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Pippin
Vol.15, No.1 The Newsletter of Storytelling Toronto
by Deborah Dunleavy When did you discover that you were a storyteller? While growing up in Walkerton my siblings and I endlessly re-enacted nursery rhymes (some in Dutch some in English) with our mother around the large kitchen table af-ter the evening meal. Sometimes we would ask our father to tell us about the time when he was skating along the frozen canals in Friesland at very high speeds as a young man and he fell through a crack in the ice. His speed propelled him forward in the wa-ter below the ice. His two teenage sisters saw his outline under the ice and broke through the ice to rescue him.
When I was a young girl I shared a bed with my younger sister, Beth. We were not to turn the lights back on after our parents had told or read us a story. Frequently Beth could not fall asleep so she would tap me on the shoulder and beg me to tell her a story under the covers in total darkness. This became a nightly ritual and I found myself preparing daily either by listening or reading for stories, or inventing a story so I’d have something ready for Beth later. Sometimes I would hear her retelling it a day or two later to her playmates or even to her dolls. I was amazed at how much she retained. What do you sense is the relationship between the teller and the listener? I’ve always sensed there is a reciprocal loop connecting the teller and the listener. Ini-
tially there is a
mutual negoti-ated agreement between them to move into their roles. If a teller is thrust upon a captive listener (or audience) then it is para-mount to negoti-ate through some authentic choices of character or story locations so the listener can feel engaged and invested in the material that will be told momentarily.
Also, the teller and listener enter the invisible story “casement” together and be-gin to see, hear, taste, smell and feel the same “world” together. And even the pas-sage of time in the story becomes a shared temporal experience, as real time becomes suspended during the storytelling journey. Of course listener and teller return to their actual place and real time together after the story is over when they step out of the story “casement” and into their day-to-day lives once more.
I believe there is a fair bit of non-verbal facial communication exchange be-tween listener and teller. There are looks and gestures as well as interpretation and feedback of the ongoing story. This in turn affects the teller’s speed, intensity, vo-cabulary and expressiveness in the telling.
It is a powerfully active and constructive dual process where both teller and listener are involved in the construction or creation of the story. Hence I view the shared ex-perience as one of being co-created by all.
Because of a familiarity with the tale, the teller is able to build the story from the inside and build it meaningfully and alertly to create a suitable delivery for the listener. At the same time the listener is visually constructing the tale upon receiving it from the outside and absorbing it to the inside where it is growing while following the teller’s lead. This distinction is about flow or directionality of the story work in the mind of the teller and listener. It is the story itself that creates the “oneness” of the narrative landscape experience.
The “told” story is simultaneously an act of both giving and receiving. The teller’s gift is the telling or giving away of the story. At the same time the teller is also receiving a gift from the listener. In the act of being a listener one gives back to the teller the ears, the mind, and the imagina-
(Continued on page 9)
An interview with teller Hildy Stollery
FACE TO FACE The intertwining roles of storyteller and listener
INSIDE Face to Face ... ...................1 Nota Bene ..........................2 Touring a Book of Spells ..........3 A New Talking Stick...............4 Memories of Turkey ...............5 Inuk Storyteller....................6
A New Director for Storysave ...6 BookNook ...........................7 Stories Goin’ Round ................8 Monday Night Magic...............11 Listings..............................12
**NOTA BENE** PIPPIN is the newsletter of
Storytelling Toronto The Storytellers School of Toronto is a registered, non-profit organization that provides a creative home for a community of storytellers,
listeners, and story-explorers. Our mission is to inspire, encourage and support storytelling for listeners, tellers and those who have not yet heard. Since 1979 we have been providing courses and workshops; holding gatherings, festivals and events to celebrate and present the art of storytelling; supporting the creative work of storytellers; and producing publications about storytelling and storytellers.
Pippin Editor Deborah Dunleavy
Design/Layout
chris cavanagh
Book Reviewer Rheba Estante
Listings
Marylyn Peringer
Program Leaders Festival Director: Catherine Melville
Resident Teachers: Marylyn Peringer, Lynda Howes Directory: Bruce Carmody
Legless Stocking: Lorne Brown, Catherine Melville STORYFIRE: Catherine Melville
Website: Bruce Carmody
Board of Directors 2008-2009 Karen Blair June Brown David Gladstone Paul Robert Hildy Stollery Molly Sutkaitis Tasleem Thawar
Office Director
Jody James
© Storytelling Toronto (formerly Storytellers School of Toronto)
Ph: 416-656-2445 Fax: 416-656-8510
www.storytellingtoronto.org
MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 501, 639 Dupont St.
Toronto On M6G 1Z4
STREET ADDRESS: Artscape Wychwood Barns
601 Christie St., Suite #173 Toronto On M6G 4C7
www.storytellingtoronto.org
On Board! Storytelling Toronto welcomes two new members to the board – Jacqueline Nuwame and Cesar Polvorosa Jr. Jacqueline Nuwame has a decade of experience in production and has held a variety of positions. Currently with her company Eventide Media she is in the developmental stages of three documentaries, most notably The Hanging of Angelique, based on the novel by Afua Cooper. With her company she has worked as a consultant with several Canadian produc-tion companies and convergent projects such as Direct Current's 4Real. She is also faculty at the Media Lab at the Canadian Film Centre. In the past, she was the Director of Communications at DECODE Entertainment Inc., in Toronto. She has an award-winning portfolio of work ranging in both television and multimedia, and has an array of experience in enter-tainment production, new media, marketing, and corporate communica-tions. Jacqueline has also produced several behind the scenes and is also a well-known new media producer. Her project, Anansi World of Folktales is a broadband site for showcasing and collecting folktales. The project was exhibited at the 29th International Conference on Computer Graph-ics and Interactive Techniques (Siggraph), 2002 at the San Antonio Children’s Museum as a part of SigiKIDS exhibit and at the 2004 McLu-han Festival of the Future. Cesar Polvorosa Jr. is a strategic planner, economic geographer, busi-ness plan consultant and writer by profession. His main research inter-ests are in immigrant entrepreneurship, geographies and culture of the firm. He was AVP of corporate planning and head of research of a Philip-pine bank before coming to Canada for his Ph.D. His published works span economic, business and creative writing fields. His short stories and poems have been published in Philippine magazines, the Likhaan An-thology and his haikus have appeared in a Japanese newspaper. He was a Writing Fellow at the University of the Philippines Creative Writers' Workshop and had been designated as a 2008 Emerging Writer of the Diaspora Dialogues. He is a participant of the Maytree Foundation Diver-seCity on Board and likewise teaches economics at Seneca College. His Master of Policy Science degree was taken at the National Graduate In-stitute for Policy Studies of Tokyo, Japan while his BA (Social Science, cum laude) was garnered at the University of the Philippines. He is cur-rently a PhD Candidate in Geography of York University, Toronto.
Jan Andrews & Jennifer Cayley The journey began when we had our names pulled from the hat to do a Fringe performance for the 2007 NSN conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The Fringe was looking for edgy work, so we de-cided on two literary stories of magic realism from British author Sarah Maitland’s collection of short stories, A Book of Spells. These stories were steeped in a love of traditional material but also dealt with difficult contemporary women’s issues. Alive with the inspiration of the SC/CC Hamilton conference and the pleasure of teaching our first three-day master class there, we set out for St. Louis in the car together. We knew the show was a little short of the one-hour mark re-quired and we began to talk. Twenty-six hours later we arrived in St.Louis, ready to offer, not just two good stories, but to perform an integrated show. The literary stories were still there but now they were wrapped round with small fragments of our own story; a hard one about the painful struggle of learning to live together. When the telling was done, people said they were very touched by the piece. We got lots of good feedback but there was a general comment that there needed to be more of our own story told. We began to dream and scheme. We’d been thinking for a while about the difficulties of getting good work out to a wider audience than is currently coming to storytelling events and festivals. When we saw that Word of Mouth, the OAC (Ontario Arts Council) granting program for storytelling, was including a touring compo-nent in its criteria for the first time, we cheered. An application was made to tour an expanded version of A Book of Spells to small theatres and other recognized per-formance venues in southern Ontario where storytelling wasn’t usually produced. We crossed our fingers and waited. Several months later good news came and the work really began. The process of building the show into two 45 minutes sets was challenging, ex-
hilarating, surprising, frustrating, enormously time-consuming, terrify-ing, and lots of fun. The grant included money to cover much-needed mar-keting and touring exper-tise beyond our own. We engaged the services of STAF (Small Theatre Administrative Facility) in Toronto to research ven-ues and assist with pro-
motion. STAF is a non-profit organization whose services might be useful to many storytellers and groups. Their approach was warm, efficient and knowledgeable and we highly recommend them (www.theatreadmin.com). In the end the Ontario tour consisted of eleven shows. We started with two per-formances at the Arts Project in London, moved on to the King St Theatre in Kitch-ener. A few weeks later we went to the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, The Century Church Theatre in Hillsburgh and the Peterborough Arts Umbrella. We finished with two per-formances in Kingston’s Wellington Thea-tre, one at the Studio Theatre in Perth and then had a grand finale at home, thanks to the Ottawa StoryTellers concert series at the Fourth Stage of the NAC (National Arts Centre). Each venue was different, with its own strengths and challenges. In the two communities where we were al-ready known, Toronto and Ottawa, we had good audiences; in the other communities audiences were very small but oh, they were encouraging! People stayed after-wards to tell us how moved they had been by the story and our willingness to share it. They kept saying if only they had really understood what they were coming to they would have made sure more people knew about it. Through it all, Jan ran a blog on her website (www.janandrews.ca) as a means of sharing our experience with oth-ers. Riding on all the energy of our Ontario winter tour we set out for Wales in May, enormously grateful for the support of the
Anne Smythe Award which was a big part of making this aspect of the project hap-pen. But we should go back a bit now to describe how we came to be going to Wales at all. Several years ago, we had met Phil Tho-mas and Eirwen Malin from Cardiff when they performed at the Toronto Festival. A year later when Jan was going to Britain, she contacted Phil and he helped her organ-ize some gigs in Wales. She stayed with Phil and Eirwen and in the course of conver-sation, mentioned the Book of Spells. Phil, who was by then the Artistic Director of the Gwanwyn Festival, a festival of the arts for people over 55, was intrigued and de-cided he wanted to have the piece included in the next year’s festival. He didn’t have money to pay transatlantic fares or even much local travel and accommodation but if we could deal with those issues he would program the piece in a number of festival venues with a guaranteed performance fee, a good one by Canadian standards. The Anne Smythe Travel Award allowed us to cover our expenses as we traveled to the various Welsh communities where we per-formed. We did five shows in all. I wish we could say we played to thousands but in truth, the situation was similar to Ontario. No one really knew what to expect, so marketing was difficult. But again those who did come were wondrously affirming and people en-couraged us to return, offering all kinds of help in finding audience if we could manage that. We began the tour in a library in Haver-fordwest, a lovely town west of Cardiff. We went on to the Rhonda Valley, a coal mining area before the infamous closure of the Welsh mines by the Iron Lady, Marga-ret Thatcher. There, to our amazement and terror, we found we were performing the show -- which is after all about the lives of two aging women -- for young college stu-dents 16-18. In the end, we were very touched by their close attention, their positive comments, their enthusiasm for extended post-performance discussion and perhaps most of all for their clear under-standing that the show was really about
THE ANNE SMYTHE TRAVEL AWARD:
Touring a Book of Spells
anyone’s relationship. Their instructors were amazed at the students’ engagement with the simplicity of storytelling and re-vealed when it was all done that it was not an easy group to involve. In Cardiff we did the show for a good sized, appreciative audience thanks to all Phil’s connections there. A man, who on first glance might not have seemed like your usual storytelling enthusiast, came up to Jan afterwards and said “Now that was a cracking good evening” (not a comment we’re likely to get this side of the Atlan-tic!). Numbers of people told us they really recognized themselves and their own sto-ries. We also created and told a short story -- a spin-off from the show -- at the presentation of a report for the Welsh Assembly about the issues and needs of the aging LGBT community in that country. We finished with a performance in a lovely community theatre in Rhayader, a small town in the mountains of mid Wales, fa-mous for its flocks of air-dancing, red kites. In between performances we were able to delight in the glories of the Pembroke-shire coast, the ruggedness of Snowdonia and the rich history of Cardiff itself. When we were in Cardiff, Phil Thomas and Eirwen Malin billeted us in their lovely
home and were the best of all possible hosts. Indeed everywhere people gave us a warm welcome. At the top of a narrow, steep road leading to a wild and beautiful headland, a magnificent woman even changed a tire for us and then invited us in for tea. We heard the music of the Welsh language in lots of different places; wild flowers, greenness, sheep abounded and the extraordinary stonework in fences, bridges, and houses was a vivid testament to how hard people have worked on the land. Everywhere the rhythms and stories of the sea were close and we talked about storytelling to everyone we met. We came to the end of this grand ad-venture in Ontario and in Wales having learned a huge amount. First, there were the creative lessons which came as a result of doing the show over and over again in a relatively short time span. Next, there was the experience gained in terms of market-ing and promotion. Above all there was the fact that so many listeners (so many of them new to our art form) had repeatedly told us that The Book of Spells was a good and even important show and more people should see it. We are not done with this piece and hope to tour it further. Indeed, we have an application in to the Canada Council’s Story-
telling and Spoken Word Program for assis-tance in doing just that. We are also work-ing to embrace what is really needed to get storytelling out there – front and centre in the big wide artistic world. To this end, we are planning to form a small production company (tentatively called Two Women Productions) to serve and mount our own creations and those of others. The Book of Spells tour was one of the richest storytelling experiences either of us has ever had. We both feel that it has brought us to a place of new beginnings, new ideas, new adventures. We are deeply grateful to everyone who made this possi-ble: the small, brave, open-hearted audi-ences who came out to see the show un-knowing; the large audiences in Ottawa and Toronto full of friends and other storytell-ers who came to listen and cheer us on; the Ontario Arts Council’s Word of Mouth grant that was the grounding for develop-ment and touring; and finally Storytelling Toronto and the generous anonymous donor who assisted in making the international component of the tour possible by offering funds to insure that the Anne Smythe Travel Award could be made in difficult financial times. Thank-you one and all. Stay tuned for the next chapter!
Submitted by Howard Kaplan 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling in Toronto is one of those groups that recog-nizes the current teller by passing a talking stick. We've been running for 31 years, and for over 20 of them we'd used the same talking stick, which Dan Yashinsky purchased at an Andean import store in Toronto. That stick looks like it might have been intended for some important ceremonial purpose, but Dan says he was told it was actually a goat tether. One Friday night in March, the stick fell apart in an especially active storyteller's hands. We patched it several times to get a few more months use out of it while we looked for an appropriate replacement. We were willing to buy something ready-made, but we preferred to commission a local arti-san to craft something especially for us. We saw examples of some very attractive possi-bilities, but we were concerned that their
decoration in feathers or beads would be too delicate for our use. At the Cedar Basket, the gift shop of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, we saw a walking cane, crafted of wood and bone with leather thongs, that was very close in style to what we wanted, and its materials seemed sturdy enough to last another 20 years. The cane had been made by Ronald Naveau, a member of the Cree nation who was originally from Mitagami but now lives in Toronto. We commissioned Ronald to make us a talking stick in a similar design, and we cele-brated the change of talking sticks on June 13. Celia Lottridge and Carol McGirr, two tellers with long histories at 1001 Fridays, told the last two stories using the old stick, and then we passed it around the room for the tellers and listeners to touch one final time. Dan, our host for the evening and an-other of our most senior tellers, then took the new stick and told a praise-poem in honor
of storytelling. Dan passed the stick to Dun-can Cameron, a welcome but unexpected visi-tor, to conclude our small but meaningful celebration.
A NEW TALKING STICK
Carol McGirr tells the last story with the old stick. Dan Yashinsky holds the new stick for the first time. The new stick rests on the tellers' barstool.
By Marylyn Peringer In Istanbul, the story I heard most often went something like this: "Where are you from? Oh, Canada! Do you like this shawl/carpet/ necklace/ lamp/ whatever? I can give you a good discount." Then, after much haggling, "Fifty percent off; for you I will do this. For anyone else - impossible!" All of this is said with a straight face. Don't you love it? Hawking merchandise in every conceiv-able way seems the norm in Istanbul. At the traffic-jammed highways leading to the bridges across the Bosphorus, young boys circulate amid moving cars selling bottled water and the crunchy, sesame-coated bread rings called simits. Along the rocks of the waterfront in Kadiköy in the Aisian Istanbul neighbor-hood where my son Stephen lives, a line is strung between two poles and hanging from it are inflated balloons bobbing and waving in the breeze. Pay a few Turkish lira to the man who sets them up and you can test your marksmanship with a rifle or pistol. For sharpshooters like Stephen, alumnus of his university rifle club, there were rows of eggs and even individual cigarettes waiting to be felled by a good shot. With the pistol I managed to burst three balloons--not outstanding, but quite satisfying to some-one who has never held a gun before. I stood there holding the gun in two hands for steadier aim, just like the women cops on TV. There was buying and selling every-where. At the ferry docks on both the European and Asian sides, you could pick up simits, roasted ears of corn, or a fresh fish sandwich from a vendor. Once the ferry was under way, waiters hoisting trays of tea in tulip-shaped glasses would cruise among the passengers. This for half a lira, less than fifty cents in Canadian money, how could one resist? So I would sip my strong, sweet tea by the ferry window and watch, as the boat left Asian waters with the amazing shoreline of European Istanbul came ever closer. I could see the six spires of the Blue Mosque, the four of Aya Sofia, the domes and treetops of the Topkapi palace, home
of sultans. It was Constantine, many hun-dreds of years before, who prohibited the erection of tall buildings close to the water
so that all of his people in Constantinople (later Istanbul) could look out at the sea. Yes, Toronto citizens, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Even from my fourth-floor bedroom window in Stephen's flat in Kadiköy I could lean out over the narrow street, turn my head to the right, and glimpse the Sea of Marmara beyond the trees of the water-front park. I shared the view with the gulls and pigeons who always congregated at dawn on the roofs opposite and woke me with their call-and-response songs: the gulls screeching, the pigeons cooing in re-ply. I soon got used to it. I also got used to walking in the street, as the sidewalks were too narrow. Every corner offered a chance to ex-plore. There were entire streets devoted to bookstores (Turkish-language publica-tions only, unfortunately); others, closed to vehicular traffic, were filled with cafés and restaurants. In the evening, there were so many tables of dining, drinking, tabla (backgammon)-playing patrons spilling out into the street on either side that Stephen and I needed to walk in single file. And before long a waiter would catch our eye, thrust a menu in our faces, and we would become a part of the street landscape as well. Since my return from Turkey people have asked me the expected questions for someone in my line of work. Did I learn any Turkish folktales? Had I met any Turkish storytellers? Well, no, to be honest. I did-n't discover any storytelling group akin to Toronto's 1,001 Friday Nights, nor did I run into a wrinkled, bearded teller of tales in a dark corner of the Grand Bazaar. But
in another sense, I found nothing but sto-ries. I had never been in the Middle East before, a part of the world where language, architecture, the soil itself hold so much history. Kadiköy, for example - it was origi-nally a Greek settlement called Chalcedon, also named "the City of the Blind" by the people on the opposite shore. Chalcedon had been settled first, and surely only blind men would choose a simple seaside location rather than the strategic site across the water which commanded three avenues of shipping: the Bosphorus, coming from the Black Sea; the Golden Horn, flowing from the Balkans; and the Sea of Marmara, lead-ing to the Dardanelles and the Aegean. Does the word Chalcedon sound famil-iar? How about Smyrna, Antioch, Miletus, Ephesus, Cappadocia? The names breathe ancient history and Biblical studies. At Troy, I used my imagination, as the guide instructed us to do, while I stood on land overlooking what probably was the Scaean Gate and a tract of marshland finally giving way in the distance to a narrow beach and the sea. The Aegean was now much farther away than in the days of Achilles and Hec-tor; the classical Troy of Homer was now levels 6 and 7 of archaeological exploration. But the land is there and the story still lives. More modern tales are nearby, just across the Dardanelles, where we visited the nearly hundred-year old trenches and the many cemeteries - British, Australian, New Zealand and Turkish--that resulted from the battle of Gallipoli. We also heard from our Australian-born guide, an articu-late and passionate storyteller, how Turkey unwittingly found itself allied with Germany in World War I. I could write pages about my visit to Cappadocia, its underground cities and bi-zarre rock formations. I could go on and on about the lives of the sultans and the pal-ace intrigues at the Topkapi harem. I re-member last winter telling people I was going to Turkey. Anyone who had already been there immediately started talking excitedly and never stopped. Now I know why.
Memories of Turkey
Submitted by Barbara Sisson On May 7, 2009, the Brant Taletellers Guild presented an evening with Inuk story-teller Michael Kusugak. Many elements, including an excellent storyteller, a conviv-ial atmosphere and community partnerships contributed to what proved to be a very en-joyable and successful eve-ning. Ninety minutes before the performance patrons began to arrive at the banquet room of the Sherwood Restaurant to dine and chat with friends. Many also enjoyed a glass or two of wine. Key to the eve-ning was of course storyteller Michael Kusugak. Kusugak is an Inuk who grew up and still lives on Hud-son Bay. In addition to being a storyteller, he is the author of several books for chil-dren. In his performance he skilfully wove together personal stories and ancient Inuit
tales. Afterward, many in the appreciative audience of almost 50 listeners gathered around him to talk and look at examples of his books. Several months earlier, the Guild had
been alerted to Michael’s planned visit to Brantford by Kids Can Fly Director Sharon Brooks. Kids Can Fly promotes liter-acy and early childhood develop-ment in Brantford and Brant County. The two organiza-tions help one an-other whenever possible. Tickets were available at
the door, but many people had purchased them in advance at The Bookworm, a used book store in Brantford. The audience included four people from
Participation House Brantford and one from a Brantwood Centre home, all of whom used wheelchairs. Participation House is a not-for-profit organization serving the needs of adults between the ages of 16 to 65 with physical disabilities. Clients served by the Brantwood Centre have mobility along with severe developmental disabilities and live in one of several group homes, each with 4 to 6 residents. The Guild was happy to offer free admission to the two atten-dants, one from each institution, who ac-companied these five. The Brant Taletellers Guild is a storytelling and listening group based in Brantford, Ontario. The Guild now hopes to offer pub-lic events on a quarterly basis, with caba-rets in January, April and July and the an-nual Brantford Storytelling Festival in Oc-tober. We invite inquiries and expressions of interest from dynamic professional sto-rytellers who can offer an entertaining evening for our listeners. For more infor-mation, please visit our website at tales.bizbrant.com or call (519) 756-0727.
Submitted by Lynda Howes Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada is pleased to introduce Jane Taylor from Stratford ON as the newly appointed Director of StorySave. The process for hiring a Director was very satisfying. At 7:45 a.m. EDT on a day early in June, Anne Kaarid, our Office Manager, announced that Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada was looking for an Ar-tistic Director of StorySave. Requests to see the Job Posting came in with the rising of the sun across our land: first from New-foundland, then Cape Breton Island, and Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, then Quebec and Ontario, after that Saskatche-wan, and last of all British Columbia. By the end of the day, there were more than 40 requests to see the Job Posting. Some re-quested more information, and others sent
in their application applying for the job. Any one of the applicants might have done the job successfully. However, the inter-viewing panel and the StorySave Manage-ment Committee was unanimous in their decision to hire Jane Taylor, in part for her strong fundraising experience and her stated concerns regarding distribution and sales of the CDs. Unable to attend this year's AGM, Jane submitted the following greeting: … It is with great pleasure that I accept the position of Artistic Director - Story-Save Project. My thanks to the members of the StorySave Management Committee for allowing me this exciting opportunity. I look forward to fulfilling the StorySave man-date, and to working with everyone involved in the StorySave production, promotion and distribution, budgeting, and fundraising
process. Together, I am confident that we will achieve all that we set out to accom-plish. … Best Regards, Jane Taylor
Inuk Storyteller
New Director for Storysave
TELLERS ON TOUR Three storytellers have been se-lected to go to various locations in Can-ada as part of the TD Canadian Chil-dren’s Book Week which takes place November 14 – 21, 2009. Coming to On-tario from Alberta is teller Wendy Berner. Carol Leigh Wehking travels to the Northwest Territories while Deb-orah Dunleavy has been invited to tour Labrador. Schools, libraries, bookstores and community centres may apply online to host an author, illustrator or storytell-ers during Book Week by going to www.bookweek.ca.
Reviews by Robert Rodriquez The Hungry Clothes and Other Jewish Folktales, selected and retold by Peninnah Schram, Sterling Publishers, New York, 2006, pp.—96. ISBN—1-4027-2651-4.
Peninnah Schram has been acknowl-edged by many to be the finest Jewish storyteller of our times. To list her accom-plishments, credentials, and accolades would take the remainder of this review. So let her own storytelling talents speak for her and this in the form of her latest col-lection of tales from the Jewish oral tradi-tion. By her own words in the introduction, these twenty-two tales are stories she loves to tell and which illustrate quite nicely how wisdom, humor, and resourceful thinking can help to solve problems, con-front potential adversaries, and teach val-ues, traditional beliefs, and ethical lessons that have been a major part of the Jewish faith for over four thousand years. Laugh and cheer as the trickster Her-shele of Ostropol teaches a miser a much needed lesson in both humility and charity at the expense of a silver spoon, a candle-stick, and a Kiddush cup. Listen with awe as even the mighty King Solomon learns that happiness and sadness are but two sides of an eternal coin, and neither lasts forever, or as the tale goes, this too shall pass. David the cobbler teaches a king that if one has faith in the will and power of God, anything is possible and all roadblocks can
be overcome. Even the Emperor Hadrian discovers that giving a gift can be its own special reward, even if it is just a basket of figs. Honi the circle maker discovers that it may take years, or even decades, for a tree to bear fruit, but the rewards are all the sweeter and more gratifying. Hannah the storyteller-advisor cleverly unmasks a thief while the hakham-rabbi of Marakesh shows that one does not have to know the Harvard law review to skillfully teach a miserly baker the real value, judicial and otherwise, of the smell of pastry. While the stories in this slim but price-less collection are all Jewish in tempera-ment, character, and locale, many will still be familiar from other traditions in world folklore and oral tradition, such as the title tale, in which once again Hershele of Os-tropol shows his cleverness and teaches another badly needed lesson. Although aimed at a younger audience, in Schram’s own words, these tales can be enjoyed and shared with children from three to a hundred and three. Not only are these tales eminently readable but very tellable indeed. A very helpful glossary of Jewish words, names, and phrases is included as well as a list of sources for those inter-ested in further reading of stories from the Jewish oral tradition. Peninnah Schram is a master word-smith, and her craft is a priceless treasure indeed. This volume of stories is a joy to the ear, the heart, and the very soul of anyone who truly loves a good story. Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster, col-lected and edited by Matilda Koen-Sarano, translated by David Herman, Jewish Publi-cations Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2003 pp-290. Isbn--0-8276-0722-9 He is known by many names and under many guises. They call him Goha in Egypt, Koja Nasruddin Al-Rumi in Turkey, Jahan in Malta, Juha in North Africa, and in Catholic Sicily he is Giufa, as well as Giova and Giocca in other parts of the Italian mainland. And to Sephardic Jews from one corner of the world to the other, whether in North or South America, the Iberian peninsula, the Balkans, North Africa, the
Middle East, Turkey or in distant Central Asia, he is Joha, beloved and foolish, yet very wise Joha. Wherever Sephardic storytelling circles may gather, they have been telling Joha tales for century, even before the expul-sion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Even into Modern times these enchanting tales are still told and loved by one and all. As sephardic scholar Tamar Alexander so co-gently puts it, Joha is an individual of mul-tiple opposites: scared and profane, cunning and naive, trickster and noodlehead, youth-ful and aged, innocent and guileful. He may be a saint or a thief, a beggar or an advisor to kings and sultans, a sephard or a judge, a preacher in a synagogue or a medicant lit-erally surviving from day to day on the streets living by his very wits. He is equally at home in such modern settings as air-planes, busses, railroad trains, and urban shopping malls as he is on foot or riding a horse or donkey through ancient cities such as Cordova, Marakesh, Salonika, Baghdad, or Damascus - in fact, wherever Sephardic communities have been thriving and still do for centuries. Where Sephardic folks are, there is Joha, always Joha, for everyone knows Joha just as they know Jack in the southern US or Ti Jean in French Canada, or Pedro De Urdemales in various parts of Latin America.
Book Nook
STORIES GOING ‘ROUND Congratulations to Jan Andrews for her appointment as Storyteller in Resi-dence at the University of Manitoba. A spirited evening of Canadian sto-ries and songs came to life at Butler’s Pantry on June 06 – all part of the very popular Legless Stocking Con-certs. Hosts Lorne Brown and Cathy Melville welcomed the audience and the guest singers and tellers. Donna Stewart of Ottawa and Deborah Dunleavy of Brockville joined creative forces with troubadours Howard Kap-lan and Jerry Gray of the folk singing troupe, The Travelers. From humorous ditties to adventuresome escapades, the performers took the audience on a creative journey across Canada’s physi-cal and intellectual landscape. Sally Jaeger, Joan Bailey and Erika Webster performed “Stories BIG and small” on May 30 at the Ralph Thorton Community Centre. Deborah Dunleavy and The 1000 Is-lands Yarnspinners took to the outdoor stage at Hardy Park in Brockville to per-form an evening of Canadian stories and songs on July 19. Proceeds went to Habitat for Humanity. On July 28th about 25 people enjoyed another cabaret pre-sented by the Brant Taletellers Guild. The performances fea-tured Barbara Lee Sisson, Carol Steed-man-Goff and Brenda Byers who enter-tained with Spaghetti and Fries, a wide vari-ety of stories and songs that had every-one smiling and laugh-ing.
B. George Blake and Kalalu Folklore Theatre in partnership with Emancipation Jubilation performed at the Harbourfront Centre on August 01. On August 4 Glenna Janzen and Carol Leigh Wehking teamed up to perform “The Boy in the Bubble and Other Yesterstories” at the Landon Library Auditorium in Lon-
don. Lenore Keeshing Tobias and Ron Baker took part in an evening of Drumtelling with African and Native drummers at the Visi-tor Centre in Tobermory on August 5. Pro-ceeds helped support the Stephen Lewis Foundation.
Carol Ashton will be releasing her upcoming new CD “Molly Put the Kettle On!” in the spring. The re-cording is pro-duced by Kathy Reid-Naiman for Merriweather Records' storytel-ling series From Song & Rhyme to
StoryTime. It features original adaptations of familiar tales, new songs, and old favour-ites with concertina, whistle, pipes & more instruments woven throughout by some fine guest musicians. Dan Yashinsky is working on a soon-to-be-released CD titled Storytelling on Quadra Island. This CD is a recording of a night of storytelling with Dan and tradi-
tional Metis oral historian and storyteller Ron Evans. On July 7, 2009, Dan and Ron were staying at Heron Guest House, on Heriot Bay, Quadra Island, BC, and told stories to the other guests, a few neighbours, two dogs, and a ring-neck dove. The CD captures the spontaneity of the evening, including the rain, the fire's hiss, and the dove's occasional coo. The stories range from Ron's heartbreaking story of his Metis grandfather's involvement in the Riel Rebellion, to Dan's romantic yarn about Zima from the Decameron. Travelling the world, from history to myth, from northern Alberta to medieval Tuscany, these two old friends invite listeners to share their night of storms, stories, and hospitality. Avail-able in early fall through www.tellery.com.
STORIES GOING ‘ROUND
tion and thus provides a place for the teller to send or deposit the story. The listener’s gift is not only in being the recipient for the teller, but also to become the new owner of the story - be enriched, delighted and transformed by it. Some people feel that tellers are telling to only other tellers. How have you been able to reach beyond our circle of sup-porters to a wider audience? Storytellers need to be careful not to im-pose the role of the story listener on un-suspecting people in their sphere of living who show no interest or inclination to be tellers or listeners. This is simply a sign of tolerance and respect for a variety of hu-man bents that exist in our society at a given time.
Having said that I also know that there are many opportunities for impromptu sto-rytelling that might cross a teller’s path. These might be in the form of well-told memories or polished oral narratives at church picnics, beach parties, political ral-lies, parades, gatherings for social activism, and any form of community building activ-ity. You mention that you love immigration tales. Where do you find or collect them? Yes, I love to hear immigration tales from others. I suppose it is, in part, due to my being born into a Dutch family from the North Sea area of the Netherlands. When all of us are young we have the psychologi-cal task of figuring out where HOME actu-ally is. This was complicated in my case be-cause to some in my family “home” was in the Netherlands and to others “home” was here in Canada. I grappled early in life with different concepts and definitions of home. Eventually I learned to accept the duality about my particular family’s homelands.
I have always enjoyed being with New Canadian people of all ages and nationali-ties. My long career in education at the University of Toronto provided a rich and renewable base for this particular pleasure. However, I added more opportunities over many years. I volunteered for WELCOME HOUSE, a federal agency and other reset-tlement agencies that helped newcomers to get organized and settled here in Toronto during their first 100 days. As well I was
involved with sponsoring refugees to be al-lowed to enter Canada and to live and work in Toronto’s west-end.
I also have done volunteer work with local community groups to help research the current neighborhood/community pro-file based on migration patterns to and from a specific location within Toronto in order to create a needs assessment for the local institutions and agencies. And I still actively tell and listen to personal immigra-tion tales in retirement homes, in schools and in public libraries. It is through these community bridges, that I have discovered an authentic place to enjoy the genuine pleasures of storytelling and story gather-ing. What drew you to psychodrama and how does psychodrama relate to the art of telling stories? I think psychodrama relates to the art of telling stories in that a teller usually enjoys telling tales that have an emotional tenor that “fits like a glove”. Many issues arise: poverty, responsibility, jealously and com-petition, fear of abandonment, humility, perseverance, up-rootedness, violence, be-ing ostracized or ridiculed, needing adven-ture and longing to succeed at something, being deprived of one’s rights...the list goes on.
When a particular story is found, learned and retold and as the teller lives with it over a period of time, it starts to percolate inside the teller and the tale acts as a mentor, a guide, a friendly voice inside one’s head. Eventually the story gets enlarged into non-story contexts, or dreams or real life situations or “what-if” speculations. It can become one’s soul-mate companion, and even a personal blessing.
As a story hero or heroine understands, resolves, and integrates a dilemma, so then can the teller and the listener do the same. Psychodrama is a playful technique for liv-ing inside and outside the story and devel-oping significant clarity, safety, truth, spontaneity and assurance about self and everything that resides in the story so that a certain luminous quality emerges in the unity of teller and story as one! As Joan Bodger often proclaimed, “I am everything in the story, and everything in the story is me”.
Human life and one’s spirit is one of be-coming, not just being. This becoming is the
essence of the journey or quest in all folk-tales and myth. These, in turn, describe and echo individuals’ struggles to locate themselves in the universe. New options for untangling the knots of our dilemmas be-come visible, and heretofore unavailable solutions are offered by the unfolding story. The ancient oral narratives work al-most imperceptibly in a deep and serious manner.
I also want to mention that psycho-drama is not only about the way a teller wanders around privately inside the story for a time it is also about the way one plays with the audience in the pre-story time. This could mean discussing the period and location of the story, using an object to heightened interest, employing; a character mask or prop, or encouraging involvement of the audience in shouting a chant or calling out to sell market wares. These acts of lis-tener participation are useful strategies for helping reluctant children to engage more fully in entering into the life of the story.
You asked what drew me to psycho-drama in the first place. I suspect it was a longing for my physically absent but ex-tended family as I was growing up. I had 4 grandparents and 66 cousins in the Nether-lands but an ocean divided us, although there were numerous cards, photos, and letters written in Dutch. Growing up in southwestern Ontario I embraced story characters and they became my pretend “extended family” that I played amongst, grew up and partied with. As a child and teenager this was probably my private psy-chodrama populated by my “story-friends” in the fairytale collections from Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands. How do you know that a story has mean-ing for you? There’s a recognition of a thirst or longing being filled with something nourishing and uniquely satisfying; and also that this story somehow fits some of the contours of my lived experiences. These parallel contours of story and personal experiences often create emotionally charged resonances and are not always manifestations or matches with the physical landscape of the story but more likely the feeling of my experi-enced memories.
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Will the oral art of telling exist in the future? If so how?
The first part of this question has been a central curiosity, commitment and concern of mine for many years. I am not alone in knowing that the narrative impulse has been powerfully present in the human race since the dawn of time. Of all the ways people converse with one another, the story has constructed itself as the most enduring, familiar, comfortable, versatile and, some would argue, perhaps the most dangerous - especially when the story’s truth is distorted or removed altogether. It is no secret that false stories are the tools of spies, scoundrels, imposters, Ponzi scheme investors, overly ambitious sales-people, and anyone who wants to remake one’s own identity however harmless to others.
Stories and storytelling have always co-existed with us partly because we de-pend on them to show us the way and re-mind us of what we know and don’t know, yet will certainly need to know, and they highlight what we, as a society, value and strive for. Also, they mirror our lives back to us in all sorts of manifestations, be it success and approval, loneliness and dread, trickery & betrayal, perseverance and at-tainment, arbitrary or deserved suffering, and coming to terms with knowing that some things are unknowable.
Storytelling is the communal act of being present face to face with one an-other to tell or absorb stories, teach or learn from stories, entertain or be amused by stories. Often we find ourselves doing all of this at the same time. Then we also know as yarn spinners that it is at precisely this juncture that co-creating, reasoning, appreciating and feeling all interplay and intersect at once. Whether one is telling or listening the engagement is highly active, personal, and complex - a multi tasking piece of work.
Having established our well-recognized life affirming appetite for the oral art of storytelling in our home, work, community, and travelling routes and destinations let us consider if it will continue through this millennium with so many continuous distrac-tions in our fast paced lifestyles. Thou-sands of years of persistent storytelling through historical epochs of massive revo-lutions, disasters and astonishing techno-
logical inventions and advancements, all suggest that storytelling has not been ex-tinguished. People continue to want it and need its stabilizing, transformative pres-ence.
We can conclude that storytelling is ageless and that it will endure into the foreseeable future. Oral narratives have an innate resiliency because they “live” in the communities where they are told. They ex-ist in all our communal personal endeavors and habits. These oral literature gems are able to be reborn and fit the changing times politically, culturally and technologi-cally. The relationship between oral tales and our reality is that their interweaving is fundamental and habitual to our nature, and deliberately nurturing in a psychic manner. These ancient tales and newer ones too are malleable and will continue to change shape over time. They stay fresh as their new forms beg to be re-interpreted again and again.
While it is true that in our times of fully embraced Internet technology we can now send ideas and information around the planet at lightning speed bringing us to-gether into a closer global community. We swap information in seconds across all the world’s continents and cultures.
However it appears there is a notice-able developing reaction to the current work-in-a-cubicle requirement in many of-fice towers to spend great amounts of time interacting with electronic machines. As a result people are now expressing a greater need for human art-form communications in their personal and leisure hours to offset feelings of isolation and loss of narrative impulses. Perhaps an increase in storytelling gatherings and cafes and clubs featuring storytellers will rise up on the cultural agenda where more accessible truly human transmissions of a story, memory or vision can be co-created once again in the manner of our tribal forebears and our talented tellers and poets of long ago.
For those among us who feel passion-ate about living deeply with and through story we know we must safeguard our time and spirit against modern consumerist cul-ture which assaults and trivializes our natu-ral human longing to imagine and create. We need to successfully educate and then ele-vate the visibility of talented storytellers in the future to a professional status such as librarian, teacher, psychologist, social
worker, museum guide, nurse, rabbi/minister. These tellers need to be em-ployed to work on collaborative teams in a variety of institutions, arts organizations and as independent performing artists. This can be attained by:
1. Research and documentation of
the benefits of storytelling within our Canadian society subgroups and strands;
2. Plan a storytelling certification process and program, and ensure that standards of professional conduct and practice are met be-fore certification occurs;
3. Continue to experiment creatively with other artists for new oppor-tunities in merged forms of pro-gramming;
4. Celebrate our collective and pri-vate successes publicly with ample media coverage; and finally;
5. Nurture and hire professional fundraisers / grant application writers to work alongside our sto-rytelling umbrella agencies in a sustainable manner.
Tell us about a very memorable time when you realized that telling was magi-cal.
One spring when I was five I was planting in our vegetable garden with my father. He was digging with his spade and I was digging with my small spade made of wood and metal just like his. No, mine was not a plastic toy shovel! Side by side we labored until suddenly my shovel made a loud scraping noise in the soft, moist earth. I wondered aloud what I might have col-lided with. I bent down to see, and to dig it up with my bare hands if I could. Yes, it worked! I was able to pull up a pointy pale object that I placed along my left arm from my palm to the inside of my bent el-bow joint. How amazing it looked with one side being a very rough and dull white ma-terial and the other side a smooth and pol-ished white substance. It was hard as stone and it had the thickness of my five year old lower arm bone. I called to my fa-ther, “Daddy! Daddy! Look what I found!”, running to show him my mysterious new-found treasure. Together we brushed off the remaining specks of dirt and examined
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it by turning it over and over. At last my father’s light blue eyes began to smile and sparkle with recognition. He looked deep into my eyes and I knew something wonder-ful was about to happen but I knew not what. Then after a long pause he spoke, “My daughter, this is a dragon’s tooth!”
On a simple, silent, intuitive level I knew reality for both of us was being sus-pended and I knew he knew that I knew. Now our locked twinkling glances revealed we both knew our nodding indicated permis-sion for this freshly negotiated under-standing, the dragon’s tooth would exist now for both of us. My father put the dragon’s tooth carefully on a windowsill closest to the garden next to the holly-hocks and trumpet vine where it gleamed in the bright sun.
The following day my father and I ex-amined the dragon’s tooth again in all its fierce dental wonder. Then he quietly added, “Daughter, I do want to inform you now that this is actually a broken shard of porcelain from an old discarded toilet tank.”
How I loved the “dragon’s tooth” fa-ther and daughter episode in all its parts, starting with discovery, suspended reality, naming it, savouring the fantasy for 24 hours, coming out of the fantasy, renaming it, and safely returning back to reality again. I knew then that the penny dropped so to speak, and that I longed for many more occasions in my life to let one thing
represent another thing for a while the same way piggies are toes in the bath time rhyme and my dragon’s tooth was a porce-lain shard. I believe this shared experience with my father sowed fertile seeds of metaphorical thinking in my formative years and paved the way to becoming a sto-ryteller!
What a thrill it is to go back-to-the-garden and retell that magical personal an-ecdote when the moment is right. Children and adults alike receive it as a gift of spar-kling spontaneous imagination, cultivating the spirit of wonder, informing the way into and out of fantasy and folk-fairy land-scapes and developing the mindful parent – child relationship.
What does the future of storytelling hold for you?
I continue to enjoy networking with storytellers across Canada and the U.S.A. and working with my storytelling comrades in Storytelling Toronto as well as the Cana-dian Association of Storytellers for Chil-dren in providing workshops, concerts and festivals. My work passion for telling takes me schools, hospitals, retreats, libraries and museums. At the same time I take workshops and courses from storytelling masters and peers and I offer as well as leading workshops for other tellers.
My other creative outlets include be-ing a scriptwriter and dramaturge for Suit-case Theatre and Shadowland Theatre. Our most recent musical theatre production
was based on the ancient cumulative rhyme, “The House That Jack Built”.
Also, I look forward to some quiet time when I can spend more time pouring over my private collection of stories and profes-sional books and journals about storytelling. Who knows what new direction or focus might come up? I continue to be highly mo-tivated to touch the world through story-telling. I do know that this time of my life is becoming a period of keen exploration. I know in my “bardic” nature that storytelling opportunities present themselves to a fer-tile and prepared mind fed by quiet reflec-tion, social networking at storytelling gath-erings, lots of listening to others … and dreaming.
Do you have any final thoughts about be-ing a storyteller?
I believe it is the "calling" of storytell-ers to proclaim a hopeful assurance and imagination for the world. Being storytell-ers in Canada is not just about creating or polishing tales and being heard; it is also about listening both compassionately and critically as current events and technologi-cal advances impact the world, our lives, and our traditional and contemporary story creations. Storytellers today and in the future must absorb progress. They must change optimistically in their artistic nar-rative formations and weave into them an abiding sense of wit and humor, enlighten-ment and wisdom, human dignity and inclu-sivity.
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By Val Scott
Every Monday evening you can put the week’s hectic pace aside for a few hours to listen to stories told by a master. People file into Ron and Rita Baker’s Story-barn at 995 Dyers Bay Road, settle blan-kets over their knees if the weather is cool and the magic begins.
Soon the Northern Lights are dancing and the wolves howl or you hear about the blind man who could see his gar-den so clearly through his sense of smell, or you can find out just what happened to frighten a young woman so badly that she
was never able to speak coherently. You want to hold each story in your mind, but one gives way to the next and you are, for a time, immersed in the wonderful world of the imagination.
Ron Baker has been delighting people of the Bruce for more than 20 years with his evocative storytelling. For eight of these years, people filled the little chapel at Cape Chin, St Margaret’s Chapel, every summer Sunday to listen to Ron’s dramatic retelling of Biblical stories. Further afield, Ron has performed at the Toronto Story-telling Festival and has toured Canada and the UK.
If you want, you can participate. On the second Monday of each month, as the story stick is passed around the circle you can tell a story or pass the stick on to your neighbour. Sometimes people are shy the first time around, but often take ad-vantage of a second opportunity as the night mellows and shadows fall.
While admission is free, donations are appreciated. All proceeds are for-warded to The Stephen Lewis Foundation for the Relief of Aids in Africa. Perform-ances continue to the end of September. Start time is 7pm.
Monday Night Magic
PJs and Pillows Family Concerts presents Here Comes Mr. Bear! featuring mother-daughter team Sally Jaeger and Erika Webster. A celebration of 29 years of their program, Mr. Bear Says Hello, and the launch of their new CD, Here Comes Mr. Bear! Sat. Sept. 26, 6:30-7:30pm, 361 Glebeholme Blvd., Toronto. $5/person at the door. Paja-mas optional. Info: (416) 699-2608.
Bruce Carmody will be telling stories at the Words Alive Festival in Sharon, Ontario on Sunday Sept. 30. Info: Words Alive web site, http://www.wordsalive.ca
A host of local storytellers take part in To-ronto's Nuit Blanche offering storytelling and ballad singing from 7pm Saturday Octo-ber 3 to 7am Sunday October 4. Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. Info: (416) 656-2445.
Dan Yashinsky and Marylyn Peringer share stories in French and English Thursday, Oct.
GATHERINGS
PERFORMANCES
The Peterborough Storytellers meet on the fourth Tuesday of the month, 7-9pm in the auditorium of the Peterborough Public Library. Info: Diana, (705) 755-0201.
1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling con-tinues every Friday evening at 8pm at the Innis College Café, Sussex Ave. and St. George St., Toronto. Suggested donation: $5. Open to all who wish to listen or tell. (416) 656-2445, www.1001fridays.org
Baden Second Story Workshop, aka The Story Barn, meets the first Friday of the month at 8:00pm, 89 Snyders Rd.W. Info: Mary-Eileen McClear, [email protected]
Storytelling Guild meets in Baden once a month on the third Friday, 7:30-10pm. 89 Snyders Rd W. Info: Mary-Eileen McClear, [email protected]
The Dufferin Circle of Storytellers meets the first Thursday of the month, 7:30pm. Info: Nancy Woods, (519)925-0966.
The Brant Taletellers Guild, open to all storytellers and listeners, meets the first Wednesday of the month, September to June, 7pm, at the main branch of the Brant-ford Public Library. Info: www.comdir.bfree.on.ca , or phone Barbara Sisson, (519) 756-0727
St. Mary’s Storytelling Guild meets the fourth Thursday of the month at the public library,7-8:30pm. The Storytelling Circle for children 10 and older meets on the sec-ond Friday at St. Mary’s United Church, 85 Church St., 7-9pm. $2. Info: Nancy Ver-mond, (519) 284-2698, [email protected]
The Durham Folklore Society meets the third Thursday of the month, 7:30-9:30pm, September to June, in the Seniors Activity Room, Northview Community Centre, 150 Beatrice St. E., Oshawa. Guests welcome. Parking free, wheelchair accessible. Ask at the front desk to confirm the room. Info: Dianne Chandler, (905) 985-3424, email [email protected]
BILINGUAL STORYTELLING, led by Marylyn Peringer. Are you fluent in a language besides English? Telling stories in a blend of two tongues can be a fascinating and effective way of exposing listeners to another language and culture. Participants will discuss the prin-ciples ofbilingual storytelling and practice the art. Students may bring their own story mate-rial in addition to that supplied by the in-structor. Two Saturdays, October 17 and 24, 2-4pm at Riverdale Public Library, 370 Broad-
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Listings — Fall 2009 Cercle de conteurs de l’Est de l’Ontario (CCEO) se réunit le 4ème mardi du mois au MIFO, 6600 rue Carrière, Orléans, à juin. Venez tout simplement entendre et savourer; osez conter, si vous désirez. Info: [email protected]
The Hamilton Storytelling Circle meets monthly, at varied times and locations. Info: Barry Rosen, [email protected] or [email protected]
The Guelph Guild of Storytellers meets the first Wednesday of each month, 7:30pm at the Cooperators Building, MacDonnel St., and the second Wednesday at 8pm for Stories at the Boathouse, a tea room on the river, Gordon St. Info: Ann, (519) 763-4598.
The Montreal Storytellers Guild meets the 4th Tues. of the month at the Westmount Library. Info: Christine Mayr, [email protected]
The 1000 Islands Yarnspinners will be meeting informally throughout the year and welcome travelling tellers to contact them if they are touring in or near Brockville. Con-tact Deborah Dunleavy (613) 342-3463 or [email protected].
STORYTELLING TORONTO
Info: (416) 656-2445 www.storytellingtoronto.org, [email protected]
8, 7pm at the Alliance Française, 24 Spadina Ave. Toronto. Info: Patricia Guérin, (416) 922-2014.
Bruce Carmody tells stories of the Avro Arrow Sunday, Oct. 11 at the Canadian Avia-tion Museum, Ottawa.
The Durham Folklore Society presents Tel-lebration 09: Stories and Music from Around the World to Celebrate Life. Tues-day, Nov. 17, in the Rotary Room, Ajax Public Library, 55 Harwood St. Ajax. Two shows: 4-5:30pm, for families, school-age children and adults; 7-8:30pm for adults and children 9 years and older. Free admission, wheel-chair accessible. Info: Dianne Chandler, (905) 985-3424 or [email protected]
Molly Sutkaitis can be heard every Sunday in The Grange of The Art Gallery of Ontario telling "He Called Her Amber", the story of an Irish immigrant coming to Canada.
Bruce Carmody presents a four-week course, "Storytelling for Seniors". Wednes-days from September 11 - October 2, 10:30am-12:30pm, at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. To register, call Nancy Cole at the Toronto Reference Li-brary, (416) 395-5577.
WORKSHOPS
Every Friday night since 1978 sto-rytellers and listeners have been
gathering in downtown To-ronto. Each evening is hosted by an accomplished storyteller. Any-
one is welcome to tell a story.
Every Friday night is unique. Suggested donation: $5.00 Time: 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Innis College Café 2 Sussex Street, Toronto.
(corner St. George, one block south of Bloor St. W. St. George Subway - St. George St. exit)
www.1001fridays.org
T h e S to r y te l le rs S c h o o l o f T o r o n to g r a te fu l ly a c kn o w le d g e s th e s u p p o r t o f th e fo llo w in g g o ve r n m e n t a g e n c ie s :
FOS 2009 – Festival of Storytelling takes place in Brockville September 24 – 26 with pro-grams for families, youth and adults. Mary Eileen McClear and Adwoa Badoe join the 1000 Islands Yarnspinners for three days of con-certs, workshops and a traditional storytelling ceildh. Out of town guest please contact Deb-orah Dunleavy for recommended accommoda-tions. For a list of events visit www.deborahdunleavy.com or call (613)342-3463, [email protected].
8th Annual Brantford Storytelling Festival gets underway October 16 – 17 at the Odeon Place, 50 Market Street, Brantford. Theme this year is Explorers and Adventurers. Tickets are available at the Bookworm Store or at the door. Information: [email protected].
LE CONTE presents A testament to the past, a witness to the present: Story October 16 – 18 at the University of Sherbrooke with the opening address by Marc Aubaret, ethnologist and director of the Centre Mediterraneen de Litterature Orale. (819) 566-6996, [email protected]; www.prodictionslittorale.com
FOOL - Festival of Oral Liberature, directed by Dan Yashinsky and Lisa Pijuan-Nomura, takes place October 22-25 in various locations around Toronto including The Barns, Kensington Market and at house concerts in St. Clair West and Bloor-Bathurst neighbourhoods. Featured events: Saturday, October 24, workshop enti-tled "All Tongues Are Red: Storytelling for Social Justice" plus an evening concert featur-ing Ivan Coyote from Vancouver and Brazilian storyteller Regina Machado. Info: [email protected]
view Ave., Toronto. Fee: $80.
BALLADS 201, led by Lorne Brown. By popular demand, Lorne is offering a further exploration of the sung narrative for story-tellers. As in the previous course, there will be ample opportunities to listen to ballads both live and on recordings, and to sing story songs. This course will give everyone a chance to dig deeper into specific ballads and research their history, their style and techniques, and their storytelling secrets. Participants will receive a new CD of ballads prepared especially for this course, and can expect a guest presentation by another bal-ladeer. Pre-requisite: the first ballad course, “As I Roved Out”. Wednesdays, Oc-tober 21 - November 18 at Lorne's home. Fee: $210
STORYTELLING I: First Steps Into the Art of Storytelling, led by Ruth Danziger. Discover your talent for story listening and storytelling. Designed for newcomers to the art, this course focuses on traditional sto-ries, those tales which are as relevant to-day as they were many hundreds of years ago. Beginning Friday evening, you will choose a story, learn it through a series of enjoyable and non-stressful activities, and tell it on Sunday afternoon. And within the small community of tellers and listeners you will learn how to ask for and to give feed-back. Friday November 20, 7-10pm; Satur-day and Sunday November 21 and 22, 10am-4:30pm. At Lillian H. Smith Public Library, 239 College St. Fee: $232
FESTIVALS
What’s new in your storytelling circle? Have you discovered a gem of wisdom in a story that relates to your own life? Did a child share some wisdom and wonder at one of your telling events? Do you have a new book or CD to celebrate? Do you have a gripe to pick with un-ethical presenters? PIPPIN is your sounding board and we’d love to hear from you. Next deadline for submission is No-vember 01 and anytime sooner! Send to Deborah at [email protected]
WHATS UP?
