Foord takes the helm at Allied Arts Council
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on March 20, 2025.
Herald photo by Al Beeber
Steven Foord is the new executive director of the Allied Arts Council in Lethbridge.LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Steven Foord believes the arts are for everyone.
And the new executive director of the Allied Arts Council brings a wealth of experience in the arts to his new role.
Hired in February of 2024 as the AAC’s Manager of Engagement, Foord was recently named executive director following the departure of Jana MacKenzie to the Oldman Watershed Council, where she now serves as its development manager.
The 42-year-old Foord is well-known in the city arts community from his multi-faceted role as co-owner of the Owl Acoustic Lounge for about 14 years, to his involvement with the Downtown Business Revitalization Zone and his volunteer work with the South Country Fair.
To Foord, Lethbridge has an incredible arts community – and not just for its size, as some have suggested.
“We have a great arts community full-stop,” Foord said this week in an interview at Casa.
“It doesn’t have to be qualified with the size of our city. We should take real pride in that.”
Foord, himself a musician, says he always had a lot of respect for the AAC and was looking for a change to a more traditional schedule from the long days and nights that came with his numerous responsibilities at the Owl.
Through his work there and his other initiatives, Foord has come to know the diversity and vibrancy of the arts community and is looking forward to following in the footsteps of MacKenzie and long-time AAC director Suzanne Lint, who temporarily returned to her old role during the search for a new organization leader.
“I’ve always really had a ton of respect for the organization,” he said of the AAC, with the timing of his first role working out perfectly for him.
“It really expanded my horizons in getting a better sense of the Allied Arts Council and its scope, and the real minutiae of all the things this organization does exceeded my expectations.”
“It’s incredibly inspiring and been a great experience,” he said of his time so far with the AAC.
Foord says he has tremendous respect for MacKenzie, having worked with her in different capacities at the SCF and in the past few months he had the pleasure of working with Lint and learning more of the historical context of the AAC.
“It’s been constantly inspiring working with both of those people,” he said.
While music is his wheelhouse, with the Owl Foord got to know a wide range of arts well beyond that aspect.
Foord feels he’s standing on the shoulders of giants who built the AAC and in his role, he wants to carry on and expand what they’ve done.
“You always try to do a little bit better, leave things better than you found it. How do you take it another step further?”
Foord believes a dialogue needs to be had about a new performing arts centre here, adding he’s well aware of the financial challenges of such an undertaking.
But he says Lethbridge is losing out not only from an arts standpoint but also economically from not having a bigger venue that is more well equipped to accommodate a wider range of users.
He points to the schedule of the Esplanade in Medicine Hat and says the only reason shows being staged there aren’t coming to Lethbridge is because this city doesn’t have suitable facilities.
“The Yates is great, don’t get me wrong, it’s very functional for what it is, but it isn’t a dedicated performing arts centre with the kind of infrastructure and the aspects of those facilities you need to have those big things,” says Foord.
“We’re missing out on the economic impact of that. It’s not just about the arts experience. If you want to get down to it, there’s dollars we’re leaving on the table.” And he says theatre groups here might be a little bit under-served with existing facilities.
“These people are putting in the work and a lot of it is for the love of the game. There’s a lot of community theatre groups doing things because they believe in and not always with necessarily the adequate facilities,” added Foord, who comes from a sports background and coached minor hockey in Picture Butte for several years.
“These are conversations we should be having in a fair and pragmatic sense,” said Foord, noting new facilities are long-term investments.
“The over-arching thing is the community. We have to serve the community so how do we do that best and how do we make Lethbridge better than it was before. These are long conversations that take time and take investment, but they’re conversations and they’re investments, in my opinion, worth having.”
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first, good luck to steve, and thank you for all you and several others do to keep live music thriving in lethbridge. not only is this great for those that enjoy live music, it also creates an ongoing forum for local talent to emerge. and, there is a massive per capita assortment of local music talent to be found here.
is there any chance the current casa could be modified so as to create a larger performance space than the yates offers? indeed, we would benefit by having a better middle ground of size and sound/sight quality between the yates, which provides amazing sound and seating, and the too vacuous arena, which is ok for some bigger acts but not quite right for so many others. is there any way to partner with the university or the college? otherwise, i suspect we are looking at status quo for quite some time, especially given these rocky financial times that may be with us for a while.