Conference Workshops

Session A • Friday, 10:45am-12:15pm

The Five New Keys to Energize Your Artist Marketing

Sean Buvala
You must promote your work to survive! Marketing is not a dirty word! In our session, you will experience the five essential tools for marketing your artistry. From "quick fire" to "social media" you will start to develop your niche plan in a time where the old marketing rules almost never apply. Then, work together with your peers to create a sample of one or more of the tools taught.

When Grandma Speaks, We Listen! Teaching Storytelling to Older Adults

Barbara Clark

Our senior citizens are living, breathing “history books” with wonderful stories to tell if we just listen. This workshop provides techniques for helping seniors develop their life stories and become “storytellers.” It covers room set-up, materials, curriculum, scheduling, and methods of “priming the pump” of memory to assist in recall. Barbara H. Clark has conducted storytelling workshops for seniors for seven years as Artist-In-Residence at a Los Angeles Senior Center.

Don’t Be Stymied by State Standards

Mary Grace Ketner
Does your storytelling support your state academic standards? Of course, it does! But how do you make that clear to those who do the hiring? Identify connections to specific standards in your present repertory and create standards-friendly transitions and interactives for your story programs. Develop language for your
Website, brochure and handouts that will catch a teacher’s eye, and describe your work in ways that school districts can take to the bank.

Session B • Friday, 2:00-3:00pm

Using Play to Develop Your Stories (Intensive)

Kevin Cordi
This highly interactive intensive will demonstrate how to use play and process drama as a method to improve story structure. It is not designed for developed stories, but instead for stories you wish to revisit and re-imagine. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in the restructuring process to work on his or her story. Kevin will mediate the stories and show how a co-constructive process can build new direction for story awareness and development.

The Art of Gathering and Performing Oral History (Intensive)

Jo Radner
Jo will show you how to use your skills as a storyteller to conduct interviews that generate stories – and how to shape the oral histories you collect into powerful presentations serving families, communities, and cultures. Interactive practical exercises will teach the collaborative dynamics of interviewing. To stimulate ideas about your own projects, Jo will describe many successful performance models. Participants may discover new ways of creating performances, getting jobs, and finding funding. Extensive handouts.

Hopeful Telling from Inside Out: Audaciously Spreading Hope through Story

Wendy Edey
Stories enable us to foster hope in a most inspiring way. A few skillful touches can make the hope stand out. There are many good reasons to inspire hope. It galvanizes action toward social change, shapes medical treatments, and elects world leaders. Using the language and themes refined in international hope studies, people at this session will work with powerful easy-to-use tools that draw our most hopeful stories from the inside out.

Storymining at Johnson Space Center: A Model for Bridging Generations

Beth Horner, Judy Allton, & Kay Tobola
What’s more exciting than landing on the moon? The story of what we did with all those moon rocks when brought back to earth! Knowledge capture, story crafting, podcast design: go step-by-step through project envisioning, filming Apollo scientists, and software/techniques employed to create quick-moving podcasts of the “old guys” stories for young NASA engineers and policy makers not there in 1969. Participants will then create model projects bridging organizations’ generations with story. Practical, hands-on!

Session C • Friday, 3:45-5:15pm

Using Play to Develop Your Stories (Intensive)

continued from Session B

The Art of Gathering and Performing Oral History (Intensive)

Continued from Session B

Japanese Paper Theater: Visual Storytelling the Kamishibai Way

Hazuki Kataoka & David Battino
In the days before TV, some 50,000 kamishibai (paper theater) storytellers worked the streets of Japan, entertaining millions of children with large storycards. In 2003, authors Battino and Kataoka began publishing and performing kamishibai in the U.S, winning the 2004 Dr. Toy award for Top 10 Creative Products. This session explores the colorful history of kamishibai, from early street performance to modern Japanese education, showing how kamishibai can transform storytime into a dynamic, multicultural experience.

Session D • Saturday, 9:00-10:30am

Bizarre Business Practices Required of the 21st Century Bard (Intensive)

Baba the Storyteller

Tellers today face daunting tasks when attempting to ply our trade in this world of relentless, rapid change. The technology, education and business practices needed to survive, and thrive, under questionable economic conditions are a few topics covered. If the word “cannot” or its’ abhorrent contraction, “can’t,” easily fall from the precipice of your lips; then please be forewarned that such practices “must” be purged prior to attendance of this intensive.

Old Tales for a New Millenium (Intensive)

Linda Gorham, Sue Black, Donna Dettman, Mike Speller
Why do the old tales continue to resonate with today’s audiences? What do they have to do with real life? How can we craft them in creative ways? In this innovative approach to story, four storytellers bring unique perspectives to familiar tales. Weaving personal and community themes through familiar stories, they capture the universal truths that continue to echo in current events. Participants receive a detailed handout including universal templates for story creation.

Beginnings: Oral Tradition and Adult Literacy

Lyn Ford
From activities initiated for an annual adult literacy event come transcultural, communal, and healing connections to story in the oral tradition. Find ways to develop your own connections in story-sharing venues for adult students of American English whose diverse backgrounds are often a hero’s quest. Interactive models, tips, and resources encourage communication through the spoken and written word.

Fire in my Heart: A Storyteller’s Journey among the Kurds (Workshop Performance)

Diane Edgecomb

Diane shares the dramatic tale of gathering stories among the Kurds of Turkey, a people whose language and culture were forbidden for years. Her seven-year quest resulted in the publication of A Fire in My Heart the first book of Kurdish folktales in English. Punctuated by music and legends gathered from the last living Kurdish tellers, these true adventures highlight the humor and pathos of village life and the colorful people that shared their lives.

Session E • Saturday, 10:45am-12:15pm

Bizarre Business Practices Required of the 21st Century Bard (Intensive)

Continued from Session D

Old Tales for a New Millenium (Intensive)

Continued from Session D

So there we were…Organization Creativity and Adaptability through Storytelling

Patricia Reily
Through increased awareness and understanding of narrative in organizations, leaders, and managers, can purposefully use story to enhance the adaptability of their organizations in a rapidly changing world. The presenter has studied the dynamic—almost living—quality of stories as they ebb and flow through organizations creating a cycle of narrative meaning. This presentation explores how and why stories in organizations help people to make sense of the past, cope with the present and navigate into the future.

Stringing and Storying: Learn String Stories you can tell!

Ruth Stotter
Strings will be provided with hand-outs of directions. One story has four neck release escapes - participants can decide to use all four or just one with the accompanying story. Another story and figure is an original by the founder of the International String Figure Association and currently not available in any book. I will teach five to seven (traditional and original) string stories plus provide information about this traditional storytelling "prop."

Session F • Saturday, 3:45-5:15pm

Cracking the Story Code: A Comprehensive Story Model

Katherine Farmer & Wendy Gourley
Ever wonder what makes a story great? Hundreds of books have been written about it, theorists have discussed it, but often the secrets elude us. Cracking the Story Code presents a story model that unlocks the secrets of story success. The model is based on 30 years of extensive research and incorporates theory drawn from Aristotle to Piaget. Learn hands-on about character role functions, axis of antagonism, power dynamics and more.

Teachers and Tellers: Literacy Development in the Classroom

Jane Stenson
Many know that storytelling is a grand addition to a classroom because it advances LITERACY, here defined as speaking, listening, reading, writing, visual literacy and information literacy. Looking at HOW storytelling promotes literacy, participants will secure ideas and examples that encourage each domain of literacy and that were created by storytelling teachers and tellers involved in education. It’s practical!

How to Produce, Sell and Market a Winning CD

Marilyn McPhie, Ted Krycko, Beth Blenz-Clucas, Tim Ereneta, with moderator Barbara Smith Decker
Take your storytelling to the next level! Learn tips from the pros as to what makes a winning CD, the most important factors in making a “wow” recording, strategically planning for success, getting media attention, balancing artistry with business, and more.
Panelist Marilyn McPhie, veteran storyteller and judge for the National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA), will address what judges look for in a winning CD. Ted Kryczko, Grammy® Award winner and former producer/developer at Disney for hundreds of music and story recordings, will guide participants on getting the most value out of the recording process. Publicist Beth Blenz-Clucas, a specialist in children’s media, will share tips on pitching to media and scoring coverage. Storyteller and blogger Tim Ereneta will share his expertise on using the Web and social media to promote and sell your CD. The panel will be moderated by Barbara Smith Decker, manager of the NAPPA Children’s Products awards competition and editor/writer for parenting publications.

Session G • Sunday, 10:45am-12:15pm

The Alexander Technique for Storytellers: Improving Performance through Healthy Habits

John Harer & partners
Improve your vocal skills and physical performance by learning to undo poor habits of posture and movement that contribute to hoarseness, sore throats, and back/neck pain through instruction in the Alexander Technique. Noted Alexander Technique instructor will conduct a hands-on training workshop on how the Alexander Technique can aid storytellers in proper relationship of the head to neck to improve breathing and breathe control, vocal skills, balance, and overcoming stage fright.

Activating the Classroom with Stories: Who, What, When, Why, How

Emily Lansana & Merissa Shunk
This session will present an innovative approach to bringing stories to life in classrooms. This pilot professional development program began as a partnership between the Chicago Public Schools Office of Arts Education and two local theater companies, Adventure Stage Chicago and eta Creative Arts Foundation. We will outline the nuts and bolts of how the program is structured to build the capacity of teachers as storytellers while encouraging them to find their own voices.

The Destination Is the Journey: Stories and Life Transitions

Jane Treat

The world’s stories are a sourcebook of instructions for how to negotiate life’s twists and turns. Whether the challenges are: growing up or growing old; getting married or getting divorced; having babies or facing an empty nest; starting a new career or dreading retirement; accepting loss or getting a new lease on life… A look at how stories and storytelling can help all of us, young and old, tellers and listeners, find our way.