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The images on these pages are testimony
to the exceptional places and experiences I have lived - and
their great, organic influence on my life and my work I’m hoping
you will feel reflected in my tellings.
with all my heart……Denise
denisemarkhame@hotmail.com
for info & bookings : 819-457-9223
Your encouraging feedback is always welcome.
Storytelling – the Art
This oldest of art forms has always been
both an entertainment and a teaching tool.
At the heart of every culture you will find its stories, and
preserved in those stories are the values, the history and herstory,
the soul of that people.
Throughout the ages professional Storytellers the likes of Irish
ollahms and shanachies, African griots, Norse skalds, German
minnesingers, French troubadors, Anglo-Saxon gleeman, and Norman
minstrels toured the land reciting their epics before Kings,
and telling long, complex traditional tales to great gatherings.
They were payed for their efforts by a particular place in society,
with money, gifts, property, wives or husbands, supper, ale,
or a high King’s favor.
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The nonprofessional tellers
told next to the hearth, by the bedside, on the back porch,
and at neighborhood gatherings.
(quoted from Jane Yolen’s introduction to ‘Favorite Folktales
from Around the World’)
Today’s Storytelling revival encompasses all of these forms
as today’s tellers endeavour to walk in the footsteps of these
bearers of the cultural flame.
Jane Yolen says, ‘Storytellers breath life into human cultures.’
Ruth Sawyer states, ‘If we can touch the heart, the head will
understand.’
I think that will suffice as a description of Storytelling –
breathing life into, touching, and understanding……..Like all
good art.
The Organic Storyteller
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