OUR BOARD
Laura-Beth Power - Chair
Laura-Beth (LB) is a lover of all things dance and movement. Although she is most known in the community as a yoga and meditation teacher she has made made consistent contributions to Neighbourhood Dance Works over many years. Dating back to to 2005 when she first became a volunteer to now, filling the role of outreach coordinator, board member and lead zombie in the annual zombie gram’s fundraiser, her love for the organization continuously grows. She looks forward to what is to come!
Bruno Vinhas - Treasurer
Brazilian by birth, Bruno Vinhas is passionate about global craft culture which drove his will to work in a gallery environment. A degree in Tourism and Hospitality has provided Vinhas with the experience of living and working in multiple countries and being immersed in different cultures changed his perspective about art and craft. Graduate with honours through College of North Atlantic's Textiles: Craft & Apparel Design program in 2017, Vinhas started his career in the arts through theatre in Brazil, where he worked as director, set and costume designer and teaching. Since leaving his home country he has been part of several different projects including but not limited to curatorial practices, visual arts with focus on textile and multimedia, theatre, film and dance. He has been working as the Craft Council of Newfoundland’s Gallery Director/Curator since August 2018, previously holding the position of Gallery Assistant Director for a year; his primary focus in a gallery environment regards accessibility and inclusion in public art spaces.
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Robert Azevedo - Secretary
Robert Azevedo has been living in Corner Brook, NL since 2020. Born in Moncton, they began dancing on the East Coast before moving to Vancouver, BC to receive their BFA in Contemporary Dance and English Literature at Simon Fraser University. Following that they also graduate from Douglas College with a Diploma in Sign Language Interpretation.
Robert works primarily as a dance artist and ASL-English interpreter and sometimes bridges those two interests by working on accessibility in the arts. They volunteered for several years at the PuSh international festival of performing arts (Vancouver) as an accessibility volunteer and also briefly with VocalEye (Vancouver) working on creating audio descriptions of dance for blind and low vision audiences. Since moving to Newfoundland they have worked with CBNuit (Corner Brook) DanceNL on improving accessibility.
They also sit on the board of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Visual Language Interpreters (NAVLI) serving in their second year as secretary and were a founding board member of Vines Art Festival where they sat for six years. Robert looks forward to this new board adventure and working to boost the profile of dance in Newfoundland and Labrador with Neighbourhood Dance Works.
Roshni Fiech
Roshni is an avid enjoyer of the arts. Her biggest passion being music, she is always singing at home and has now also experienced singing on the Festival of New Dance stage. Looking to join the local arts scene in some way, she contacted Calla and joined Neighbourhood Dance Works as a summer intern in 2018 and has since joined for two more summers and festival volunteering. She has volunteered at other music festivals and venues as well and has joined the student-led newspaper the Muse as a writer. She strongly believes in the positive change music, writing and the arts can facilitate as well as how the creative outlet can support mental health and expression, and wants to be a part in sharing it with the world.
Kim White
Kim has 25 years experience working and volunteering in literacy & adult education, career & employment services, poverty reduction & community development as well as accessibility & inclusion. She has worked in both the private and public sector, but most of her career has been in the community-based sector which she is a very passionate about. Kim received the 2018 Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Award recognizing her work supporting inclusion. Kim has lived with a disability since the age of 3 and has been exploring options for optimizing the use of her body through adapted recreation/ sport and dance/ performance. Kim most recently appeared in The Cut of It, Blue Pinion Film Inc. She has performed in Long’s Hill Walk: I Live(D) Here, Louise Moyes Docudance as part of the National Arts Centre’s DanceForth and The Fire Kedgy’s Howl with NDW as part of the National Arts Centre’s Grand Acts of Theatre. Kim was also a performer in the original walking tour of Long’s Hill Walk: Live(D) Here with Louise Moyes Docudance. Kim was previously the Chair of Power Productions which supports the arts to be more inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities.
Gloria Williams
Gloria is sole proprietor/director of Soothe Downtown Spa, St. John’s, NL, Canada. Her compilation of work/life experiences include some of community development & mental health social work, health promotion consulting, yoga instruction, dance performance, esthetics spa service provision, and plant based nutrition & culinary arts education - which is ongoing. Gloria offers an annual local or global retreat that includes yoga, hiking, dance and relaxing spa services with a plant based culinary focus! http://soothespa.ca/