125th anniversary. He is also a musician and has recently performed in several editions of Tim Brady’s symphonies for 100 guitarists. In 2015 he was appointed to l’Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec.
A long-time arts activist, Guy Rex Rodgers was co-founder of the Quebec Drama Federation (QDF) and the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF), was a member of the founding board of le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), and was Executive Director of the English-Language Arts Network from its inception in 2004 until 2021.
Quinten Sheriff
ArtistsInspire Grants Project Manager, Interim Privacy Officer
Quinten Sheriff thrives at the intersections of HR, business and marketing consultancy, performance improvement initiatives and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. He is a seasoned learning specialist with a strong background in business and Higher Ed. around design thinking, marketing strategy, and instructional design. Quinten empowers and inspires change-makers, fosters meaningful human connections and drives positive transformations using innovative approaches. He has exhibited his art in all the countries he lived in, and plays several instruments in chamber music groups as well as a jazz quartet.
Board
ELAN’s board consists of representatives from the various artistic disciplines that ELAN serves, representatives of the regions outside Greater Montreal, and representatives from sister organizations – the Quebec Drama Federation (QDF), the Quebec Writers Federation (QWF) and the Association of English Language Publishers (AELAQ).
Executive
Angie Cheng
President
Angie Cheng (Performance). Originally from Ottawa, Angie Cheng is a Montreal-based dance artist. Collaborative creation processes ground her ongoing research in performance; investigating the liminal space between creative process and performance event, between spectator and performer. The embodied and specific understandings that arise from these investigations shape her current questions and engagements both in her own work and with others. What other platforms are available for presenting work and examining how we present the different states of work and the influence it plays with what we create. She has also been actively engaged in the dance community in the conversations of inclusivity, diversity and accessibility. She was a member of the now defunct inclusivity vivre ensemble committee of the RQD.
Louise Abbott
Vice President
Louise Abbott (Writing/AELAQ) is an Eastern Townships-based writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She has dedicated her career to exploring often overlooked communities in outlying areas of Canada. She is the author of The Coast Way, The French Shore, The Heart of the Farm, Eeyou Istchee: Land of the Cree, and Memphremagog: An Illustrated History. She has directed numerous documentaries, including The Sugarmakers, televised by PBS in 2022, and CRUX: The Transformation of AnneBruce Falconer, screened at the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in 2022. Louise established a literary press for Studio Georgeville in 2019 and has since published three anthologies by Townships writers.
She created a multimedia project—In Their Own Voice: Stories and Songs from St. Paul’s River—for the Whiteley Museum in 2023. She’s currently producing a book titled Islands of History about ten islands in the archipelagos of Old Fort and Blanc Sablon in Quebec and a documentary tentatively titled The Mighty Roar about the history of steamboat travel on Lake Memphremagog in Quebec and Vermont.
Photo: Vito DeFilippo
Leah Evangelista Woolner
Treasurer
Leah Evangelista Woolner is a visual artist and community organizer. Her artistic practice explores themes of belonging, desire, knowledge creation, diaspora and collective liberation through painting, mixed media collage, and video installation. Leah continues to (un)learn and be inspired by her relationships with diasporic communities and interspecies beings. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Concordia University (2012) and lives in Tiohtià ke/Mooniyang (Montreal).
Kuh del Rosario
Secretary
Kuh Del Rosario (Visual arts) is a visual artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, QC. Attuning to everyday materials, her practice is driven by a desire for grounding within the places she inhabits. Inspired by Philippine cosmologies and indigenous beliefs, tactile memories and the language of things, Del Rosario explores alternative possibilities and world-building.
She has been supported by The Peter Thompson Family Graduate Scholarship 2020, CALQ 2023, Canada Council for the Arts 2023, Fonderie Darling 2023-2026 sponsored by Romany Eveleigh Gift, and The Claudine & Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art 2024.
Del Rosario recently exhibited at FOFA Gallery (Tidelines, May 2024), SKOL (Catalogue Des Ruines, January 2024), Centre Clark (Summoning Black Beach, October 2023 & Maison Modèle, March 2024) and Maison de la Culture Monkland (Groundworks, November 2023). Upcoming group exhibitions at The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (Worried Earth, Aug 2024), Fonderie Darling (Déliquescence, plaisirs du chaos, September 2024) and a solo show at B-312 (TBA, February 2025).
Photo By: Alexis Bernard
Members at Large
Mario Clarke (Corporate) With over 15 years of experience leading and executing complex projects across diverse industries and levels of government, I am currently serving as the Director of Entrepreneurship and Program Development at YES Employment + Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and artists – driving economic growth in Quebec. My leadership is grounded in a strong track record of fostering innovation, building strategic partnerships, and advancing community-based solutions that create sustainable impact.
As a certified PMP, SMC, and FITT professional, I bring expertise in government relations, business development, grant writing, and organizational development. My core strengths encompass nonprofit management, economic development, advocacy for human rights and gender equality, and overseeing high-impact programs from inception to successful implementation. With a deep commitment to driving social and economic change, I am passionate about helping individuals, communities, and organizations reach their full potential.
Eryn Dace Trudell (Dance), founder and artistic director of MamanDanse since 2006, is a versatile dance artist. For over three decades, she has excelled as a producer, animator, choreographer, performer, teacher, entrepreneur and researcher.
Her research focuses on dance as a relational art and as a means of cultivating a sense of wholeness and well-being through enhancing kinesthetic awareness, sensation and empathy; deepening connections with self, others and the environment; and contributing to the quality of life of individuals and communities. Eryn’s knowledge and skills are a consolidation of her training in ballet and modern dance at Juilliard, her independent research in contemporary dance and somatic movement education, her understanding of dance movement therapy theories and research into the history and practices of folk dance, culturally specific dances and dance as ritual.
Eryn Trudell regularly gives workshops as an artist-educator with the Artist Inspire programme for children in primary schools in and around the Greater Montreal area.
Ms Trudell holds a Masters in Dance ( MA) from UQAM and a Bachelor degree (BFA) in dance from The Juilliard School and is a certified facilitator of Skinner Releasing Technique.( SRT)
Photo by Vivian Doan
Dr. Alexandra Fol (Music). The music of Dr Alexandra Fol (DMus McGill University, MMus Eastman School of Music, BMus Boston University, CTh Princeton Theological Seminary) has been performed by ensembles such as the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Sofia Symphony Orchestra, the McGill Symphony, the orkest de ereprijs, the Orchestre de la Francophonie, the New Score Chamber Orchestra, the Sofia Wind Orchestra, the Orchestre à vents non-identifié (OVNI), Ensemble Paramirabò, El Perro Andaluz, the CYE ensemble, thingNY ensemble, the Orlando Contemporary Chamber Orchestra, the Gabrovo Chamber Orchestra, among many others. She has composed music for documentary movies, including “Ancient Thrace – Door to Immortality”, sponsored by the NetHeritage fund of the European Union, and for various Thracian rituals. Since 2017 her music accompanies annually the restored Thracian summer solstice ritual at the Cabyle rock-cut sanctuary. Her works have appeared in CDs released by Gutenberg Publishing (Bulgaria) and Disques Benedictus (Canada) Winner of the 2021 Roberta Steven Award, Fol lives and works in Montréal as a composer, organist, pianist and conductor. She is the Music director and titulair organist at St James United Church and servs on the board of LAUDEM, the Association of Liturgical Musicians of Canada. Her music is available through the Canadian Music Centre. In 2019 she was awarded a coat of arms by the Canadian Governor General. For more information, click here.
Katia Grubisic (writing/literary translation/QWF) is a writer, editor and translator. Her collection What if red ran out (Goose Lane Editions, 2008) was shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and won the 2009 Gerald Lampert award for best first book. Her numerous book translations span fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. She has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for translation three times, winning the award for Nights Too Short to Dance, by Marie-Claire Blais. Her translation of David Clerson’s short story collection, To See Out the Night, won the Cole Foundation Prize for translation. She has been taught creative writing at the university, college, and community levels, and has worked in literary presentation, as well as in literary periodicals and in publishing. She is also frequently solicited as a member of literary and grant juries, on consultative bodies, and as a book reviewer.
Photo credit: J. Parr
Miranda Handford (Theatre) is an actor and filmmaker based in Montreal. She has been an actor for over 20 years, and began making films about 12 years ago. Highlights of her screen work include CTV’s Tripping the Wire for which she received a Gemini nomination, a starring role in IFC series The Festival; and the lead in Sarah Galea-Davis’ Can You Wave Bye-Bye, which won “Best Canadian Short” at CFC’s Worldwide Short Film Festival.
She also does voice work, including the beautiful animated NFB shorts The Great Malaise by Catherine Lepage, and In Deep Waters, by Sarah Van Den Boom. Her theatre credits include Rabbit Hole with the Ad Hoc Theatre Collective, Hippies And Bolsheviks with Girl Got Lost Productions, Women Of Manhattan with Freestanding Productions, and Camera, Woman with Out Productions/Sin 4. She recently wrote and performed a one-woman show called Fail Again, which she is planning to re-mount in 2025.
Her first foray into filmmaking was writing and co-producing a short film called Elevator, directed by Kim Barr. It was selected for several film festivals in Canada and internationally. It won “Award of Merit” at Best Shorts, USA, in 2014, and ”Best Short”, ACTRA Film Festival, Montreal, in 2016. It was also selected to be part of CBC’s Canadian Reflections series.
From 2017-2021, Miranda completed a specialisation in Film Production from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University. While there she wrote and directed several short films: Sound (2018) a portrait documentary, I? (2019) and Run, Woman (2020) both experimental shorts, and If (2021), an improvised narrative fiction. Since graduating, Miranda completed her latest short film, Carry, which she is now submitting to film festivals.
Samantha Kaine (Film/TV) is a Jamaican-Canadian, award-winning independent film and television Creative Producer, Mentor and Anti-Racism, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (AREDIA) Leader. In 2020, she founded I.M.P.A.C.T, a national, federally incorporated non-profit organization, created to combat systemic and anti-Black racism and empower Black Producers to bring their stories to international markets, grow their businesses and achieve sustainable careers.
Darragh Mondoux (Theatre, Quebec Drama Federation) is an actor, writer, and producer, who has been working in various disciplines of English Language arts for a decade. A performer of voice, theatre, film and television and video games, Darragh has also served as a board member of the Quebec Drama Federation, and chair of their Communications Committee. She is an award-winning performer and public speaker, a teacher of theatre with Montreal Children’s Theatre and Geordie Theatre School, and is represented by Haus of Marc.
Li Li (Theatre, Past President) is a first generation Canadian. She spent her childhood living in different continents, finally settling in Quebec. She has a BFA major in Digital Image & Sound; with a Minor in Theatre from Concordia University. Li Li has worked in theatre, TV/film, and video games. Behind the camera, Li Li has worked a range of jobs including being a fixer, translator, casting director, co-producer as well as selling finished projects to broadcasters. Li Li served as ACTRA National Diversity and Inclusion Committee’s co-chair and as part of the ACTRA Montreal branch council. She is part of the following unions: ACTRA, CAEA and UDA. Li Li is a mother and has a strong interest in gender equity, diversity and inclusion.
J.P. Mortier (Music) J.P. Mortier is a singer, songwriter and artist from Montreal. He’s released 7 albums and toured across Canada 5 times. J.P. has been writing music for 40 years. His seventh album, “Together”, came out late in 2024. Recently, he immersed himself in the world of sync licensing providing music for film, TV and similar media. He just got his first sync license for a documentary titled “Shaken and Stirred” which will be coming out in 2025. He has two university degrees in two different languages (Fine Arts Bachelor in Studio Arts from Concordia and an education degree from Université de Montréal) and a degree in sound recording from Recording Arts Canada. He worked as a teacher and currently gives private guitar lessons and song writing workshops. Taking advantage of his cultural background, he is a citizen of the world, a Canadian and a Québécois born of European parents, resided on 3 different continents and travelled to over 50 countries.
Jon Weisz (Arts Presenter) is the founder and Executive Director of Les Scènes de Musique Alternatives du Québec (Les SMAQ), the association representing independent music venues across the province. He also founded Indie Montréal, a company that provides promotional and administrative services for the cultural sector. As an independent promoter, he has presented over 2,000 shows featuring both emerging and established artists. In 2018, Jon co-founded franconnexion.info, Canada’s French-language music trade press and professional development company for Quebec and Canadian francophone music industry professionals. He serves on the boards of Compétence Culture, the CDCE, and the Canadian Live Music Association, where he also serves as vice-chair.
Shakiya Williams (Writing / AELQ) (she/they) is a Montreal-based emerging writer with a deep commitment to amplifying diverse voices, especially within BIPOC, queer, and marginalized communities. With a background in English Literature and over a year of experience at Linda Leith Publishing, Shakiya brings a thoughtful and creative approach to every project they undertake. Currently, they are crafting a collection of short stories, aiming to introduce compelling diverse narratives to a wider audience. Shakiya believes in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire, and is dedicated to fostering meaningful connections through the arts.
Committees
ELAN board members are welcome to join any of the committees, and may join more than one committee if they have the time and interest.
Non-board members are also welcome to join committees. This is a good way to develop relations with future board members. People with expertise in specific areas (eg. communication, membership, inclusion, corporate planning) may also be invited to join committees.
2025-26 Committees
The 2025-26 Committees are still being finalized. Please check back here for updates in the coming months.
Executive Committee
Governance Committee
Human Resources (HR) Committee
General Mandate
This is a new committee that was previously chaired by the president. It was created to provide support to ELAN staff with annual reviews and to serve as a mediator if conflicts should arise among staff that cannot be resolved by the Admin Manager or the Executive Director. The HR committee will also actively participate in the succession plan for change of Executive Director in 2021.
