Master Classes
Thursday, August 1 • 1:00-6:00pm
Additional $100 fee; class size limited for maximum experience.
The Way of the Conscious Storyteller
Baba Jamal Koram
A conscious storyteller is informed by an understanding of unseen narrative, audience, place, and a secret ingredient that will be revealed during this interactive and thought provoking session.
Conscious performance storytelling is delivered by one who has an eye on human development, transformation, and on the continuance of storytelling traditions. Learn to fulfill the central roles of a storyteller: remembering, restoring, and reciting the stories, prayers, poems, proverbs, events, history, and folklife of a people or of a society. Using information, knowledge and tradition, entertain through the art of the spoken word.
Attendees will learn Baba Jamal’s Nine Performance Points of Storytelling and their intended meanings. Tellers of all levels are invited to be a part of this creative learning experience.
Baba Jamal Koram, Ed.S., (Alexandria, VA) the StoryMan is a leading storyteller, author, spirit drummer, singer and performer who loves sharing stories with every age group, anywhere, and who has shared these stories in thousands of performances throughout the United States in college and universities, K-12, at the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center, festivals and theatres. He is a past president of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. and is a recipient of its Zora Neale Hurston award. Called a "storyteller’s storyteller”, Baba Jamal's repertoire includes workshops, lectures, folktales, conjure stories, epics, songs, riddles, proverbs, chants, drumming and much more. www.babajamalkoram.com
Mobile Digital Storytelling
Joe Lambert
Join Center for Digital Storytelling (storycenter.org) founder Joe Lambert for his approach to near-instant multimedia story production on the iPhone/iPad/Droid platforms. Lambert will provide examples of mobile stories, discuss tips and techniques, and provide a prompt/production process for everyone to make a simple digital story using voice, image and music. Participants will need to pre-load their mobile device with appropriate apps, but the rest is magic. Joe founded CDS in 1993 as an outgrowth of his work in theater and contemporary storytelling. He and his organization have trained more than 20,000 people in all 50 states and some 40 countries. (Requirement: Must bring both your oral storytelling skills and a mobile device (ex: smart phone) to the class.
Joe Lambert (Bay Area, California) founded the Center for Digital Storytelling (formerly the San Francisco Digital Medial Center) with wife Nina Mullen and colleague Dana Atchley. Together they developed a unique computer training and arts program that today is known as the Standard Digital Storytelling Workshop. This process grew out of Joe’s long running collaboration with Dana on the solo theatrical multimedia work, Next Exit. Since then, Joe has traveled the world to spread the practice of digital storytelling and has authored and produced curricula in many contexts, including the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, the principle manual for the workshop process, and Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community. www.storycenter.org
Mosaic Work: Crafting Complicated Stories
Jo Radner
This class is aimed at storytellers and writers working with complex story material from oral histories, family anecdotes, historical accounts, personal experience, or community traditions. Explore effective ways to shape multiple (even contradictory) stories into powerful artistic presentations. Gain new understanding and new strategies for individual projects. Even those who have not yet collected stories to go with their concepts will find the class useful; we will generate material so that everyone can experiment with creative techniques of construction and presentation. Wherever you are in your project -- working with a beginning idea, a pile of nifty pieces, or a nearly-finished story -- you will find this class provides helpful tools for your process.
Folklorist, storyteller, and oral historian, Jo Radner (Lovell, Maine) has been studying, teaching, telling, and collecting stories most of her life. Her stories about the people of northern New England reveal her delight in characters whose lives defeat simple explanations. Jo’s classes are well-known for creative planning, careful process, and warm humor. Jo is past president of the American Folklore Society and the National Storytelling Network. Her recent CD, Yankee Ingenuity: Stories of Headstrong and Resourceful People, won a 2013 Storytelling World Award. www.joradner.com
Marketing the Intangible: Using Story to Market Your Storytelling
Kim Weitkamp
As a storyteller, how do you market yourself? It can seem overwhelming; web sites, social media, press releases, media packets and more. In this master class, we will look at the marketing ‘wall’ one brick at a time. By deconstructing it, we will learn that it is not insurmountable. You will gain extremely valuable and applicable tools to take home and apply to your storytelling ‘business,’ at no matter what level you are.
Kim Weitkamp (Christiansburg, Virginia) is a humorist, storyteller and singer-songwriter, known for both her talent as a performing artist and for her marketing success. Growing up as a middle child, allowed to roam free in the heart of the Amish Country, Kim survived numerous attempts by adults to curb her rambunctious behavior and prolific imagination. She now puts that imagination to good use, traveling full time performing in theaters and at festivals. Her material has been featured on NPR affiliates and Sirius Radio. She has 6 audio collections, an armload of awards, and has keynoted for some of Forbes most recognized companies. www.kimweitkamp.com
