FAIRMONT — Storytellers will gather at Fairmont State University this spring for a festival to delight the senses.
Recently, the West Virginia Humanities Council awarded a $5,000 grant to FSU for a new project called the Mountain State Storytelling Institute, which is sponsored by the FSU School of Fine Arts and College of Liberal Arts.
The Mountain State Storytelling Institute “The Power of Story: Transmitting Culture and Transforming Lives” is a two-day conference planned for April 2008 featuring scholars and storytelling professionals.
The event is organized by Francene Kirk, FSU associate professor of speech, and will be held in coordination with the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center and the West Virginia Storytelling Guild. Judy P. Byers, director of the folklife center, said the event will be a unique opportunity for the general public and educators.
Everyone tells stories, especially around the holiday season, Byers said. As families gather around the Christmas tree or holiday table, they tell what she calls “family experience” stories, of loved ones who have moved away or passed on.
Even the favorite Christmas song “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” makes reference to sitting before the fire telling “scary ghost stories and tales of Christmases long, long ago,” Byers said.
Storytelling among families is like an oral scrapbook, she said, a way of preserving family memories.
The institute will merge older folktales collected by noted historian Ruth Ann Musick with newer tales and different ways of telling the stories, she said.
In the classroom setting, storytelling can keep students engaged while helping them to develop communication and writing skills.
“I hope we encourage educators to use storytelling as a teaching and learning tool,” Byers said. “I hope we encourage the community to see the power of the story. And I hope the children and youth will come for the entertainment.”
The following will serve as session presenters:
• Rich Knoblich will address the crafting and adapting of folktales.
• Gail Herman will present “Coal Talk,” a community history project.
• Kevin Cordi will examine dialogue, “storying” and literature.
• Ilene Evans will examine the world of symbolic language and hidden meanings in the African American context.
• Susanna “Granny Sue” Holstein will share Appalachian and British ballads through performance and discussion and will explore puppets as storytelling partners.
• Suzi Whaples will discuss the use of the body to bring stories to life.
• Andy Fraenkel will examine stories across cultures and in healing.
• Jo Ann Dadisman will examine using storytelling as precursor to written narrative.
• June Riffle will examine preserving community history through mixed media storytelling.
• Byers will discuss story sources, collections, the components of the oral (folk) tale, tale types and the analysis of the context (cultural) behind the tale.
• Noel W. Tenney will examine ways to preserve family stories.
• Francene Kirk will talk about “A Sense of Place,” a readers’ theatre project based on local history.
For more information on the Mountain State Storytelling Institute “The Power of Story: Transmitting Culture and Transforming Lives,” call Francene Kirk at 367-4170 or e-mail her at fkirk@fairmontstate.edu.
E-mail Katie Wilson at kwilson@timeswv.com.
In Today's TWV
December 28, 2007
Storytellers to gather at FSU
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