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Celebrate StorySave’s 20th Anniversary: StorySave Listening Party

2022-08-16

Celebrate StorySave’s 20th Anniversary: StorySave Listening Party

 

To celebrate StorySave’s 20th anniversary, we are throwing a listening party! We invite you to re-listen and re-consider some of our favorite albums from over the years, and then join us on Zoom to discuss and share your thoughts.

 

Think of it like a book club- we invite you to listen (or re-listen!) to a selected album, reflect, and then come together to discuss and share your thoughts with others. Each session we will welcome a host who can provide further insight into the artist, the album, and the stories. This program is by donation and facilitated by Storytellers of Canada. Registration is required and meetings are limited to 20 people, first come first serve.

 

Join us this Fall for the first round of the series with four English albums. We’ll be hosting a series of French parties in early 2023, so stay tuned! Anyone who does not already own the album can purchase a CD through our website, purchase a digital album through Bandcamp, or stream albums through Bandcamp’s website.

 

Coming up this Fall…

The following information is for the English sessions and will be in English only. We’ll be sharing details about the French sessions in the next few months!

 

September 2022: They Gave Me a Chance, by René Fumoleau

Thursday September 29th, 7pm Eastern Time (find your Time Zone here)

Hosted by Gail de Vos

Register on Eventbrite – registration by donation

 

October 2022: Legends of the Omushkigowak, by Louis Bird (Pennishish)

Thursday October 20th, 7pm Eastern Time (find your Time Zone here)

Hosted by Lynda Howes

Register on Eventbrite– registration by donation

 

November 2022: Stories from the Prairies, by Marie Anne McLean

Thursday November 10th, 7pm Eastern Time (find your Time Zone here)

Hosted by Kathy Jessup

Register on Eventbrite– registration by donation

 

December 2022: Stories of Cape Breton, by Jim St. Clair

Thursday December 1st, 7pm Eastern Time (find your Time Zone here)

Hosted by Cindy Campbell-Stone

Register on Eventbrite– registration by donation

 

About the Albums

René Fumoleau, They Gave Me a Chance (2007)

With compelling sincerity, a master storyteller and historian chronicles lessons learned from living among the peoples of the Dene Nation. Speaking always from the heart, he tells of traditional ways and recent changes, of a lifetime fully lived. They Gave Me a Chance is a two-volume collection. Born in France in 1926, René Fumoleau came to Denendeh (Northwest Territories) as a young priest in 1953. Travel to Rádeli Kóé (Fort Good Hope) involved a long boat journey down Dehcho (the Mackenzie River) into a new world. Through all of the years, his attachment to the Dene peoples deepened. He celebrated the strength of their ancestral wisdom and committed himself to their desire for change.

 

Louis Bird (Pennishish), Legends of the Omushkigowak (2005)

In this 3-CD set, Pennishish offers a progressively profound experience of his people’s traditional life in the James Bay Lowlands – the lands of the muskeg where the ice goes out of the Hudson’s Bay in August and the tundra spreads for endless miles. Recording for the CDs was carried out in an informal home setting. This has had some effect on sound quality. Removed from the time constraints of a studio, however, Pennishish was free to weave the stories into a continuous flow, interpreting their meaning in the manner of his Elders.

 

Marie Anne McLean, Stories from the Prairies (2009)

The stories Marie Anne McLean tells have a range as wide as the prairies themselves. From family stories of immigration to stories of life in small prairie towns, to recounting the experiences of young men from the farms storming the beach on D-Day, she gives us an unforgettable glimpse of everyday heroes. She has collected stories from Veterans of the D-Day Landing in World War ll and of the depression experiences of her grandparents in Scotland and on the Canadian Prairies. Marie Anne tells original stories of people in towns such as Thumbprint and Weed Creek in rural Saskatchewan. She loves to tell of these little places that have helped to form our individual and national characters. She also has a special fondness for Celtic stories.

 

Jim St. Clair, Stories of Cape Breton (2008)

Jim St. Clair tells tales tales of ghosts and great happenings, of courage, adventure and everyday deeds. Each has its origin in a place which can still be visited; each involves people whose descendants walk the hills of Cape Breton to this day.

 

All his life, Jim has listened to the stories of the island that is his home: stories told by relatives and friends at ceilihds and across kitchen tables. He has dedicated much time and energy to ensuring that the tales he has heard are passed on. Storytelling is a vital part of Cape Breton’s cultural heritage—a very particular means of keeping the history of those who came to this part of Canada from Scotland, and who for so long kept the Gaelic language alive. Sometimes the stories are about personalities, sometimes about life-shaping events; some deal in the inexplicable. Together, they reveal patterns of belief and living, of social ties and decision-making that secure a special place for Cape Breton Island in its people’s hearts.

 

About the Hosts

Gail de Vos- Gail is a professional storyteller, educator, and author of numerous books and articles on storytelling, folklore, and comic books. She is particularly fascinated by reworkings of traditional folklore in popular culture and media. She was a storyteller-in-residence for more than a decade at Fort Edmonton Park and was the co-organizer of the T.A.L.E.S. Storytelling Festival there for 18 years hosting numerous listening parties. Her friendship with Rene Fumoleau spanned the years and the province of Alberta.

 

Lynda Howes- Lynda Howes has been listening to stories told by peoples from First Nations and from the Métis and Inuit cultures for many years. She is honoured to host this pilot project to discuss Pennishish’s (Louis Bird) stories from the Omushkigo Cree Nation on the James Bay Lowlands. For over 35 years, Lynda taught storytelling and collaborated with other storytellers in designing the courses and developing the curriculum of The Storytellers School of Toronto (Storytelling Toronto). She is presently collaborating with other teachers in establishing a storytellers school in Korea.

 

Kathy Jessup- Kathy Jessup has been a member of SC-CC for 25 years. During that time she's been a Western Rep board member, lead national workshops, attended many of the annual conferences, and performed in SC-CC concerts. Based in Edmonton, Kathy was artistic director of the TALES Storytelling Festival for five years, and is a long-standing member of Storytelling Alberta. Her performing experience is extensive; she's enjoyed two (soon to be three) stints on the Canadian Children's Book Centre tour, and told stories at schools, libraries, concerts and festivals across Canada and internationally. Kathy was Studio Director for two SC-CC Story Save (Alberta) CD projects, featuring Jennie Frost, and Marie Anne McLean. Kathy's post-pandemic survival resolution is to do less organizing and more storytelling. With dogged determination, she continues to pursue gigs in both the online and "real" world. www.kathyjessup.com

 

Cindy Campbell-Stone- Cindy Campbell-Stone is a storyteller and event planner who has presented, performed or hosted at many events, concerts, festivals and conferences. For ten years, she co-hosted an open mic event, twice a month, for the Helen Creighton Folklore Society, called WTF: What the Folk! She has hosted or chaired online events including the recent World Storytelling Day Concert for the Storytellers Circle of Halifax. Cindy has coached others in creating book reviews, content for websites, in giving storytelling workshops, and in oral history collecting. She is interested in discussing different aspects of a story, finding the story behind the story or discovering more about folks and the stories they hear or tell.

 


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