World Storytelling Day: The Dutch are encouraging us to start preparing for 2015

A Message from our friends in the Netherlands. 

It's been a month since World Storytelling Day 2014 and we started looking ahead to 2015 already.

In 2014 we had "Worldwide Storytelling Cafés" on three locations in the Netherlands and part of their program were the videos that some of you sent in. It was a great success! The audience enjoyed the recorded stories a lot and even applauded as if the storytellers were actually present. A very interesting experience.

We decided that we will continue this concept next year. So for those of you who've missed it this year or didn't have time to send in a video link: we will be looking for storytelling videos on the theme "Wishes".

All videos will be collected on one page on the Dutch website for world storytelling day, for everybody's convenience: to enjoy at home, or to use in your own WW Storytelling Café.

You can post links in the comments or mail to info[at]wereldverteldag.nl
For more info on the concept of the WW Storytelling Café you can contact me or send email to the address mentioned above.

For your inspiration: here's the link to the video page for WSD 2014http://www.wereldverteldag.nl/archief/86-video-s/139-monsters-and-dragons-world-storytelling-day-2015

We hope to receive as many contributions for 2015 as we had this year!
On behalf of the Dutch committee for WSD,

Melanie Plag

Five Storytellers worked at the Bendigo Easter Festival Storytelling Tree (in Rosalind Park) 2014

This is how Bendigo Festival introduced storytelling to the public...

11am-4.30pm Each Day...

The StoryTelling Tree 

The greatest array of local and Melbourne-based professional storytellers, transform the Maple Garden into an entertaining space of theatre and imagination.

Narelle Stone

Narelle delights in engaging and entertaining people of all ages with stories incorporating puppets, props and costumes into her quirky tales.

Matteo 

Using live music a few clowning tricks with some mime and humour. Matteo's storytelling style is highly interactive, funny, a bit tricky, a bit scary and usually surprising. Adults  find themselves engaged laughing as much at the stories as at the children's responses to them

Anne E. Stewart 

Honouring Indigenous, Celtic, Asian and World stories, Anne is a versatile performer with the energy and voice to engage any audience. An acclaimed storyteller with an international reputation. 

Andrew McKenna 

Andrew McKenna has been a storyteller for more than 20 years. He has performed in festivals around Australia’s eastern states and toured Ireland performing at the Baboro International Children’s Festival, Waterford’s Imagine Festival and Limerick’s Lough Gur Storytelling Festival, as well as libraries and schools around the country. 

Niki na Meadhra 

Niki na Meadhra is a professional storyteller and theatre artist, based at Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne. She has 25 years experience as a theatre maker, community builder and educator. Niki initially trained as an actor, but also has extensive experience directing and designing theatrical events.

Matteo says, “The Bendigo audiences were enthusiastic about the storytelling. All we needed to do was start and an audience gathered. It is a testimony to the strength of the shows we put on that audiences stayed. In this festival setting there are so many things to see and do and distract. Still, adults and children were happy to sit by on a hay-bale and engage in the myths, faerie tales, the music, guessing games, the calls and responses, the puppets, masks, drawing stories, story narratives, string tricks, their participations and our teasings.

The festival provided a great PA system and a small marque under a beautiful maple tree. Hay bales for the audience, lunch, bottled water and even fine weather....

Below are some photos of the tellers in action. If I were smarter I would have?.......audience participation (fill in the blank)........ lived my life differently,  (well, in part anyway) and also I would have asked one of the others to take a photo of me too.        Cheers for now....Matteo."

Pics: (north to south):

Narelle Stone is local to Bendigo, on the first morning she had the home ground advantage.  Friends and community amongst the audience. We were off to a flying start.

Ann E Stewart from the Daylesford area.

Niki na Meadhra from Melbourne.

Andrew McKenna from Castlemaine, on day one, before Nikki dressed the tent with her collection of fine materials and curiosities. 

‘Bilarni’. A new show from Jan (‘Yarn’) Wositzky 2014

Victorian Storyteller, Jan Wositzky, has been researching and writing about Australian author, bushman and raconteur Bill Harney for twenty years. The result is a one-man storytelling show. For 70 minutes, Jan weaves personal anecdote, song and recitations of transcribed oral texts into a tale that is moving, funny, absurd, raw and at times tragic. Bill Harney ‘Bilarni’ (1895 – 1962) was born of English parents and grew up in Queensland. At 12 he took off droving and what followed was a rich and richly recorded life. Largely self-educated, he was poetically articulate and throughout the 40s 50s, in Australia, his voice was heard and his stories familiar on radio, and his books devoured. Bill Harney was famous in his day and remains a legend in Queensland and the Northern Territory where his relationships with Aboriginal people ran deep.

In ‘Bilarni’ Jan examines the man and the myth; the story as he tells it is neither sentimental nor uncritical. He brings great depth to the telling with rich layers of information, multiple Aboriginal languages, Australian dialects, and ‘Englishes’ superb evocations of characters that could only be encountered in the north of this continent. Jan’s musicality is evident throughout, particularly so when it comes to the mastery of Harney’s rhythmical speech patterns. Lovers of language and literature will be seduced by Harney’s depth of feeling and perceptions, expressed so eloquently. This a storytelling at its best!

‘Bilarni’ will be enjoyed by anyone who loves a good yarn and a wild ride.

Sign up for Jan's e news HERE

Facebook HERE

Catch the show at the National Folk Festival Saturday 19 April HERE

Jackie Kerin

The Monash Fairy Tale Salon 29 June. Call for papers, readings and performances. 2014

pic: Reilly McCarron performing at the inaugural Salon.

The Monash Fairy Tale Salon in Melbourne are running a  fairy tale event in Melbourne on June 29th and are currently calling for papers, readings and performances.

This will be the Monash group's third annual fairy tale event and looks set to be a wonderful day.

Australian Fairy Tale Day - Call for Participation

 As part of the Glen Eira Storytelling Festival, the Monash Fairy Tale Salon will be hosting a day exploring fairy tale migrations, with a special focus on Australian tales. Fairy tales cross oceans and continents. How do people carry their tales with them? How are tales transformed by migration? In particular, how have fairy tales come here to Australia and how is our own fairy tale tradition based on migration?

This Melbourne event explores many of the ideas that will be raised at the Australian Fairy Tale Society conference to take place on June 9 in Sydney.

The day is open to academic papers as well as fairy tale readings and performances. For the bold at heart, come dressed as your favourite fairy tale character and be in the running to win a prize! This event is open to anyone who has a love of fairy tales, and will take place at the Theatrette, Glen Eira Town Hall, on Sunday June 29.

We are looking for interested participants who would like to present original work and/or papers on fairy tales. Preference will be given to material dealing with or inspired by Australian themes, but other material will certainly be considered.

Areas of interest:

o   Scholarly analysis of fairy tale (incl. literary studies, translation studies, film & TV, drama studies, gender studies)

o   Live performance of fairy tale (incl. new & established fairy tales)

o   Fairy tale readings (incl. new & established fairy tales)

Please send a 100-200 word summary or abstract to arts-fairytale@monash.edu by May 10.

Monash Fairy Tale Salon website: http://fairytalesalon.wordpress.com

The Australian Fairy Tale Society can be found at:

http://www.faeriebard.com/afts/

https://www.facebook.com/austfairytales

austfairytales@gmail.com