Hoosier Storytelling Festival canceled for 2009

I missed this story last week, as I was rushing off the Northlands Conference.

Ellen Munds, the executive director (and sole employee) of the Storytelling Arts of Indiana organization, posted the notice on her blog that there will be no Hoosier Storytelling Festival this year. She hopes to bring it back when the economic climate allows for better funding (The festival relies heavily on public arts funding). The organization will continue to produce events throughout the year.

Indy Theatre Habit blogger Hope Baugh covered it on her blog.

News coverage:
Hoosier Storytelling Festival canceled | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

Storytelling Arts calls off fall festival | Indianapolis Business Journal

Call for Tellers: 13th International Storytelling Festival, Iran

(via Twitter)

"Storytellers to narrate Persian tales in English at Iranian festival"

The International Storytelling festival is open to foreign tellers, and this year specifically encourages tales to be told in English. Last year the theme was Quranic tales, but this year it seems epic tales (with Iranian themes) are sought.

I think the festival will take place in December around the solstice (I can't read Farsi, so that's a guess). It did last year, when the festival was held in Isfahan and the international guest list included Georgiana Keable of Norway, American storyteller by way of the Netherlands Mary Sue Siegel, and Angela Knowles from Scotland.

(I can't give this Festival credit for being the first to send out a call for storytellers via Twitter, since the announcement came via the Mehr News Agency, and some of the Iranian blogs picked it up, and from there into the Twitterstream... nevertheless, I'm quite delighted that there are now tools available that make it possible for a Festival far away to get the word to an interested party some seven thousand five hundred miles away.)

Reports from Northlands Storytelling Conference 2009

Thanks to blogger, storyteller, podcaster, and frequent commenter here Sean Buvala, my thoughts on the 27th Annual Northlands Storytelling Conference are available online as audio interviews in mp3 format

Almost Live Tweeting from Northlands Storytelling Conference

I'm at the Northlands Storytelling Network conference this weekend in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Got at least 3 folks on Twitter here.

In case you want to follow along this weekend on Twitter: link

(Wireless interenet from the conference center lobby and dining room... not from the breakout sessions, so there won't be much tweeting in real time. I suspect we won't be texting on our cell phones in the interactive workshops.)

Photos on Flickr, thanks to Dale Jarvis. More as weekend progresses.

Tales from the Body 2009: Online Post-Mortem

And welcome to the second installment of my reviews of 2009 storytelling events I didn't attend.

I feel like I should have a name for this. Like the "2009 Carnival of Crankiness."

As I wrote in my post ranting about how storytelling conferences are like shouting down a hole, I'm going to be reviewing storytelling conferences based on their online presence during but especially after the event.

I'm focusing on conferences because they are focused on "getting the word out." To allow practicioners to come together to experience professional development, share best practices, and, to some extent, allow networking to feed future collaborations and innovations. And it drives me nuts that in this day and age... when the marginal cost of disseminating discussions from an event like this is so low... that so little thought seems to be given to sharing out.

I may toss in a performance-centric event (e.g. Going Deep), mainly because the National Storytelling Network is co-sponsoring seven regional events this year in lieu of a national conference, and a couple of those events are more festival than conference.

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Chronologically, the first NSN Year of the Regions Event was: TALES FROM THE BODY: Storytelling About Illness and Disability, produced by the Storytelling Center of New York.
Date: January 25th, 2009
Location: New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York City
Format: Storytelling Concert, Panel Discussion, Story Swap

Kudos to the Storytelling Center for posting a post-event writeup with photos on their site: link.
NSN has posted a report from organizer Donna Minkowitz on its website. link.
Seems like it was a small event, so just by attendance numbers alone I didn't expect any blog posts or tweets. But documentation on two web sites? I can't get cranky about that.

Philip David Morgan, who handles the web site for the Storytelling Center, let me know that he did record most of the event, but getting the video files edited and online will take some time... and the Center isn't clamoring for its own regular Twitter feed or Facebook presence. Oh, but Philip... I look forward to seeing the highlight reel.

Shout Out: Stateline Storytelling

Always nice to see a new storytelling open mic start up (especially one that has its own Wordpress web site). Discovered this one via Youtube, of all places.

If you're in the Beloit, Wisconsin, area, check out this new monthly storytelling venue for adults.
http://www.statelinestorytelling.com/

Notes from the 2009 Going Deep Storytelling Retreat

Blogger Hope Baugh of Indiana, over at her Indy Theatre Blog, gives us a report from the 2009 Going Deep: The Long Traditional Storytelling Retreat. (She did the same with last year's event, as well).

Going Deep not only treads new ground in the storytelling circuit (by focusing on a niche market of epic stories, and setting up the logistics of the event accordingly, i.e., making it a retreat rather than a series of one-off evening concerts).

Hope has posted her reflections on the three stories presented during the course of the retreat:

• Liz Warren's telling of "The Story of the Grail;"
• Marilyn Omifunke Torres telling “The Paths of Osun: The West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess in Heaven and on Earth;"
• David Novak's performance of "Gilgamesh."

I especially appreciate her careful notes on the workshops that followed each performance-- they give a more rounded context to the storytelling event and allow us a glimpse into the artistic process for each performer, as well as a sense of how a retreat differs from a standard festival.

I should also point out that storyteller Priscilla Howe, one of the co-founders of the retreat, has posted her reflections of this year's event over on her blog.

And Sean Buvala of Storyteller.net has an .mp3 interview with retreat founders Priscilla Howe and Liz Warren over at the Storyteller.net Amphitheater (from 2006?).