Saturday, April 26

Session C • 8:30-10:00am

C1 - Powerful Presentations for Rave Reviews

Do you want people to leave your workshops satisfied, smiling, and smarter? Do you want participants to rate you highly and be excited about implementing your ideas and suggestions? Do you want them to say you: started the workshop with confidence and gave clear direction; included all the promised details; kept it lively and interesting; and avoided excessive interruptions? If these are your goals, this workshop is for you!

For: Anyone who wants to present successful workshops

Presenter: Linda Gorham

    • Linda Gorham, a full-time professional storyteller, has presented many workshops at many national and regional storytelling conferences – all to rave reviews. Linda also designs and presents workshops for major corporations. Before her storytelling life, Linda was a three-piece-suit-wearing-briefcase-carrying manager for the human resources, training, and public affairs departments of Prudential Insurance Company.

 

C2 - Communication Apprehension 101 or Please don’t make me imagine them in their underwear!

Worried that you can’t get your butterflies to fly in formation? Ever go blank in the middle of a story? Scared to imagine your audience in their underwear? This session will define and discuss Communication Apprehension (CA). We will review the research on this topic and the not so good advice out there. Participants will take a Self Test on CA. They will practice some proven techniques to manage CA with emphasis on skills training.

For: beginners or anyone concerned about stage fright, speech anxiety, or butterflies…

Presenter: Mary Schmidt

    • Mary L. Schmidt has taught in the Communication Studies field for over 15 years. She serves on the board of the Communication/Theatre Association of MN. Mary recently presented a workshop at the 2007 National Storytelling Conference. She refuses to imagine her audiences in their underwear and believes in playing dress-up!

 

C3 - Storytelling Study Guides for Schools: Make-it/Take-it!

Make your visit to schools memorable by developing unique study guides to go with stories and/or story programs. Many schools need to show how storytelling relates to the statewide curriculum standards. One way is through study guides. Marilyn Kinsella puts her experiences as storyteller/teacher/librarian together to offer helpful suggestions for storytellers in gathering material for attractive, useful, and easy study guides for teachers.

For: beginner/advanced storytellers, educators

Presenter: Marilyn Kinsella

    • Today’s schools want more than entertainment for school assemblies. They want programs tying into state standards and improving test scores. What better way than storytelling! To insure your prospective clients understand the value of storytelling, learn to make quick, easy, informative, educationally-sound study guides from former teacher/librarian, Marilyn Kinsella.

 

C4 - Ghosts, Naked Men & History–The Art and Business of Storytelling

Historic sites, homes, towns, cemeteries, etc. – so many places whose story needs to be told. Walking storytellers literally take their craft “on the road”. They bring to life the challenges, hardships, triumphs, foibles, loves and losses of people, places, and times. The session explores starting a walking tour as a business or hobby. Two experienced walking storytellers share wisdom, sample stories and answer questions.

For: All levels

Presenter: Virginia Hirsch & Mauricette Keeley

    • Virginia Hirsch founded Bayfield Heritage Tours, LLC in 2003. A former educator with a theatre degree and a love of history, her walks tell the amazing story of this northern Wisconsin community and its people. Mauricette Keeley, is a kindred spirit who has the gift of bringing to life some of Bayfield’s memorable ladies.

 

 

Session D • 10:15-11:45am

D1 - Beyond Happily Ever After…

A workshop on arriving at appropriate and satisfying conclusions. A story begins at the beginning (and we might argue that anyplace we want to start will do) but where it ends should not be left up to happenstance, failure of imagination or bad timing. We will examine and test story endings – from the classical, emotional, philosophical to punch lines and morals to understand something about the where and how of ending our stories.

For: beginner through advanced storyteller

Presenter: Loren Niemi

    • Loren Niemi is a storyteller of philosophically engaging and emotionally nuanced original and traditional tales, a public policy consultant and trainer, master teacher of Storytelling, author of "The Book of Plots" (Llumina Press) and co-author with Elizabeth Ellis of "Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories" (August House Publishers).

 

D2 - Storytelling…You Can Do It!

Be brave. Be very brave. This workshop if for those who are brand spankin’ new to storytelling and want to give it a try. Discover techniques to learn a story and bring it to life. Bring your imagination and a willingness to experiment with voice, dialogue, body language, facial expressions, and gesture. This workshop is high energy and interactive -- get ready to roll up your sleeves and give storytelling a try!

For: Brand spankin’ new beginner: librarian, educator, clergy, student

Presenter: Sue Black

    • Sue charms audiences with her enthusiasm, warmth and creativity. She combines her passion for storytelling with her delight in teaching students and their teachers to tell stories. It's an awesome combination! Sue is the recipient of the 2006 Prairie Area Reading Council Literacy Award for her work with student storytellers.

 

D3 - Using a Mac to Create an Audition CD

Making a CD is easy with a Mac. Garage Band and iTunes can be your friends, if you know how to use them. Learn the basics of using these two programs together to create an audition CD. Bring your Mac laptop and a blank CD if you want to play along. (You don’t need a computer to participate.) If time permits, we may also delve into iPhoto, iMovie, and/or iDVD.

For: Anyone who wishes to record and owns (or knows someone who owns) a Mac

Presenter: Katie Knutson

    • Katie Knutson proudly converted to a Mac in 2004 and has not looked back. “Enchanting and magical,” Katie works as a Storyteller, Actor, Playwright, Director, and Instructor, and is also the MN Representative for Northlands, the President of the Northstar Storytelling League, and a founding member of New Voices.

 

D4 - Making a Demo CD

This will be a very basic demonstration of how to use a laptop, microphone, and Audacity (a free software program) to create an audio CD. No more grainy, tinny tape recordings. Learn how to make a simple CD that gives a better sound and maintains quality when multiple copies are made.

For: Anyone who wants to learn the basics of using a computer and Audacity software to make a simple audio CD

Presenter: Phyllis Hostmeyer

    • Phyllis Hostmeyer, a member of Riverwind, is a storyteller and educational consultant. She knows just enough technology to be dangerous and for the past year has been merging technology with storytelling as she works in classrooms throughout the country. She has lived in Southern, Illinois all her life but travels extensively.

 

 

Session E • 2:15-3:45pm

E1 - Telling Stories of Grief

Telling stories of grief deepens the folk art experience and can become a rich and necessary part of daily life. The telling of these stories keeps any community vital and cohesive, whether that community is a storytelling audience, circle of friends experiencing loss, a family, a community or a nation grieving it’s war dead. Most importantly the telling of these stories allows teller and listener to experience one of the fundamental principles shared by all spiritual traditions: the idea of paradox, that the most important source of grace comes to us in a form we would never have chosen, had we the choice; that in honoring the dead, we also celebrate life.

For: Everyone

Presenter: Jim May

    • Jim May was born in Spring Grove, Illinois where his ancestors first settled in the 1840s. Raised in this small German-Catholic farming community, his stories resonate with the rural voices of the Illinois prairie. His relatives spent time "visiting" and telling stories as an integral part of daily life - as a means of weaving the social fabric of the community. As an Emmy award-winning, and world traveling freelance storytelling and author, his humorous and heart felt stories not only entertain but present an art form ideal for the grounding and healing that is needed in complex, modern times.

 

E2 - SpeakUP!

Make the most of your voice! Develop a storyteller’s essential tool. Practice simple techniques to enhance vocal clarity, variety, projection, and resonance. Begin to develop your natural ability to speak expressively, to communicate without strain or microphones, and to protect your voice. Clear instruction focuses on safe performance, not speech therapy. Handout allows participants to continue at home following this in-person introduction. Come prepared to move, and to lie upon floor.

For: storytellers, all levels

Presenter: Yvonne Healy

    • 32 years of training and teaching in professional stage, vocal, and education methods shape Yvonne Healy’s workshops. A Wolf Trap artist-educator, Arts & Humanities residency artist, and University of Michigan adjunct instructor, Yvonne introduces participants safely to techniques from stage voice, bel canto, Alexander Method, yoga, and Gratowski’s Polish Laboratory Theatre.

 

E3 - Whoever Tells the Stories Defines the Culture

In America, we have turned the storytelling function over to mass media.
Using the latest discoveries in brain science and up to date research and data to explore the power and impact of video games, the internet and television in shaping norms, attitudes and behaviors, Mike will explain why it is crucial for us to pay attention to the role of media. We will develop concrete strategies that storytellers can use to advocate for live storytelling in this media age.

For: All audiences

Presenter: Mike Mann

    • Public speaker and storyteller, Mike Mann uses enthusiasm and imagination as he presents to more than 15,000 listeners each year. In addition to his work as a full time storyteller, Mike is a training consultant with the National Institute on Media and the Family and delivers trainings and keynotes nationwide.

 

E4 - The Land of Dragon Riders: The World of Hungarian Folktales

Hungarian storyteller Zalka Csenge Virág guides the audience on a magical journey through her homeland’s folk and fairy tales. For Listeners, she offers magicians, enchanted lakes, sky-high trees and legendary castles; for fellow Tellers, insight to the native storytelling tradition and the structure of a nation’s dreamland. All of her stories are bilingual; a rare chance to hear their original language, in phrases and in songs. “Egyszer volt, hol nem volt…Once upon a time…”

For: All

Presenter: Czenge Zalka

    • Hungarian storyteller and writer Zalka Csenge Virág travels the World, following stories. As a student of Archeology and Anthropology, her tales are a mixture of legend, folk belief and history – as well as music, theater and fun. She tells in museums and schools, to audiences from young children to adults.