A Month of Storytelling

 

March has been such a  full month of  storytelling. First we had Stories Aloud at the Button Factory in Waterloo, hosted by Baden Storytellers’ Guild, of which I am a member. Our guest teller was Bruce Carmody  a retired educator who I suspect has always been somewhat of a storyteller. He shared two stories that evening, one being memories of the year he wished for skates.

 

He’s such a warm teller, connecting quickly with his audience. I had occasion to talk with him during our break. He’d given a concert the year before at Waterloo Region Museum, and his website shows that he has much to offer, including stories of historical interest.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                  Bruce Carmody, photo from his website

 

Midmonth our guild hosted a concert for World Storytelling Day, on the theme of Dragons and Monsters. The event, held at Waterloo Region Museum, featured members of the Baden Guild and Celia Barker Lottridge as our guest teller. Celia is a founding member of the Toronto School of Storytelling and is also a prolific author of children’s books and resources for the storyteller.

 

StorySave is project of Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada.  According to their website, “The project’s aim is to record the voices of elders from the Canadian storytelling community for distribution via web site and CD.”  This year, many of Celia’s stories will be preserved. Our guild decided that proceeds from our concert would go towards that project. Our concert, on Sunday March 16th, was a  resounding success.

 

  Ticket sellers, Mary-Eileen McClear and I awaiting our audience members. Guild member Michele Braniff, a teller for the concert, arranging brochures for her upcoming events in Cambridge.  Photo credit, L. Wilker

 

                                                                                                                                                                                         Our banner for the concert

Celia’s books for sale on our  Guild display table

 

Celia Barker Lottridge; Photo credit: Peter B., husband of our guild member, Anne.

 

Mary McCullum-Baldasaro, a member of our guild, telling her story at the concert. Photo credit: Peter B.

 

                                                                                                                                                                  A pleased Celia after the concert. Photo credit: Peter B.

 

 

 

As if that were not sufficient stories for the month, my husband and I attended an afternoon of storytelling, March 30, of the Toronto Storytelling Festival at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto.

                                                                                                                                                 The Gladstone Hotel, Queen St. W. and Gladstone in Toronto, ON.

 

Two  members of the Baden Storytelling Guild, Judy Caulfield and Mary McCullum-Baldasaro, were performing a set together. Family Matters consisted of women’s stories from family ancestry. The storytellers delivered a rich and well-timed set about two very different women in Canada. It was well crafted with musical cues for the next section of the women’s stories.

 

Mary and Judy, ready for their part in the Festival, in the Art Bar

 

As we intended, my husband and I stayed for the afternoon of stories for adults, hearing such other tellers as Maria Ordonez, Maryaleen Trafford, Ruth Danziger in Stories that Fly; and Pat Bisset and the Three Fisherman of Toronto. Ana Kerz delivered a stunning and well-crafted story, Gladiola, about school days and a certain student in her class.  We also heard stories from Alice Kane by Bob Sherman and High Cotton. Closing the afternoon of stories were  Goldie Spencer and June Brown, with life stories about life on the wrong side of the tracks in Cornwall and learning to skip in Val d’Or.

Our food may have been light that day, having left home before lunch to make it there in time, but we were fed richly by the stories that took us many places and entertained us too. May stories do that for you as well.

 

The festival continues this Thursday and through the upcoming weekend. Perhaps another year, we’ll get there again. For now, this has been a momentous month of storytelling.

 

 

 

 

World Storytelling Day

The World Storytelling Day is a “global celebration of the art of oral storytelling.” On this day, March 20th for the northern hemisphere, as many people as possible share their stories with others. The sharing can happen around a table of friends, at a family celebration or even in a public concert. Each year presents a new theme that storytellers vote on. I didn’t vote for Monsters and Dragons, by the way, but I’m sure the stories coming out of that theme will be engaging and entertaining. Perhaps even such a tale as Puff of Magic Dragon fame will show up. And sometimes those events fall in the week leading  up to the day or sometime following it. The thing is the sharing of stories.

                                                                                                                                                               Tellers from our guild at last year’s concert at the museum

The Baden Storytellers’ Guild, of which I am a member, will again be putting on a concert at the Waterloo Region Museum in Kitchener on March 16th, from 2-4 pm. If you plan to come to  Waterloo Region that week, perhaps you will consider coming. Tickets are $10 each for adults and a bargain for the entertainment it provides. Sometimes there are even door prizes to lure and coax guests to try it out. If storytelling is new to you, come and give a listen, for members of our guild tell good stories, but also we will have as our special storytelling guest, Celia Lottridge.

Storytellers are artists in their own way, creating or crafting a story to bring listeners to a place of intrigue, suspense and often mystery too. Celia, I am told, is a wonderful teller, and I also know of her as a picture book author though I have not as yet read one of her books, but have recognized her name as an author

In a profile published by the Manitoba Library Association,  written by Dave Jenkinson, Celia said of her earlier life,

As a child, I didn’t ever write for fun, but I used to make up stories a lot and tell them to my sister who was seven years younger than me and a great listener. I also read stories in books and then told them to her afterwards.

After some travelling with her husband to Moscow on an exchange program and then in Ithica, New York, and working in a library there, they moved to Canada after a visit with some of her relatives in Toronto.

Libraries attracted me because I loved books, and I thought that librarianship would be a good career.” An MLS from Columbia followed in 1959. “I took children’s literature from Francis Henne, a great teacher and a true appreciator of children’s books as literature.

She also thought her son, who was eight years old, had moved around enough by the time they settled in Toronto. Through her work in a bookstore, she met Dan  Yashinsky and Joan Bodger. As they shared their love of storytelling, they discussed the need for a storytelling organization and Celia found herself on the founding board of the organization, Storyteller’s School of Toronto.

And so I will look forward to the concert and to meet this teller who fellow storytellers are speaking so highly of, and to eventually own the collection of stories that she’s putting together for this year’s StorySave project. I will likely also look for her books in the library. May the sun shine brightly and the weather cooperate for Celia’s trip to Kitchener that day.

And while I speak of storytelling and those who can teach us  so much, I want to mention someone  whom I have looked up to and who has mentored me in storytelling since joining the Baden guild.  While the Story Barn holds a place in our memories, I hope that one day Mary-Eileen McClear‘s stories will also be included in such an august and respected collection. And I hope to see her at our concert this year. Are you listening,  Mary-Eileen?

That’s March 16th, 2-4 pm, at the Waterloo Region Museum. Tellers are yet to be revealed. Get a ticket ($10 each) from me or any guild member, the Museum box office, and find how you can be transported through the spoken word, through storytelling.

Life and Arts in Kitchener Post: Tell Me a Story

Life and Arts in Kitchener Post: Tell Me a Story

Today (March 28, 2013) in the Kitchener Post, an article and photos about our World Storytelling Day concert at the Waterloo Region Museum and the meaning of storytelling.

http://www.kitchenerpost.ca/whats-on/tell-me-a-story/

This photo by C. Wilker.

Photos on Post site by Meredith Taylor

Circus theme at the Museum–Science under the Big Top

This week at  the Waterloo Region Museum   many have experienced the Circus theme: Science Under the Big Top. Planning it for February to May was a smart move on the Museum’s part since March Break was in the middle. It gave families something special to do on the March Break.

Staff told me when I arrived, as storyteller for the day, that one  thousand people had already come that day. That was Tuesday. Indeed the theatre filled soon after a staff member announced storytelling time. Eager children awaited the stories, and parents, grandparents and group leaders with a band of children there for a day camp. They participated in the stories that called for actions, and they listened until it was time to move again.

On Wednesday I took a preschooler to the museum. Many activities had been designed for school-age children, but there were activities that even a preschooler could engage in with some assistance.

We read a circus story in the dress-up area and tried on clown hats and shoes. I thought we might stay there a little longer, but there was so much more to see… and hear

What’s behind the curtain? We didn’t find out since there was a group of people around it.

We’re looking down through an upper story glass window.

acrobatics in the air

Walk the high wire (wearing a harness, of course)

Granddaughter wanted to try this, to get dressed for it, but there was no harness small enough.

By pushing buttons and pressing pedals, we could put a circus movie on the screen, complete with music.

We had fun with this one, even seeing a lion tamer at work.

Shooting a ball from the cannon–a combined effort

We enjoyed this activity as well.

What’s holding up the train? Peepholes to look through.

Though no animals were to be found, except on video, it was like being at the circus, with the music, activity and excitement. And soon all good things makes a young one tired and so we concluded our visit with a treat from the concession stand out in the foyer, and we looked out the window at the engine in the village.

You can see more photos of the activities at the museum website.

Photos on this blog are the copyright of C. Wilker.

Saturday Snapshot–Celebration of Community

 

Waterloo Region Museum, a celebration of community and the many people who make up Waterloo Region

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Conestoga Wagon, pulled by horses, brought many people to our community from the USA, Mennonites, and more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrival at Pier 21 in Halifax, and then across country to Ontario and other provinces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Grand Trunk Railway Line. The intersection in the middle of the hallway, but of course the train does not run through that line anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travelling trunks from many countries around the world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s not forget the Home Children, who were sent here—not by their own choice—but who also make up a  section of our community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People settled here and worked together to build a community with those who were already here.

 

The Storytelling Series at the Museum, this winter and spring, feature stories of immigrants coming to any part of Canada

 

This meme hosted by At Home With Books. To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken, then go to the site and connect with the page by our host, Alyce. Happy Saturday, travelling from one blog to another.

Saturday Snapshot-Trunks, Boxes and Baskets

Waterloo Region Museum: Immigrants coming to Canada trunks used  trunks, boxes, baskets to bring everything they’d need.

A friend told me once about when she was a child and her family was moving to England that she was allowed to take only one toy.

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. At Home With Books.

Waterloo Region Museum, Part 2

A theatre  for special events such as speakers and the storytelling series that’s going on for the second season. A partition with doors tucks into the wall and closes this theatre off from the lobby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A two-sided screen and a slide show of immigrants coming to Canada by boat.

I’ll stand and look at the all the pictures next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wall display of trunks and cases that carried worldly belongings of people who came to Canada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reproduction of a painting. People used Conestoga wagons as their means of travel in earlier days.  This display was up on a wall and I couldn’t get the painter’s name. Next visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An old bell tower, next to a bricked facade of a building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One more pic for Part 2

A model of Professor Jenkins and his bicycle on the high wire on which he crossed the gorge and Niagara Falls. To think we had someone so daring!

It turns out, he was pretty smart and had much of the risk removed, something most people wouldn’t have known. Imagine the awe and excitement of people watching him cross, wondering if he’d fall off the wire, bicycle and all and into the water hundreds of feet below.

Not for me, this daring feat!

 

 

 

There’s much more to see at this attractive new museum. I hope you’ll come to see it soon. Go here for more information.

Saturday Snapshot– Waterloo Region Museum

On the inside of the museum looking out through a floor-to-ceiling window. See how the track goes straight through? The museum is built right over the old rail line, but the steam engine doesn’t run anymore.

A wheel called Hazel, built in 1908 to provide steam power to local manufacturing.

An original Conestoga wagon

For more on the museum, check back in a few days.

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. At Home With Books.

Celebrating Stories That Connect Us in Waterloo Region– Part I

 

Front entrance to Museum, off Homer Watson Boulevard

On November 12, and 13th, Waterloo Region celebrated the grand opening of the new Museum with an opening ceremony and Jazz concert on Saturday and open exhibits to the community on Sunday.

The Museum, new gateway to the Doon Heritage Village, has been long in the planning. Many historical artifacts, now on display for the public to see, have been stored away in a variety of places, waiting for such a building to house them. While the main lobby,, meeting rooms and theatre have been in use for more than a year, the exhibit area opened officially this weekend.

 

 

The coloured glass panels on the outside of the building represent the stitching on a quilt, assembling many pieces to make a whole quilt. The colours were selected from quilts to be shown in the museum and the pattern shown here by the front door spell out names of the municipalities of Waterloo Region. Planners put a great deal of thought into the design, but I’ll let you learn more about that on a tour of your own.

 

“The museum is located at the intersection of two transportation routes that crossed this property in the 19th and 20th centuries,” say the words in the program.

Indeed there is a railway track running straight through the  lobby of the museum. In the photo above, you can see the steam engine in the village, and though it looks as though the train might go right on through the building, the engine sits there, quiet and still, and a pane of glass  and some distance separates it from the interior.

The track inside is under clear flooring, the  steel rails and the wooden ties. One can walk down this track without worry.

 

Floor-to-ceiling windows allow people in the lobby to see the historic village outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this special opening weekend, a young harpist wows and relaxes us with her music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come back in a few days for Part II of my feature on the new Waterloo Region Museum. Until then, go here for more information.

 

 

World Storytelling Day– a small taste

Thanks to her son, Everet, one of the storytellers in our guild made a short video about World Storytelling Day, along with a snippet of her story. Watch Michele Braniff  here.

Come out to Waterloo Region Museum in Kitchener for the concert on Sunday, March 20th and hear our stories.