Workshop
Wendy Edey
Ten Ways to Start a Hopeful Story
Hope is a highly contagious condition, spread by people who
tell hopeful stories. The average person can unknowingly harbor enough
material to cause an outbreak of hope at times when things look bad.
Fortified with hope language, and ten foolproof starter themes, we’ll
rummage through our personal experience, pull out some hopeful
stories, and polish them until they shine. Repeated in Session E
Elizabeth Ellis
Teaching the Power of
Storytelling: Leading Effective Storytelling Workshops
Everything you need to become a dynamic and successful
presenter, whether you are a fearful novice or seeking ways to enliven
tired old presentations. Leave this activity packed event
understanding how adults learn and how to remove barriers to the
learning process. Leadership styles and information gathering
techniques will be explored. Trouble shooting hilarious real life
disasters will build confidence. Come away with dozens of new ideas to
inform and to inspire. Repeated in Session E
Lori Silverman
Say It With a Story™: Getting Training to
Stick
Significant dollars are spent providing people with
technical training and ongoing skill and knowledge development. Yet,
no matter how experiential the training, not all of it takes hold.
What can you do to increase its ability to stick? Using compelling,
well-constructed, thought-provoking stories can accelerate learning
and increase long-term recall. Learn where to find great stories, how
to write them to achieve impact, and how to best integrate them into
new and existing training programs.
Presentation
Doug Elliott
It’s All There: Finding Stories in Nature
The natural world provides a meeting place and a
source of inspiration for storytellers. Elliott will demonstrate how
we can use our own personal experiences combined with family
reminiscences, folklore, natural history, traditional mythology, fun
songs, and hard science to craft engaging and satisfying narratives.
Using many examples we’ll work through some of the elements of putting
together such a narrative and address the creative decisions and
challenges of characters, dialogue, dialect, humor, and music.
Merle Harris, Gail DeVos, and Celia Barker Lottridge
Telling Tales: Storytelling in the Family
Storytelling in the family can take the form of
playing a nursery rhyme with a baby, sharing a childhood escapade,
remembering the life of a beloved grandparent or telling a fairytale
at bedtime. This workshop will explore the dynamic which storytelling
creates in a family and start you on the delightful process of
unearthing and developing the big and little stories which will become
threads forming connections between generations and times.
Showcase
Robin Moore and
Debra Pieri
A Question of Honor: What
Happens When Our Loved Ones go to War?
The true wartime experiences of two American families come
to life in this powerful and heart-felt account of the sacrifices
families make in times of war. Debra Pieri will give a wife’s
perspective on the story of Lt. “Dutchy” Sauler, who saved the life of
his entire crew when his B-17 went down over Germany in 1945. Robin
Moore pays tribute to the man who saved his life when he was a 19-year
old combat soldier in Vietnam. The performance will be followed by a
story circle. Everyone is encouraged to share stories of the impact
war and warfare have had on our lives.
Melissa Stevenson
Embracing the Power of Women Through
Storytelling
This showcase highlights the well established and
award winning BIOLOGUES, Women in History program, a touring
program of monologue stories in the first person about famous women
from our past performed by Melissa Borders Stevenson.
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Workshop
Eth-No-Tec (Nancy
Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo)
Ancient Wisdom Within
This workshop will provide the safe structure, in
which you can name, disappear and replace personal barriers in order
to fulfill the powerful creative and inspiring source that you are.
Using the ancient chakra system, visualization and sharing,
storytellers will begin a journey of courage and insight that will
augment and empower their storytelling destiny and the depth of their
stories.
Limit: 25 Repeated in Session F
Annie Goglia, and Kevin Brooks
Telling Stories Outside the Box: Breaking Out of Homophobia
Holy Gender roles! We’ve been handicapped by homophobia! The
experience of gender is a core issue shaping our Lives. Come to our
workshop to better understand this experience and then transform it
into rich material for stories. The leaders will model stories about a
significant experience when an outside message regarding gender roles
was thrust upon them. Your own stories will follow, brought out by
listening and exercises in a safe atmosphere.
Pleasant DeSpain
Taking Risk with Story
Examining risk from the point of view of the teller,
listener and story, this workshop helps prepare the storyteller for
the next big step. In a highly participatory atmosphere, we’ll explore
the nature of current comfort zones to discover wherein lies actual
risk. We’ll state intention regards what we are and are not willing to
risk, and create a specific action plan in order to accomplish our
desires. Repeated in Session F
Presentation
Angela Klingler
Story, Stone, Water, Fire
Bridging time, culture, community and curriculum, “Story,
Stone, Water, Fire” uses as template, a segment of an established
storytelling program to introduce the concept of “geomythology.”
Covering process, research and marketing, participants will leave
resourced with a working prototype to creatively apply toward their
existing repertoires and the development of new innovative programs,
using world mythologies combined with geographical, environmental,
cultural, historical and scientific applications for performance in
schools, libraries, museums, scouting groups and communities.
Tim Tingle
Collecting, Writing, Telling: Stories from
Oral Sources
Our purpose is to enable participants to create
written and oral performance pieces from material gathered by an oral
interview. We will discuss selecting interview subjects, locating
these subjects, and scheduling an interview. We will then step-by-step
ourselves through the interview, nourishing the story waiting to be
told. After listening to a brief actual interview, we will identify
various stories present in the interview and practice techniques for
creating either a written or performance piece.
Showcase
Denise Lee, Jody Brady, and Therese Salmon,
The Role of Storytelling in Knowledge Management at NASA
Storytelling is a powerful tool supporting leadership,
organizational change, and knowledge sharing. This presentation will
provide a review of the organizational storytelling initiatives
underway within a large government enterprise. Participants will learn
through an in-depth case study about the NASA APPL Knowledge Sharing
Imitative. Hear from those with integral involvement how NASA Centers
are using storytelling to encourage peer-to-peer exchange about
project experiences, success, and failures. See how to employ
storytelling to bring together emerging leaders with the “best of the
best” to build thriving communities of practice and learn how to use
storytelling to transform your organization towards a culture of
continuous learning.
Intensive (continued in Session C)
Caren Neile, and Kevin Cordi
Storytelling for a Peaceful
Generation
Anyone who works with young people will
benefit from this lively, hands-on introduction to the theory and
practice of conflict resolution and violence – reduction through
storytelling. Participants will not only learn the concepts behind
storytelling and non-violence, but will also be able to apply it to
their work. They will be supplied with a wealth of activities,
stories, inspiration and feedback in order to develop their own
programs – and to sell them to administrators, parents and children.
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Workshop
Teresa Clark
Story Grafting
Master Gardeners know that grafting new branches at
just the right spot on an existing tree with a strong root system can
create a more vibrant and fruitful tree. Story grafting is the art of
implanting yourself into an already existing traditional tale to
create a fruitful and vibrantly new story. Participants of this
hands-on workshop will delve deeply into a tale of their choice to
find the sweet spot for personal story grafting to begin. Repeated in
Session H
Garth Gilchrist
Beyond Words: Non-verbal Elements that Make
Stories Shine
Storytelling is not only a word-weaving art, the
finely told tale employs skillful pauses, powerful silences, and an
array of other non-word communicators that give rich texture to a
telling. In this hands-on workshop you’ll learn to identify two kinds
of “thresholds” in any storyline, and practice the life-giving use of
pauses and breaths at these “threshold” moments. You’ll also explore
the subtle use of stance, gesture and gaze to bring place, character
and mood to life
Katie Green
Grandmother Stories
This highly participatory workshop explores the old
woman in folk tales, sacred stories, and in our own experience. In a
culture that denies natural death and devalues aging women, we will
examine the value of the crone. The crone is one aspect of the
goddess, whose other aspects include mother and maiden.
She embodies wisdom, and is also the destroyer, the death-crone.
Through storytelling, we will reclaim the power of the crone in our
lives and in our stories. Repeated in Session G
Randel and Marsha
McGee
Punch it up with Puppets and Props!
Add Power, Pizzazz, and Punch to your storytelling
with puppetry techniques, characters, and props. You can add a
participatory dynamic to your shows that will excite audiences of all
ages like never before. The artistic and thoughtful use of puppets and
props can help propel your stories into an even more fantastic
experience. The workshop will demonstrate simple puppets, props and
techniques that are easy to use. No previous experience with puppetry
is necessary.
Presentation:
Peggy Helmick-Richardson
Get the Word Out!: Promoting Your Programs
and Events
Storytellers and organizations that present storytelling
programs often must work with tight budgets. How do we let others know
about our services, programs, workshops and talents without breaking
the bank? What do newspapers, magazines; radio and television need to
provide us good media coverage? Drawing on ten years of festival and
individual publicity experience as well as a master’s degree in
journalism, Peggy shares inexpensive ways to create press releases,
publicity materials and press packets.
Showcase
Gertrude Johnson
Transforming Communities with Interfaith
Telling: If You Build It, They Will Come
Imagine a story circle where people from richly diverse spiritual
backgrounds and faith traditions meet to share stories and build
relationships. In this showcase, Gertrude Johnson will share
information on Interfaith Story Circle, a program in the Albany, N.Y.
area that has been making a real difference in her community for ten
years. Participants will hear from storytellers who’ve participated
and receive practical tips, resources and guidelines for starting an
interfaith story circle back home.
Intensive (continued from Session B)
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Friday, July
9th
Workshop
Judith Heineman
“But That is Not the Way I Remember It”: Similar
Tale-Types; Dissimilar Tellings
“But, that’s not the way I remember it.” How many times
have we heard that? Select and assimilate similar tale-types drawn
from diverse cultures into a satisfying story that suits your
audience. Experiment with putting your own twist on a traditional
tale. Discover how to trust your own “voice” in your new retelling in
a lively, interactive, on-your-feet workshop. Original interpretations
in a supportive, nurturing environment will be emphasized.
Sherry Norfolk
Taking Your Tales to School: A Primer
So you’re trying to sell your work to schools and don’t
know what to do or why? This workshop will answer your questions and
send you off with the current buzzwords, the best resources, and the
right attitude for success. Find out what schools are looking for,
what works in the classroom or in the assembly, how to get hired – and
invited to come again! Repeated in Session H
Presentation
Evelyn Clark
Passing the Torch: How Great Leaders Impart
Mission, Vision, and Values Through Storytelling
Many of America’s most successful organizations are led by
storytellers. In this presentation, Evelyn Clark will share some of
her favorite tales about leaders who routinely use stories to convey
and reinforce key messages such as mission, vision and values. You
will learn how Northwestern Mutual, Costco Wholesale, The Container
Store and other successful organizations use stories to inform,
inspire and involve not only their employees, but also customers and
affiliates, in reaching corporate goals.
Diane Ladley
Balancing Fright with Delight
Children love ghost stories, but many storytellers are wary
of them – especially after meeting the angry parent of a frightened
child! This lively presentation takes the fear out of telling ghost
stories. Chock-full of the latest scientific research and helpful tips
for crowd-pleasing ghost stories, this bare bones practical guide will
help you maintain a successful balance of fright and delight in all
ages, ensuring your audiences will have good, ghostly fun – not
nightmares! Repeated in Session G
Linda Yemoto, Nan Kammann-Judd and Bev Twillman
Storytelling in the Parks: A Natural High
Storytelling is an invaluable interpretive tool for
enriching the experience of visitors to our local, state and national
parks. It can also form the basis for community connection and
celebration. Linda Yemoto will introduce the session from a
naturalist/storyteller/daily practitioner’s point of view. Bev
Twillmann will discuss her extensive experience in interpretive
training within the National Park Service and her very successful
festival in the Big South Fork. Nan Kammann-Judd will share some of
the successes of the St. Louis Storytelling Festival as well as some
ideas for connecting storytelling through interpretation in other
communities.
Showcase
Gail Rosen
Around the Campfire: Using Story in Grief
Retreat Camps
Hospices around the country are offering weekend retreats
or camps for children, teens, and adults. In beautiful natural
settings, counseling, healing, and peer support are provided along
with relaxation and recreation. Storytelling is an invaluable resource
in this context, creating group cohesion, promoting trust, encouraging
emotional release, and fostering resilience and optimism. As
storytellers, how do we work with staff, counselors and “campers?” How
do we define our role? How do we walk the line between “therapy” and
“art?”
Nannette Watts
Youth Tell: Starting a Youth Storytelling
Festival
Setting up a Storytelling Festival for youth doesn’t have
to be hard. Learn tried and true methods of stirring the students,
teaching the teachers, preparing parents, and collecting a community.
Whether you are an educator, storyteller, or parent, learn how to
create a fun, successful program in your own local school or
community. Find that one child. Engage a whole school in the
storytelling process.
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Workshop
Naomi Baltuck and
Elly Garrard
Crazy Gibberish and Other Story Hour
Stretches
Wake ‘em and shake ‘em with these chants, songs, action
stories, and participation games guaranteed to delight and involve
audiences of all ages. You don’ need musical talent or performing
experience, just enthusiasm to add these “two-minute miracles” to your
bag of tricks. Participants will also learn how to use these stretches
to balance a program and manage an audience. For teachers librarians,
professional storytellers, parents, and anyone who works with
children.
Wendy Edey
Ten Ways to Start a Hopeful Story
Hope is a highly contagious condition, spread by people who
tell hopeful stories. The average person can unknowingly harbor enough
material to cause an outbreak of hope at times when things look bad.
Fortified with hope language, and ten foolproof starter themes, we’ll
rummage through our personal experience, pull out some hopeful
stories, and polish them until they shine.
Elizabeth Ellis
Teaching the Power of Storytelling: Leading
Effective Storytelling Workshops
Everything you need to become a dynamic and successful presenter,
whether you are a fearful novice or seeking ways to enliven tired old
presentations. Leave this activity packed event understanding how
adults learn and how to remove barriers to the learning process.
Leadership styles and information gathering techniques will be
explored. Trouble shooting hilarious real life disasters will build
confidence. Come away with dozens of new ideas to inform and to
inspire.
Wendy Welch
Storytelling as Life or Death - and Rebirth
A hard-core workshop for courageous and motivated
altruists. Session has two parts: building empathy toward asylum
seekers/refugees in mainstream communities; and helping asylum
seekers/refugees use their own narratives to build positive
relationships in their new communities. Workshop techniques include
exercises for use with children and adults, with “Joe Smith” from the
street and “Jane Highpower” from the governmental offices. Discussion
includes how to work sensitively and to good effect in refugee
communities.
Presentation
Karen Morgan
Increasing Your Audience for Storytelling
Events
Building audiences for storytelling events is a significant
issue for all involved in the storytelling community. How do we break
down stereotypes that storytelling is just for kids or that we read
from a printed text and move to the concept that storytelling is an
entertaining adult activity that’s worth attending no matter how old
you are? In this presentation session participants will hear some of
the latest research on audience building used by orchestras and other
performing arts groups to build greater participation in their events.
We will also look at ways to demonstrate the economic impact of arts
events and appeal for different kinds of funders for storytelling.
Showcase
Barbara Lipke
Stir the Imagination: Math + Storytelling =
Success
Storytellers know that storytelling is the world’s
oldest, most effective teacher! We can make learning math exciting and
fun. Learning should be fun – and challenging, exciting, and
intriguing. It is the questions, the seeking of knowledge
that good teaching encourages. The best teaching intrigues, interests,
arouses, curiosity, and makes kids eager to learn. This
showcase is designed to help students and teachers find the challenge,
understanding, fun, and logic in learning (and teaching) math.
Intensive (continued in session F)
Doug Lipman
How to Create a Supportive Coaching Community
For the storytelling movement to thrive, we need to create
supportive peer-coaching communities that avoid the extremes of harsh
criticism and mindless approval. Panelists from diverse setting will
describe the support communities they have built around them. Then
we’ll demonstrate the process with a volunteer storyteller and a
volunteer facilitator. Afterwards, I’ll coach the facilitator. You’ll
leave with detailed ideas of how to get the support you need, whatever
your situation.
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Workshop
Pleasant DeSpain
Taking Risk with Story
Examining risk from the point of view of the teller,
listener and story, this workshop helps prepare the storyteller for
the next big step. In a highly participatory atmosphere, we’ll explore
the nature of current comfort zones to discover wherein lies actual
risk. We’ll state intention regards what we are and are not willing to
risk, and create a specific action plan in order to accomplish our
desires.
Eth-No-Tec (Nancy
Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo)
Ancient Wisdom Within
This workshop will provide the safe structure, in
which you can name, disappear and replace personal barriers in order
to fulfill the powerful creative and inspiring source that you are.
Using the ancient chakra system, visualization and sharing,
storytellers will begin a journey of courage and insight that will
augment and empower their storytelling destiny and the depth of their
stories.
Limit: 25
Gail Smedley
Empowering Youth Through Storytelling
Storytelling can be a dramatic tool enabling young adults
to broaden their creative powers while practicing presentation skills
that are necessary in today’s world. Intended for those who work with
youth in grades 5 – 12, Empowering Youth through Storytelling
will provide a variety of activities aimed at helping youth tellers
hone their memorizing, speaking, writing, and dramatic skills. Seeing
themselves as dynamic and capable tellers increases young adults’
confidence in many surprising and unrelated areas.
Presentation
Sara Armstrong
Digital Storytelling: Multimedia Tools for
Telling Tales
By building on the deep foundation of traditional
storytelling, today’s students, teachers, and others use current media
to tell their stories. Multimedia stories bring voice, music, and
pictures together to share remembrances, make a point, or present
learning. Participants will learn about the Center for Digital
Storytelling model, see examples of student and teacher work, and
learn about the production process for this method. Examples of
various multimedia models will be shared.
Robert Smyth
Producing an Audio Tape or CD - Demystifying
the Process
Producing a CD or audio tape is a process which can deepen
your connection to the stories, proved the teller with audition
material and produce revenue. It takes planning and forethought
though. The workshop will provide an overview of the recording
process, provide samples of recorded material for reference, and
discuss many of the salient points of producing a tape or CD to assure
that you understand the process and can make it your own.
Showcase
Tim Ereneta
Storytelling at the Fringe
Explore the Fringe Festival circuit of North
America: unjuried summer festivals of the performing arts where anyone
can put on a show! Fringe Festival present unique opportunities for
both storytellers and storytelling guilds to bring traditional
storytelling to new audiences. Fringe patrons are also willing to take
risks seeing challenging work that may not fit in the storytelling
festival circuit. Come learn the nuts and bolts of producing a Fringe
Festival show.
Intensive (continued from session E)
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Saturday, July
10
Workshop
Meg Lippert
Telling It Like It Is: Transforming
Stories from the Oral Tradition to the Printed Page
The Liberian village of storyteller Won-Ldy Paye was destroyed by
civil war, but his Dan stories have been preserved by a unique
collaboration. For ten years he has been working with
storyteller/writer Meg Lippert. Together they have written three
award-winning books of Dan folk tales.
Diane Ferlatte
Culturally Speaking: Walking in Someone
Else's Shoes Through Stories
We know that we can learn about other cultures when we hear
them tell their stories. But when we share the stories of our own
personal experiences with other cultures, what do we learn? We will
share these stories to help us understand how we learn and interact
with other cultures, and in doing, maybe get in though with the whole
story of who we are.
Katie Green
Grandmother Stories
This highly participatory workshop explores the old woman
in folk tales, sacred stories, and in our own experience. In a culture
that denies natural death and devalues aging women, we will examine
the value of the crone. The crone is one aspect of the goddess,
whose other aspects include mother and maiden. She
embodies wisdom, and is also the destroyer, the death-crone. Through
storytelling, we will reclaim the power of the crone in our lives and
in our stories.
Presentation
Diane Ladley
Balancing Fright with Delight
Children love ghost stories, but many storytellers are wary
of them – especially after meeting the angry parent of a frightened
child! This lively presentation takes the fear out of telling ghost
stories. Chock-full of the latest scientific research and helpful tips
for crowd-pleasing ghost stories, this bare bones practical guide will
help you maintain a successful balance of fright and delight in all
ages, ensuring your audiences will have good, ghostly fun – not
nightmares!
Heather McNeil
The History and Story of the Celtic Faery
If you believe that faeries are gossamer-winged beauties
who flit about the garden and dance under mushrooms then you have
never met the terrifying and enchanting faeries of Celtic folklore.
This presentation will introduce you to the many types of these
faeries, a variety of theories about their origin, the objects used
for protection against their powers, and a sampling of the many
stories sung and told about sithicean, the faery folk.
Showcase
Will Hornyak
Itsy-Bitsy Spider – “The Real Story” and
Other Tales from the Macro Invertebrate Café
Shuffle on down to the Macro-Invertebrate Cafe where memorable
characters, outrageous stories and environmental education come to
life. Meet the ever-pungent “Sewercules” and rap master “Daddy Long
Legs.”
Will shares stories, ideas and suggestions from his assembly program,
“River Heroes,” sponsored by the Portland Bureau of Environmental
Services. Discuss ways to weave salmon habitats and sewer overflows,
native plants and storm water pollution into original and traditional
tales that won’t be forgotten!
Intensive (continued in Session H)
Gerald Fierst
Breaking the Eggs: Twenty-first Century
Storytelling
Narrative information is being conveyed with new
constructions of language, image and technology. The Producer’s SIG
has commissioned a storytelling work that will test the boundaries of
beginning, middle and end. Attend this performance and continue on to
debate how we communicate, what is narrative, where will story go as
language is redefined by changing cultural images and new
technologies.
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Session H 4:00-5:30 PM
Workshop
Teresa Clark
Story Grafting
Master Gardners know that grafting new branches at
just the right spot on an existing tree with a strong root system can
create a more vibrant and fruitful tree. Story grafting is the art of
implanting yourself into an already existing traditional tale to
create a fruitful and vibrantly new story. Participants of this
hands-on workshop will delve deeply into a tale of their choice to
find the sweet spot for personal story grafting to begin.
Leeny Del Seamonds
A Time for Mime and Movement: Adding
Dimension to Stories
Go beyond storytelling limits with mime and movement! This
participatory workshop challenges anyone wishing to learn pantomime
and add specific movements to his/her storytelling technique. A
demonstration of mime incorporated in storytelling begins the
workshop, followed by warm-up exercises and vocalizations. Learn basic
mime techniques (isolation and “ticks”) and related reinforcement
exercises and motivation; how to enhance delivery using gestures,
facial expressions and body movements; and how to incorporate specific
“props,” movements, and/or actions to illustrate the spoken word. Be
prepared to move, challenge yourself and have fun.
Sherry Norfolk
Taking Your Tales to School: A Primer
So you’re trying to sell your work to schools and
don’t know what to do or why? This workshop will answer your questions
and send you off with the current buzzwords, the best resources, and
the right attitude for success. Find out what schools are looking for,
what works in the classroom or in the assembly, how to get hired – and
invited to come again!
Presentation
Molly Catron Using
the “Water Cooler”: Stories at Work to Change the Organizational
Culture
In the workplace, employees find pleasure and solace in sharing
stories around the symbolic “water cooler” which now may be the coke
machine, the health club or the golf course. Dilbert cartoons
hinted at the amusing ones. Management chooses to ignore or
marginalize both the humorous and sad stories. They often dismiss them
as being inaccurate. Whether accurate or inaccurate, these stories
represent an unmanageable part of the organization having a
powerful influence over employee morale, trust, and level of
commitment to the company goals. Because the stories are a product of
the old power and control processes and hierarchical structure of the
organization, they hold information useful for exploring the
unmanageable drama at the water cooler. This workshop will present
the results of the research aimed at collecting and organizing these
stories by archetypal structure and will provide a tool for using
these stories to stimulate dialogue within any group.
Margaret Read
MacDonald, J.G. “Paw-Paw” Pinkerton, Masako Sueyoshi, and Fran
Stallings
Sharing Tales Through Translation: Techniques
for Tellers and Producers
Demonstration of three techniques useful for tellers
traveling abroad. 1. Summarizing technique. 2. Line for line
translation. 3. Tandem-telling technique. Our aim…to empower you to
share tales as you travel. To enable you to host non-English speaking
tellers at home.
Showcase
Jeff Gere
Tales From The Arabian Nights
Jeff Gere performed a series of Tales from the Arabian
Nights, with two musicians and a belly dancer to overflowing audiences
during the build up and aftermath of the Bush War in Iraq. He’ll share
the story structure of three tales and show video clips of his Story
Theater versions. He’ll talk about memory, story adaptation and
innovations, about his immersion into Islam, and storytelling’s power
to correlate old tales and current politics.
Intensive (continued from Session G)
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