The Music of Storytelling Storytelling is in full swing in the Valley! Storytelling has a music all its own. Perhaps that's why we call it a "storytelling Concert". It's a different tune and a different tone with each teller and each event. And there are lots of events coming up this fall and continuing on into next year!
The Myth Mob, The Greek and Roman Myth Throw Down, Arizona Storytellers project, and Tucson Storytelling Concerts to name a few. Storyfind at SMCC is back at SMCC Storytelling Institute on the Fourth Saturday of each Month. It's a get-together-meet-and-greet-and-tell event with various topics and led by many seasoned valley tellers, coaches and facilitators.
There are dozens of concerts and many opportunities to tell a story with Guild meetings every month in both Phoenix and Tucson. There are also learning opportunities with the Whole Life Center's Journeys Storytelling Series. And don't forget weekly open mic opportunities to tell at Yarnball every Wednesday Evening and monthly with The Storyline.
Listen to the music, dance to the music and sing to the music of storytelling.
Storyline - Me, My Selfie & I Friday - September 16th - 8 pm
The Storyline presents "Me, My Selfie & I." Changing Hands at the Newton - Phoenix
A live storytelling event exploring how we see ourselves, and how we share ourselves with others.
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Tell me, mirror, what is wrong?
Can it be my De La clothes?
Or is it just my De La song?
What I do ain't make-believe
People say I sit and try
But when it comes to being De La
It's just me, myself and I
-De La Soul
Hosted by Rachel Eseoghene Egboro & Dan Hoen Hull.
Featuring:
Jeremiah Blue
Demetrius Burns
Melissa Dunmore
Gabriel King Radley
Alexus Rhone
Rachel Sherman.
Journeys Storytelling Workshop: Your Own Hero's Journey
Saturday - September 17th ~ 10:00 am - Noon Saturday - October 15th ~ 10:00 am - Noon Saturday - November 12th ~ 10:00 am - Noon
Whole Life Center at Shadow Rock
Journeys Storytelling Workshops: Your Own Hero's Journey
The Whole Life Center at Shadow Rock
Journeys Storytelling Workshop Intensive:
with Liz Warren and John Genette
Perhaps our most treasured tales are those of a hero’s journey. Whether it’s Odysseus or Dorothy, their stories not only capture our imaginations, but also resonate deep within us - maybe because each of us has experienced our own version of that tale.
Join Storytellers Liz Warren and John Genette this fall to identify and explore your own hero’s journey using Joseph Campbell’s Common Structure. Come and consider with us a time when you’ve followed your own call to adventure, found help, then reward, and ultimately your own way home to a new kind of normal, a bit older but also wiser for the journey.
$20 per session - or $50 for the series
Saturdays, 10 am - noon
September 17 with Liz Warren on Finding Your Story
October 15 with Liz Warren on Developing Your Story
November 12 with John Genette on Delivering Your Story
You will have the option to share your story at our next Journeys: Storytelling Night at The Whole Life Center on Friday, December 2 at 7 pm in Smith Hall. (See Events to reserve tickets for $10 each.)
Myth Mob Tuesday, September 20th - 6 pm
Goddess-in-Chief to the 4th Power
They're b-a-a-ck - The Myth Mob! Liz WarrenMarilyn TorresSule Greg C. Wilson and Harriet Cole bring Mythic shenanigans to the South Mountain Community College Performance Hall September 20 at 6:00 pm as they explore unexpected aspects of the feminine divine.
Greek & Roman Myth Throw Down
Friday, October 7th
SMCC Performance Hall
PREPARE YOURSELVES - PREPARE YOUR STORIES
Gods and Goddesses, Titans, love, infidelity, monster offspring, anger, wrath, revenge, and sometimes a bit of magic!
Be part of the fun! Join everyone at South Mountain Community College as twenty-six storytelling students from the many Community College storytelling classes in Maricopa County share their three-minute versions of Greek and Roman Myths. The audience will vote on the best stories.
Then, on Monday, October 10th, the top seven will tell their full versions for Myth Informed Classic Moves.
Arizona Storytellers - A Hard Days Night - Work Stories Friday - October 7th - 7pm
Heard Museum
Join azcentral.com, The Arizona Republic and Alliance Bank of Arizona for a night of workplace mishaps, customer service nightmares, and unexpected days on the job. Prepare to laugh, learn and relate as tellers share their workplace stories.
Emcee: Megan Finnerty, founder of the Storytellers Project
Featured tellers:
Thomas Sharp
Anna Darian
Seth Conaway
Josh Shore
Charley Edsitty
Laura Hemmenway
Accessibility Note: If you require ASL Interpretation Services for this event or a future Storytellers event, or if you require accommodations related to mobility or seating, contact Alexus Rhone at arhone@gannett.com.
NOTE: This is a First Friday event at the Heard Museum - Steele Auditorium. Admission to the museum is free. But you must buy a ticket to attend the storytelling. We anticipate tickets will sell out.
Context The great storyteller and teacher, Elisabeth Ellis, has said that storytelling is all about context. What is the "context" in which your story takes place? The dictionary defines context as:
The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
So, yes, context is extremely important. If we don't know or don't let the audience know about the context of our story, the message and perhaps even the whole story may be lost. As storytellers, we are taking data and putting it into the context of a story.
In one part of the podcast mentioned in Tidbits below, a researcher explains the relationship between data and context.
Research was done on the correlation between drownings and eating ice cream. It was found that as drownings increased, so did the amount of ice cream that people ate. What did that mean? Perhaps that when people ate ice cream, they went swimming and then drowned?
The context was left out of the research equation. When one adds the context that each of these events, increased drowning and increased ice cream consumption, both took place in the summer, it becomes more apparent! That's the time when both events increase. People eat more ice cream in the summer, and people go swimming more in the summer, so there are more drownings. So, although there is some correlation between the two, with the addition of context, there is no causation here. But our minds try to put it in the context we know, and unless we understand the context, we see the wrong images.
So be sure to understand, and help your audience understand the context, because the story changes with the context.
Blind as a Bat - The Blind Leading the Blind - Tsk Tsk Tsk
Three weeks ago, I wrote a story about the treasure trove of programs on NPR. One of those shows is Invisibilia (Latin for invisible). Last week's show was particularly interesting. Perhaps you've used one of the two phrases in the title of this article. Perhaps to describe someone who is blind, Or perhaps to describe what you thought was someone who didn't know what they were doing, trying to teach someone else how to do it.
Well, be prepared to let go of your perception of those phrases, and your pre-conception of blind people! This podcast explores the world of Daniel Kish, founder of World Access for the Blind, who is, himself, blind. He's been on many TV shows and is known as the Batman. He uses "echolocation" much the same way as a bat uses sonar.
Daniel clicks his tongue and listens to the sound as it goes out, and then comes back to him. This process actually allows him, a blind person, to ride a bike! AND, the amazing thing is that he teaches other blind people to use this method to navigate the world, as well as ride a bike, hike on rocky mountain trails and climb trees...all by themselves! He is insistent on the blind teaching the blind this method! Who else could do it better?
A blind man who can "see". Now there's a story!
One of his TED talks is presented here, but don't forget to hear the whole story on the Invisibila podcast (listen to both Podcast 1 & podcast 2).
------------------------------------THERE'S A LOT GOING ON EACH MONTH -------------------CHECK EACH WEBSITE OR CALENDAR TO CONFIRM DATES AND TIMES ---------------------------------CALL TO MAKE SURE THE EVENT IS STILL ON
FStorytellers - Female Story Tellers - Tucson
Usually sometime during the first week of the month - but check their website) at 7 pm - TUCSON http://www.fstorytellers.com/index.html
West Side Story Tellers - Storytellers Guild First Saturday of each month - GLENDALE *NO meetings in July & August http://westsidestorytellers.weebly.com
East Valley Tellers of Tales -Storytellers Guild Second Saturday of each month - SCOTTSDALE - *NO meetings in July & August http://www.evtot.com
Storyfind Fourth Saturday of each month (usually - check calendar) - *NO meetings in June & July
SMCC Storytelling Institute
A monthly workshop designed to help storytellers build community and deepen repertoire. See the Calendar
- National Storytelling Network? You should be.
Storytelling is in full swing in the Valley! Storytelling has a music all its own. Perhaps that's why we call it a "storytelling Concert". It's a different tune and a different tone with each teller and each event. And there are lots of events coming up this fall and continuing on into next year!
Friday - September 16th - 8 pm
Tuesday, September 20th - 6 pm
Friday - October 7th - 7pm
The great storyteller and teacher, Elisabeth Ellis, has said that storytelling is all about context. What is the "context" in which your story takes place? The dictionary defines context as:
