Going Deep 2009 announcement

Depth. Substance. A rich storytelling experience. Aaah.

Mark your calendars for March 19-22, 2009 in Bethlehem, IN (not far from Louisville, KY). We're now finally ready to announce the lineup for Going Deep, the long traditional story retreat.

Hang on, hang on, what was that? Retreat? I thought it was a festival!

We've been calling it a festival since before the first one in 2006, but in truth, it's a retreat. Three days of intense stories, workshops, community, delicious food, laughter and relaxation in a beautiful setting? Optional activities like massages, palm reading, art projects, long walks and naps? Sounds like a retreat to me.

Here are the featured stories and storytellers:

The Grail, told by Liz Warren
The questions posed in The Grail are as relevant today as they were when it was written in the twelfth century. How do we cultivate open and compassionate hearts in a perilous world? What is the connection between human woundedness and the health of the earth? When should we speak and when should we be silent? The story is symbolically rich and complex, yet at the same time is simply about the wonder and grace of earning a second chance.

The Paths of Osun: The West African Yoruba Epic Journey of the Goddess in Heaven and on Earth, told by Marilyn Omifunke Torres
Marilyn Omifunke Torres takes listeners on a journey through the five stages of transformation from Divinity to Woman. The 3000-year-old myths of Osun as the goddess of fresh waters invite the listeners to explore the journey we must all undergo if we are to awaken to the path of love, creativity and sensuality in the power of the feminine within every human living on the planet.


Gilgamesh, told by David Novak
In a moving narrative of power and love, Gilgamesh the King searches for humanity and immortality. Novak uses expressive voice and staging to bring this ancient tale to contemporary audiences. Gilgamesh, the world's oldest piece of literature, resonates even after 5000 years.


Check out Goingdeepstories.com for full registration details.

Home from Going Deep, part III

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

One of the many things I enjoy about the Storyteller's Riverhouse is helping in the kitchen. At WOW weekends, it's expected; at Going Deep, it's graciously accepted as long as there aren't too many people milling around. After lunch on Saturday, I pitched in on dishes and potato peeling. What is it about kitchens that brings out good conversation?

That evening after a feast of pork roast, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and more, we were ready to settle in to the ancient world, to Helen's Troy, told by Megan Wells. She's deliberate about the title--this is about the Trojan war from Helen's point of view. I'd seen Megan tell this a few years ago at the National Storytelling Conference in Oklahoma City, so I knew it would be excellent. It was. This story was full of strong, clear images and characters we could believe in (whether we liked them or not).

On the way back to the Riverhouse, after putting the schoolhouse mostly back the way we found it, Olga and I talked about the richness of Megan's story and of the experience, about how wonderful it was to have three different styles of storytelling at Going Deep. Though our stated goal is depth, we also get breadth.

Back at the house, we sat up for a while longer talking, eating cake, drinking a little wine, some of us playing dice. I was exhausted when I finally went to bed.

The final workshop has the added dimension of being cumulative: our discussions brought in perspectives we'd touched on with the other two stories. Megan opened windows on her process for us, showing us ways she thinks about stories and how she works on them. Because of her candidness, and because of the way we had all made the workshops into a safe place, I think we all felt permission to speak (or not) about the issues she raised. We also had the poignancy of knowing it was the last group session.

We did it! It worked! Stay tuned for an announcement about next year.

Home from Going Deep, part II

After Olga's story, we went back to the house for dessert crepes. Did I mention the food yet? Every meal and snack was not only delicious but imaginative. Thanks to Lee and Mary, who fed us well.

In the morning, we were ready to talk about Olga's story. Though we didn't plan it this way, the morning workshops followed a pattern: the first half was a lively discussion of the story from the night before (process, images, correlations with other stories, metaphors, questions); the second half was about the broader themes or about specific story processes, with participatory exercises. We settled into the story and into our own stories.

It was raining on that second day. I needed to tell myself Queen Berta and King Pippin, so I went for a long walk, mumbling to myself the entire way. Part of my walk was down by the Ohio River. When my sneakers were too wet, I went inside and finished the story in my room, pacing around the bed.

That evening, I wore a red velvet trousers and jacket, a particularly good bargain from the 100 Good Women clothing swap ($1!). Olga and Liz assured me that it would be the right combination of comfort and elegance.

I did my best to record each of the evenings' performances. I did each one differently: with Olga's story I patched the recorder into the headset microphone, with my story I patched into the microphone on a stand, and Megan's story was recorded directly from a spot on the side of the stage area. I'm not sure how they sound yet--one of my tasks this weekend is to listen to these. They might just be our mediocre archival copies.

My performance felt pretty good. I'm trying not to be too critical--there are always parts I wish I had done differently. The audience seemed to like it. It was nice to have quite a few listeners who were not part of the festival workshops. Once again, we went back to the house, this time for cake (dinner for me) and wine.

It can be hard to sleep after telling one of these big stories with a brain full of images. I did eventually conk out, though, and was up early to get ready for my workshop. As Hope mentioned in her blog, participants felt strongly enough about the story that the discussion got really loud in the morning session. We talked, we sang, we told stories, and we wrote.

To be continued...

Reviews of Going Deep

I'm going to post my own thoughts on Going Deep: The Long Traditional Story Festival. In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Hope Baugh's reviews. I've linked here to the overview. Don't miss her three following posts about each evening. I love reading Hope's reviews, because she lets her whole self shine through, without letting the posts be self-indulgent.

Home from Going Deep, part I

Whew! That's all I seem to be able to say about the last week. Whew! I arrived at the Storyteller's Riverhouse in Bethlehem, IN on Wednesday afternoon. Nobody else was there yet, so I spent a few hours working on my story and napping. Very pleasant.

There were seven of us there early, so we got to work on Thursday morning, setting up the schoolhouse for the performances and attending to last minute details. In the afternoon we had a lovely wildflower tour--Mary Hamilton showed us Dutchman's britches, May apples, bloodroot and many more treasures near the road between Bethlehem and New Washington. Then three of us went on to the grocery store in Charlestown.

I'm trying not to dwell on the fact that my car got run into in the grocery store lot in Charlestown. Kitrina was napping in it, but wasn't hurt, thank goodness. It was hugely disappointing to have my new-to-me car hit. Today I got an estimate on the body work (insurance will take care of it) and they pounded a little bit of it out so I can now open the driver's side door all the way.

Anyway, that mishap didn't mar my enjoyment of Olga Loya's performance of The Aztec Creation Myth that evening. The story was even better than two years ago--and it was masterful then. Here's a picture of Olga next to the altar she set up:
We reveled in the sounds of the gods' and goddesses' names, we chanted, we joined a parade, we laughed and wondered and strongly felt the emotions of the story. Aaaah.

Going Deep was as intense as two years ago, so I can only write about it in bits. More soon.

Going Deep is a GO!

Yippee! We've just decided that Going Deep: The Long Traditional Story Festival is definitely going to happen!

Don't know about this? It's an incredible festival/retreat held in Bethlehem, IN on April 10-13, 2008. Picture this:

• Three utterly entrancing long traditional stories,
• Told by three storytellers (one at a time),
• Three intense workshops about the story from the night before,
• Afternoons free for massages, palm reading, walks, naps, music, art, relaxation,
• Delicious family-style meals,
• Set in a tiny town where there is no cell phone coverage and no Internet access,
• In a lovely bed and breakfast where the lawn slopes down to the Ohio River.

What stories? Thursday night we'll revel in Olga Loya's tremendous Aztec Creation Myth. Friday will be my Medieval French story, Queen Berta and King Pippin. Saturday is Megan Wells' compelling version of Helen's Troy. Old World, New World, Medieval. What a feast!

We still have a few more spaces--this is a small-group festival, maximum 20 participants.

Need more information or want to register? E-mail Cynthia Changaris at cchangaris@aol.com or contact me directly.


This festival was founded by Olga Loya, Liz Warren and me. We're pleased to present it thanks to Scheherezade's Legacy, the storytelling partnership of Cynthia Changaris and Mary Hamilton. Check out Liz Warren's article on the festival in the March/April 2008 issue of Storytelling Magazine.

Resting?

Not exactly resting, just moving slowly after the 60 performances in the last two months. I only have two performances set up this month but I've got a lot on my plate. For most of the summer I neglected most of my office work. Now is the time to dig out. Last week I cleared up some of the office supply clutter and straightened up some bookshelves. It would be good to get rid of some of these books, but I find that close to impossible with my storytelling library.

Anyway, here are some of my other current projects:

It's time to work on Punch and Judy. I've got the puppet heads built and need to get the bodies finished. I have materials for a new Punch booth (a.k.a. the stage) in the garage. It it's not too hot this week, my sister-in-law Kate will help build it. Then there are props and, oh, right, the script. There's a standard story, but I'll add in lots of other business, all in keeping with Mr. Punch's insouciant attitude. As he so often says after whacking somebody in the head, "Rootitoot toot, that's the way to do it!" Did I mention that I found a cast-iron frying pan from my mother's dollhouse stuff, just the size for Judy to whack Punch back?

I've been working on a letter to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institute of Folklore, in hopes of doing some research on stories in their archives in a couple of years. I'll keep you posted on that.

I'm still translating Queen Berthe and King Pippin from Old French (Berte As Grans Pies, for those of you itching to look it up). Haven't touched it for a month or so, but I'm ready to get back to it this week. I'll need to hurry up, because the books are due back at the university library soon--there's a limit to how many times I can renew them. I did find a copy online. The funny thing about it was that it was from a Russian source and they had changed the French accents into Cyrillic letters. After cutting and pasting it into a document on my computer, I had to figure out what accent each Cyrillic letter corresponded to and then change it globally. Oops, my geekitude is showing.

Speaking of that story, we've fallen down on the job of promoting Going Deep, the Long Traditional Story Festival! I set up a blog for it, but have had a few technical difficulties (I think I prefer Blogger to Wordpress).

I'll be telling stories at the Kansas City Irish Festival on Labor Day weekend--need to make sure the Celtic ghost stories in my repertoire are all dusted off and ready to go.

What else? I realize that my website calendar is out of date, so I need to update it. That leads me to think about school work--it will soon be time to send out postcards to the schools in the area, reminding them of my existence. This in turn leads me to think about my marketing materials for my booth at the International Performing Arts for Youth Showcase in January. Is it time for a new brochure? Could be.

Along the same lines, it's also time to do real study guides for my school programs. I've resisted this for years, even though I know it's useful for teachers. Thank goodness I went to an excellent workshop by Lyn Ford at the National Storytelling Conference on educational buzzwordery (that's not what she called it). I've got her handout somewhere in the top pile on my desk.

Also in that pile is the info from iTales. I've been meaning to upload stories to their site. Maybe I'll get to that this week.

Good thing it's too hot to work in the garden or I'd be tempted to use that as my procrastination tool. I'm really going to buckle down here, just as soon as I finish the Sudoku and crossword puzzle from today's paper...