St. Marys Storytelling

2010-2011 Winter Performance Series

Sunday, February 13, 2011 2pm

“The Lost Art of Listening”

With Brad Woods and guitarist Kevin Morse

Brad Woods and Kevin Morse

Sunday, March 13 2pm
Talking You In: A Storytelling Journey through the NICU
With Dan Yashinsky & guitarist Brian Katz

Dan Yashinsky & Brian Katz

Talking You In is a modern Scheherazade story about a father doing emergency storytelling for his infant son in the neo-natal intensive care unit of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. It has been performed at festivals in Wales, Holland, Canada, and as part of training programs for critical care medical staff.

BIO

Dan Yashinsky is a Toronto-based storyteller, radio host, author, and community organizer. He received, in 1999, the first Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling in the community. He founded the Toronto Festival of Storytelling (in 1979) and co-founded the Storytellers School of Toronto. He also began the longest-running open session in North America: 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling (in 1978). He has performed and taught at festivals in Israel, Wales, England, Germany, Brazil, Austria, France, the U.S., Singapore, Ireland, and across Canada. He is the editor of four acclaimed collections of Canadian storytelling and the author of Suddenly They Heard Footsteps — Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century. He developed and hosted Talking Stick, a national storytelling radio show on CBC. His work in schools includes creating the Telling Bee, a story-based curriculum project that has taken place in more than 40 Ontario schools. Dan has an M.A. in Sociology in Education from the University of Toronto, and a B.A. in Literature. He has been a storyteller-in-residence for UNICEF Canada, Queen’s University, and Toronto Public Library. In 2006 he created, with composer/musician Brian Katz, a piece called Talking You In, exploring the experiences of a family in the neo-natal intensive care unit.

Brian Katz is an internationally acclaimed guitarist, pianist, composer, and recording artist, improviser and music educator. He draws on jazz, classical and various world music traditions to form his personal sound. Well-known as a soloist, Brian also collaborates widely. Of his jazz CD Solana for the prestigious European label Bellaphon, the Belgian journal Jazz in Timewrote, “Solana is a recording of abundant intelligence.” His CD Collected Stories features him in duet with virtuoso klezmer clarinetist Martin van de Ven (“enchanting” — Toronto Star). Brian is also a Dalcroze Eurhythmics teacher — a method of music education that examines the intrinsic relationships between music and movement — and is currently on faculty at the University of Toronto where he teaches Eurhythmics and music education pedagogy to prospective teachers of music. His guitar music can be found in the Royal Conservatory of Music Repertoire books, and his publication Guitar Music of Brian Katz (Chapin) combines a practicum on improvisation with three of his works. Brian regularly tours, performing solo and in various group combinations — and offers master classes/lectures/workshops/ in Eurhythmics, guitar, and classical and jazz improvisation.

Sunday, April 10th 2pm

“Tristan & Iseult”

Stéphanie Bénéteau

Stephanie Beneteau

Erotic passion and murderous rage succeed each other in this medieval love story that keeps audiences enthralled until the cliff-hanging finale. King Marc of Cornwall, his wife Iseult of Ireland and his nephew Tristan are caught in a tragic love triangle. Watch as they weave their way through danger and delight, accompanied by a motley crew of secondary characters, lepers, dwarves and servants who add color and humour to the tale. Love, laughter, sea voyages, dragons, beautiful green-eyed maidens and psychic dwarves, noble knights and cuckolded kings: all is in place for an unforgettable voyage.

The legend of Tristan and Iseult travelled from bard to bard from the early Middle Ages through the British Isles down to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine and back up again to Wagner and even Hollywood. The story has been told through movies, plays, operas and novels. Here it is brought back to its original form: oral storytelling. Let the storyteller’s words weave pictures in your mind’s eye as you travel to the distant land of Cornwall where the wind blows wild and the lovers walk the edge of a sword.

BIO

Stéphanie Bénéteau grew up hearing stories in three languages. Her French-Canadian father told her stories of a bank robber and his dog, her American mother read to her every night, and the children in the Italian village where she grew up told her stories of the witch that lived at the end of the street. She studied literature and education before finding her true vocation as a storyteller, a career she has been pursuing full time since 1996. She has put on a solo of erotic stories, a show of stories from the Arabian Nights which she toured in Europe, and most recently the story of Tristan and Iseult for which she received a grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. Stéphanie tells ancient myths and legends from the oral tradition in a lyrical, feminine voice touched with a hint of saucy humour. She also tells extensively to children.