Story FUSION

I have been fused with all kinds of stories.  The 3 day Spoken Word festival at Northampton Community College is over and it was smashing!

The weekend went by so fast and I am soo tired that I can only give highlights.  Hannah Harvey was the featured performer with a keynote address on Friday that spoke to the validity of her research and abuou what a performance ethnographer does.  She's an animated speaker and offers a good mix of speaking and graphic assists to her lecture.

But she followed a Children's show in the afternoon and two workshops all of which ran concurrently.  Trilocation would have helped here!  And an open mic session as well.

On Saturday, the morning was full of workshops.  I was the gopher for Kevin Cordi's Teaching the Tale workshop that addressed techniques for using stories and storytelling in the classroom.  Hanah Harvey presented a workshop on Performing Oral History, and two other scholars led workshops on genealogy and interview techniques. This was followed by a lovely buffet luncheon and a 2 hour presentation by three area storytelling guilds.

Saturday night, Hannah Harvey took the stage again with her "Out of the Dark" performance that tells the plight of real disabled coal miners living in Virginia today.  Hannah tells the stories using the words of miners and their families.  Then she took questions and talked about the information she had gathered in her research.  Anyone interested in the state of power management in the US today should have heard her presentation.  I was flabbergasted when she described the tunnels and the "safeguards" that are taken to make sure the mountain doesn't crush the miners.  She spoke with respect, almost reverence, for the miners' and their capabilities, understanding and kinship with the mines and the jobs they do.  She ended by reminding us that her microphone and the lights in the theater were made possible by the labor, pains and deaths of these workers.  I am going solar as soon as ever I can.

Today, Kevin Cordi led a workshop called Permission to Play.  It was a lively, entertaining and playful workshop and it gave me some great ideas for approaching the way I develop and present stories. I got the impression that the other attendees felt the same way.

All of this was great and entertaining and educational.  But the best part of the weekend was spending time with other members of the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild.  The guild is full of talented, fun and big-hearted people.  Thanks LVSG!