Second St. John's Storytelling Festival

JAN ANDREWS	Jan Andrews likes to touch audiences deeply and has a particular interest in epic stories, as well as traditional folk and fairy tales. She delights in communicating her passion for the storyteller's art in workshops and teaching situations and has worked with dancers and with tellers of African heritage. Using the power of quiet and containment, Jan has performed at festivals across the country. Past National Coordinator for Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada and producer of Ottawa's Stories From the Ages, she has organized complete tellings of The Odyssey and The Iliad at her lakeside home.
ELEANOR BENJAMIN	Based in Corner Brook, Elinor Benjamin has been one of the great forces and sources of storytelling on the west coast of Newfoundland for more than fifteen years. She performed in libraries for many years, while working in the provincial library system’s administration. Now a full-time storyteller, she works for the school board promoting arts in the classroom. She has told stories across the island and across the country. In 2003, she was toured Quebec for Canadian Children’s Book Week. Last year, she was a fine addition to our storytelling roster, and we are eager to have her return.
MARIELLA BERTELLI	Mariella Bertelli is a Toronto-based storyteller with extensive background in puppetry and theatre. A children’s librarian who integrates storytelling into her library programming, Bertelli has told at the Toronto Storytelling Festival for the past 22 years. She has performed at the ROM, the AGO, and Harbourfront, and for CBC Radio, as well as in festivals in many other cities. In the fall of 2002, she traveled to the Yukon for a storytelling mini-tour; in the fall of 2004, she presented a workshop on storytelling traditions around the world in Cape Town, South Africa. Over the years she has collaborated with other tellers to create shows with blend storytelling, theatre and music – including a retelling of the Odyssey (organized by the Toronto Storytelling School) and a special adaptation of Boccaccio’s Decameron. She is currently working on a retelling (with other tellers) of Ariosto’s Orlando, which will be presented in Ottawa in March 2006. She performs in English and in her native Italian.
ANITA BEST	Archivist, folklorist, teacher, singer and storyteller, Anita Best is a true renaissance artist in the Newfoundland folk / traditional scene. She has recorded on numerous albums, and has two of her own – The Colour of Amber (with Pamela Morgan) and Crosshanded, an a capella recording of twelve traditional Newfoundland ballads. While it is her singing which has made her famous, she remains a much-sought-after storyteller and has toured extensively telling and singing. Anita Best was the host and writer of a local CBC radio series, "A Little Ball of Yarns" in 1995-96 which celebrated storytelling, and for years ran a local concert series that combined music, readings, recitations and storytelling. For some time now, she has been preparing the stories of her father-in-law Pius Power Sr., an acclaimed storyteller from Placentia Bay, for publication. Best is from Placentia Bay herself, and tells stories from that region and other regions of Newfoundland.
CHRIS BROOKES	Chris Brookes is an award-winning independent radio producer whose documentary features are heard in the U.S.A, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, England, Sweden, Finland, Canada and The Netherlands,. He has also produced documentaries for network television, and is a published author and playwright. He seems to be obsessed with narrative, which makes him keep telling stories in hopes of one day getting them right.
ALAN BUCHANAN	Alan Buchanan was born and raised in Belfast, PEI, where he still lives with his wife and four children. He has worked as a university lecturer, a senior bureaucrat and policy advisor, and as a consultant. More recently, he has developed a reputation as a storyteller. He has been a featured teller at a number of festivals and events, and is a member of the successful PEI-based group, Hedgerow. He has also been featured on local and regional radio broadcasts, and on CBC’s national comedy show, “Madly Off in All Directions. His stories revolve around the colourful characters he knew growing up in Belfast in the late 50s and early 60s.
PAT BYRNE	Dr. Pat Byrne is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland. His academic interests include short fiction, Newfoundland literature and folklore, Shakespeare, and modern American and Canadian fiction. He has published on the influence of the McNulty family on Newfoundland music, on the manifestations of the tall tale in Newfoundland literature, on invented traditions in Newfoundland popular culture, on the influence of folklore and literature on the image of Newfoundland within the Canadian context, and on the interrelationships between folklore and literature. He is also a published poet and songwriter, and has performed at numerous folk festivals, as well as on radio and television. Active in amateur theatre, he had starring roles in the original productions of Al Pittman's A Rope Against the Sun and West Moon. He also collaborated with Pittman in the writing of several songs.
MARC CORMIER	Born in Cape St. George on the Port-au-Port Peninsula, Newfoundland, Marc Cormier grew up in a francophone family of fifteen children; his love for traditional storytelling and music was instilled at a very early age. For almost three decades, Marc has been a teacher, telling stories acquired from communities on the Port-au-Port peninsula. He sings traditional songs of French Newfoundland as well. Marc has long been a driving force behind the Francophone Association of Newfoundland, and has done much to preserve the Francophone culture of the province.
MILDRED DOHEY	Originally from Point Lance, Mildred Dohey resettled to St. Bride's with her family in the 1970's. Well-known for her storytelling, she has participated in folk festivals in St. John's and Burin, and has been a member of the Tramore Theatre Troupe, which specializes in storytelling plays, since 1999. In the spring of 2005, she travelled with them to Ireland to participate in the Festival of the Sea. Mildred has also performed for the Writers Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, and appeared several times on CBC radio.
FORD ELMS	Originally from the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Ford Elms is an accomplished storyteller and set dancer. His recitations of anything from Roald Dahl to Rudyard Kipling are always a favourite part of folk club open mic. He has told Newfoundland stories locally and at the Vancouver Folk Festival, and will serve as host as well as performing on Sunday afternoon with Jan Andrews.
DARKA ERDELJI	St. John’s-based Darka Erdelji is originally from Slovenia. She holds a Master of Arts in Puppetry from DAMU (Prague, Czech Republic). As well as designing puppets for theatrical use, she also uses them for storytelling (jpg). She has presented her adaptations of traditional tales in Newfoundland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.
MARY FEARON	A St. John’s-based storyteller who works with our local chapter of the Parent-Child Mother Goose Project, Mary Fearon was trained by its founder, Katherine Greer. Fearon has conducted workshops in storytelling, performed in schools and at a day-long storytelling event held in St. John’s a few years ago. She has recently completed, with Lori Fritz, Over the Big Fat Waves, a collection of Newfoundland and Labrador rhymes, songs and language games, for use in literacy programs.
JEAN HEWSON	Jean Hewson is a well known musician and teacher, who is committed to "passing on" the unique musical repertoire of Newfoundland. She has performed extensively throughout Canada, the US and the UK with fiddler/cellist Christina Smith and given many seminars in traditional singing and guitar accompaniment at festivals, conferences and music camps. Jean also works tirelessly as the President of the St. John's Folk Arts Council and chairs the SJFAC Festival Program Committee. Her considerable charm and humour make her an excellent host as well as an entertainer.
KIERSTEN HILL	Kiersten Hill was born in Ontario, but has lived in the far North and on theWest coast of Canada. She recently moved to Newfoundland to check out Eastern Canada, which she felt she had neglected. She is pursuing a Master'sdegree in Folklore at Memorial and was delighted to discover that she could actually find gainful (if sporadic) employment storytelling and bellydancing, her two favourite pastimes. Kiersten has a soft spot for wonder tales in the tradition of Alice Kane and the myths and legends of Canada's native peoples.
RON HYNES	Ron Hynes is a five-time Peoples Choice winner, a Genie and five-time East Coast Music award winner, a Juno and CCMA nominee and has received numerous Music Industry of Newfoundland and Labrador Awards. While on a theatre tour with the Mummers Troupe in '76 he composed Sonny's Dream which became a folk classic recorded by dozens of artists worldwide. His latest of several award-winning CDs, Get Back Change, had the title song recognized as the Song of the Year by SOCAN. He acted as Newfoundland Songwriter Johnny Burke in The Bard Of Prescott Street and a country legend in Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, as well as a lead role in A Secret Nation. He also played the irrepressible Johnny Shea in the CBC/Rinkrat TV series, Dooley Gardens.Between writer/performer projects, Ron concentrates much of his energy in conducting advanced workshops, song and tape critique, and creative sessions for new writers.
DALE JARVIS	Dale Jarvis is a performer, researcher, writer and storyteller in St. John's, and is the founder of the St. John's Storytelling Circle. Dale tells fairy tales from the collections of the Brothers Grimm, ghost stories, legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. He has performed locally and at storytelling festivals in Whitehorse, Calgary, Cape Breton, and Montreal. Since 1997, he has been telling ghost stories in downtown St. John's all summer as host of the St. John's Haunted Hike. Dale was both a performer and a host at last year's festival; this year he will return as a host for an evening session.
ALICE LANNON	Widely known and highly respected on the island as a teller of traditional and community tales, Alice Lannon lives in Southeast Placentia. She has told stories at festivals, workshops and special heritage events, and credits her gift as a storyteller to her grandmother. Alice's performance was one of the highlights of last year's festival; we are delighted to welcome her back this year.
RAY McGRATH	Ray McGrath lives in a small river fishing village near Waterford in the south-east of Ireland. With support from the Ireland-Newfoundland Partnership he has developed a protocol for developing community based eco and heritage tourism. He believes that a good story well told can enhance the eco tourism experience especially in the interpretation of seascape and ecosystems. He has been featured on several Canadian radio programmes including Morningside and Vicki Gabereau show and does regular storytelling workshops with Elder Hostel groups in Ireland.
STAN NOCHASAK	Stan Nochasak is an Inuit storyteller from Nain, Labrador, and a former education student of Memorial University. For the past ten years, Stan has been living and working in St. John's. He is a writer and visual artist, with a great passion for the stories of the Inuit people and their elders. Most recently, Stan has been developing his own style of abstract art, using acrylic paints and vibrant colours. Much of his work employs the image of the inuksuk, an image drawn from Inuit traditional culture, and inspired by the legend of the first inuksuk.
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