Brother Blue was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 12, 1921. An exceptional student, he served in the US Military from 1943-1946 in both theaters during World War Two; he was honorably discharged as a First Lieutenant. He obtained an AB from Harvard College, an MFA from Yale School of Drama and his PhD from Union Graduate School.

By the late-1960s Brother Blue, always accompanied by his wife Ruth, was telling stories on the streets, in prisons, in classrooms and more. His stories always allowed the listener to imagine bigger worlds, see themselves in the heart of the tale and believe that they, too, were storytellers. Brother Blue said that he told stories, “from the middle of the middle of me to the middle of the middle of you,” and that if you heard another person’s story you could never harm them, so stories could save the world. He never stopped telling stories.

Brother Blue ran a storytelling series in Cambridge for over 20 years, where many storytellers found their own voices. Brother Blue and his wife Ruth always listened with uncritical and loving ears, encouraging everyone. He received multiple international awards for his art and was the official storyteller of both Cambridge and Boston.

Brother Blue is survived by his wife Ruth Edmonds Hill, his sister Beatrice Hill, his niece Lynda Hill, his nephew Thomas Hill and hundreds of storytellers.
Visiting hours are on Sunday, November 8, 2009 from 2-4pm and 6-8pm at Keefe Funeral Home, 2175 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA. The internment will be on Monday, November 9, 2009 at 1pm at the Pittsfield Cemetery, Pittsfield MA. In lieu of flowers please send donations to the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (www.lanes.org) and the National Association of Black Storytellers (www.nabsinc.org). For obituary, directions or to send a condolence visit www.keefefuneralhome.com
Brother Blues Website
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—–storytellers Brother Blue and Ruth Hill
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Your stories live on in many hearts and minds. Your love of storytelling continues on for years to come in the hearts of the children. Your gifts grow in the eyes and ears of the storytellers you have encouraged over the years. Let heaven celebrate your entrance for your coming has been expected. Here comes a saint of old long coming! Here comes a man of the ages long foretold. Let the gates be thrown wide for his entrance; let the holy ones bow to greet him. For he has reached for the spiders web and the angels eyes in the heart of a child. For he has told in the darkness and lighted a candle in the wind of time. Let us all remember that this man stood shoulder to shoulder with the angels themselves while he still walked the earth.

You will be sorely missed.

Brother Wolf
Yellow Springs, Ohio.
PS: As may be obvious to many of you Brother Blue represents the highest ideal of storytelling that I search to reach. Hence my storytelling name. My physical commitment to storytelling made manifest. I will miss him.

I will not share or give away your email address.

And don’t forget to subscribe by iTunes or your browser to the Art of Storytelling Podcast so you can get bi-weekly inspirations from Brother Wolf direct to your desktop.

Dale Jarvis in the Flesh.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #064 Dale Gilbert Jarvis for $2.23 How to collect true scary stories for Halloween.

Dale Jarvis Writes
Near to where I live is a small lake with the delightfully ghoulish name of Deadman’s Pond. According to local legend, the pond is bottomless, and I’m sure many people know of similar stories for lakes near where they live. These lakes and ponds offer us tantalizing doorways to another realm. Peering into the reflective surface of a still body of water and wondering what lies beneath provides us with a link to the unexplained. Perhaps this is why they fascinate us. It is not so much that we think they actually are bottomless, but that part of us wishes that they might be.

So too with ghost stories. I’ve told ghost stories to literally thousands of people over the past 13 years, and they continue to be the stories most often requested when I do work with school kids. Most of the stories I tell are true, or at least were thought to be true by the people I learned them from. I love collecting true scary stories that are tied to specific places, and sharing them with people who love that delicious shiver that runs up one’s spine when they are well told.

“A teller of spine tingling tales that are so convincing, that even if you don’t believe in ghosts… you soon will!”
‑Wayne Rostad, On the Road Again

Bio of storyteller Dale Gilbert Jarvis:
Dale Gilbert Jarvis is a storyteller, professional folklorist, and writer living and working in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Dale tells ghost stories, faerie stories, legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. Dale is the founder of the St. John’s Storytelling Circle, president of the annual St. John’s Storytelling Festival, and a member of the board of Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada.

As a storyteller, Dale has performed locally and at international festivals, but is perhaps less well known than his alter ego, the distinguished Reverend Thomas Wyckham Jarvis, Esquire. Since 1997, The Reverend has been the host and guide of the St. John’s Haunted Hike, a walking ghost tour through the haunted streets of St. John’s. Under his supervision, locals and tourists have been introduced to the vengeful lovers, murdered soldiers, and mysterious fires which await those brave enough to explore the secrets that lie in wait in St. John’s darkest corners. Mixing history, humour, true scary stories and traditional storytelling, Dale has been winning over audiences and throwing in the odd scare here and there, and has been covered by a wide variety of local, national and international media. Over the past years, the Hike has grown from a small idea to a fixture in the St. John’s tourism industry.

Dale is the author of two books of local ghost stories, “Haunted Shores: True Ghost Stories of Newfoundland and Labrador” and “Wonderful Strange: Ghosts, Fairies and Fabulous Beasts of Newfoundland and Labrador” both published by Flanker Press, and a collection of world ghost stories for young adult readers, “The Golden Leg and Other Ghostly Campfire Tales” also published by Flanker.

You can read more about Dale on his various websites at
http://www.hauntedhike.com
http://www.dalejarvis.ca
http://storytellingstjohns.blogspot.com/

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #054 Joshua Safford for $2.23 Telling to the street – magic for eye.

Joshua Safford writes…
I’m looking forward to discussing with Eric what it means to be a street Storyteller as well as the fusion between magic and storytelling. While I have performed in theaters, schools, café’s and more traditional storytelling venues, I most commonly perform for people under trees, in fields and on corners. This is actually a more traditional means of performing storytelling back when storytellers worked in the marketplace in the street or would travel from home to home singing for their supper. Largely I do this in the context of a Renaissance or fantasy festival but I have, in the past, taken it upon myself to just do storytelling in the modern street.

Why work in this storytelling fashion? Well for one it breaks the third wall in a very special way. One can actually reach out and touch ones audience members, clink mugs and adjust ones programming according to their expressions. Certainly this can be done in a theater but one gains a greater sense of control through a cluster instead of a crowd. And storyteller can pay greater individual attention to the storytellers audience. The storyteller can also judge them more effectively when storytelling with a tighter lens so to speak.

Picking the right story for an individual that you meet in passing can be very powerful. One is also afforded a greater selection of stories that you might want to tell by having the luxury of picking your crowd cluster or individual. You are not limited to what you are hired to do. You choose what to speak about and find the right people to tell it to. Or the people you encounter choose what you speak about. This sort of randomness is exciting. On a festival day I have no idea what stories I will be telling or where in a venue I will be telling them. I simply go for a walk with a mushroom stool on my head and I try and catch as many smiles as possible and turn them into stories. After they’ve enjoyed my tale they will tip me or buy some of my merchandise.

For some reason the threat of being turned down for a single story is far easier to deal with than being turned down for a full hour performance. There is less at risk because there is less to gain. Though sometimes the telling of a single story to a crowd passed by will sell several CD and gain good tips.

The Challenges of working this way are great. People that come to a storytelling concert or hire you for an event are familiar with what you do. Working the street at a festival people did not ask for you by sitting down. You are asking them and you cannot be offended when they say no nor can you take no at face value. A lot of things are going through their mind such as, if you suck this could be really embarrassing. Or you must not be very good otherwise you would be on one of the stages. It is a futile effort to explain to them that I choose to work this way, that stages have been offered to me and that I refuse them. You can’t explain to people that this is actually a very powerful way of experiencing storytelling; the only way is to do it for them. Then you must keep them there using charm, body language, and sound effects.

The strongest weapon one has an intimate storyteller is to make it be about them more than it is about you. And you have the luxury of getting to nod with them as if you were in conversation. Because you are only five feet away this is natural. Some people are uncomfortable with someone working up close. You can either maintain eye contact to keep them until they are comfortable or shift to those that are. Sometimes you will encounter a group that is of split mind. Meaning several have the inclination to move on while others want to stay awhile. You can choose to play to the stayers or the goers. Sometimes they will go, but this is rare if I’ve set up the encounter right.

Other challenges include weather. Sometimes I have to work out in the pouring rain or sandstorms. You have to be a warrior to keep peoples attention. Fortunately they wouldn’t be out there in that situation if they weren’t warriors of happiness themselves.

Lastly how does one become paid for this sort of work? First you must convince festival officials that this sort of work is valid. The second is that one should be tipped to the people you perform for, the passers by. A direct hat line such as is done in common circle street acts cannot be done.

Storytelling as outdoor theater in the street can be a rewarding experience fraught with challenges it has many rewards.

Other things I will be discussing will be the fusion of storytelling and magic. When it is effective and when it is not. The uses of visual focus.

I would also get into storytelling as a character and how that shapes your work.

You can learn more about Joshua Safford, storyteller at http://www.ravenstory.com.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #047 David Epley for $2.23 Comedy and Storytelling.

David Epley writes…
Comedy is one of the most effective tools for imparting any information:

• It actively involves the audience; laughter is not passive.
• It encourages the audience to focus on the process; you must pay attention to the setup in order to get the punch line.
• It makes the process fun.

All of these aspects conspire to make an event, an individual, or a particular subject matter, more memorable. Think of your favorite Teacher, Storyteller, Pastor, Politician, Actor, Choreographer, et cetera, and you will see the truth of what I’m saying. Comedy can be used to educate, to alleviate tension, to ease stress, to help in almost any situation.

Unfortunately, comedy can also be used for ill. It is a powerful tool, and like any tool, its effects, and the responsibility for those effects, are in the hands of the user. It is used daily to hurt, to degrade, to destroy. Sometimes with intent, often without. This places a great moral responsibility on the comedian.

When using Comedy, one must make a conscious effort to gauge its consequences, and take corrective action when necessary. Not all laughter is positive, or even acceptable.

Years ago the US Military enacted its infamous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding homosexuality in the Armed Services. My partners in Theatre in the Ground and I wrote a short bit designed to mock it. The bit was about 30 seconds long, highly interactive, and generated 3 very solid laughs. (That’s a laugh every 10 seconds, each one building in effect, and that’s great. Vaudevillians used to shoot for a minimum of one laugh every 23 seconds.) Unfortunately, after performing the bit a few times, we realized that the audience wasn’t laughing at Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Most were actually responding to our comedy by laughing at homosexuals as a whole. This was far from our intent, and was generating laughter that we felt was actually bad for the world. We cut the piece immediately. It is a lesson I will never forget.

Enjoy the gift of laughter. Use it. Revel in it. Share it.
Just remember its power, and respect it.

For more info on David Epley or Doktor Kaboom and the best example of a professional entertainers website I have ever seen go to…


http://www.doktorkaboom.com/

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #041 Alex Feldman for $2.23 Connecting Quickly (and Managing Behavior) through Physicality.

Connecting Quickly (and Managing Behavior) through Physicality.

When telling for young audiences, even the most brilliant story is vulnerable to young audiences if the situation is compromised, or your delivery is not ideal for the setting. In this discussion, Alex reveals how his wild and mesmerizing style is methodically built, brick by brick. Small details can reap huge rewards, and you have the ability to make many improvements surprisingly quickly. Just a few of these nuts and bolts tips can add power and value to any performance.

Alex the Jester has toured through out the US and in fifteen countries. “He can make the stiffest of stiffs laugh” Boston Magazine. The New Zealand Herald described him as “Outrageous, Off beat and full of surprises”.

Setting the table
• What direction (s) will the audience enter? What about you?
• stage’ space
• Seating- who sits where?
• Assign a watch dog
• Common lighting mistakes
• Collaborating with the presenter so you have your needs met.
• The Introduction

The Main Course -On Stage techniques
• Any pro can energize a young audience – but how can you bring them back to stillness?
• The Counting excersise (Dell Arte), a secret to mastering voice dynamics
• Think of your “play list”
• Techniques that don’t look like technique
• The Proximity Principle
• Weight on your heels vs weight on your toes
• When to move, when to be still
• Are your ‘sled dogs’ pulling together?

Desert
• Analyzing the dramatic finish
• Recognizing the behind-the-scenes people
• Giving back the love : Ways you can thank the audience
• Understanding your place in the bigger picture

For more information on Alex the Jester visit…
http://www.alexthejester.com/
On youtube – Alex in Russia

Press Play to hear this interview that was recorded as a conference call on 10/10/2007 storyteller Brother Blue appeared on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf to talk about street storytelling and storytelling from the heart.

Brother Blue is one of three storytellers in the country whose work and style have directly influenced my own storytelling style and flavor. I am very proud to bring you this conversation about street storytelling and everything else related to storytelling with storyteller Brother Blue.

Eric Wolf

—–storytellers Brother Blue and Ruth Hill

Hugh Morgan Hill
(Brother Blue, Storyteller/Street Poet)

He is Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, but everyone knows him as Brother Blue. He is called by many “the world’s greatest storyteller.” He says he wants his stories to be “bread for the mind, the imagination, the heart, the soul.” He says, “I speak my stories from the middle of the middle of me to the middle of the middle of you” [the people].

Brother Blue received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College (with honors) and a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama. For his Ph.D. degree from the Union Institute, his final presentation or Project Demonstrating Excellence (PDE) was “Soul Shout,” a storytelling concert in a prison, accompanied by a musical band of over twenty inmates.

Storytelling festivals include the Corn island Storytelling Festival, in Louisville, Kentucky; Day for Sam, in Wrentham, Massachusetts, a festival commemorating the life and death of a five-year-old boy; Sharing the Fire, sponsored by the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling; Toronto Festival of Storytelling; Vancouver (B.C.) Storytelling Festival; and the Yukon Storytelling Festival. He has also appeared several times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee; and at “In the Tradition…”, the festival/conference of the National Association of Black Storytellers, held in a different city each year.

He has taught storytelling in prisons, and in schools and colleges throughout the United States and in other countries, also in libraries and at conferences. He has presented many workshops and is the founder/director of a storytelling workshop at Harvard University.

He has presented his stories before countless audiences for radio, television, churches, libraries, schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, conferences, festivals, and in streets and parks in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Bahamas. His repertoire includes many original Brother Blue stories, traditional stories from western culture, folk stories and spiritual stories from Africa and Asia, also his own one-man street versions of Shakespeare’s plays.

Brother Blue told stories at the Afro-American pavilion and the UNICEF pavilion of the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans, and has performed for many festivals, including Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (New York), the New York Folk Festival (New York), Artscape (Baltimore), Spoleto (Charleston), Africa in April (Memphis), and Mariposa Festival (Toronto). He was the official storyteller in 1976 for the United Nations Habitat (Vancouver, B.C.), and in 1978 and 1988 for the the New Age Conference in Florence, Italy. Other appearances include the American Imagery Conference; the American Academy of Psychotherapists; Sacred Dance Guild; and Boston’s First Night, every year since it’s inception in 1974.

In 1976 Brother Blue was the storyteller on the daily children’s television series “Playmates/Schoolmates,” produced and syndicated by Westinghouse. He also costarred in the role of Merlin in George Romero’s film, “Knightriders,” a modern-day King Arthur story, issued in 1981. He tells “Miss Wunderlich,” an original story about his third-grade teacher, in the videotaped American Storytelling Series (Storytel Enterprises, 1986). Other video appearances include “It’s In Every One Of Us” (San Francisco, 1987) and “In Search Of Joy” (Toronto, 1991). He has two audiocassettes: “Street Cat” (Out Of The Blue Records, 1992) and “Brother Blue, True-Life Adventure Stories” (Shambhala Publications, 1998). Since February 1992 he has hosted a weekly storytelling series in which he has presented as featured tellers over 150 amateur and professional storytellers. In 1997 he began a weekly live storytelling program on Cambridge Community Television, and in 2000 a live radio show.

Original Brother Blue stories appear in several anthologies. A version of “Miss Wunderlich” can be found in Homespun, Tales from America’s Favorite Storytellers (Crown Publishers, 1988) and in Jump Up and Say: A Collection of Black Storytelling (Simon and Schuster, 1995). Other stories are “Muddy Duddy” in The Wide World All Around (Longman, 1987); “The Rainbow Child” in Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope (New Society Publishers, 1992); and “The Butterfly” in Talk That Talk, an Anthology of African-American Storytelling (Simon and Schuster, 1989). An oral history/portrait of his life and philosophy is Brother Blue by Warren Lehrer (Bay Press, 1995).

In 2003 Yellow Moon Press published Ahhh! A Tribute to Brother Blue and Ruth Edmonds Hill.

Memberships in storytelling organizations include the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES); National Association of Black Storytellers (NABS); and the National Storytelling Association, renamed National Storytelling Network in 1999. He is also a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Brother Blue has received many awards. In 2002, he received from LANES(League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling) the Brother Blue Award (formerly the Hugh Morgan Hill Award). He was the first recipient of this award, named for him, honoring extraordinary commitment to and support of storytelling and storytellers.

Among his other awards is a Lifetime Achievement Award, given in June 1999, by the National Storytelling Network, “for sustained and exemplary contributions to storytelling in America”. In introducing the award, Steve Kardaleff, interim executive director said of Brother Blue, “His mother is verse, rhythm and rhyme, and his father is reportedly inverse time.” One of his nominators described him as “a walking, talking, living legend.” In 2000, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education at its first poetry festival, presented to Brother Blue a Boston Poetry Award, the Anne Bradstreet Lifetime Achievement Award for “contributions to the poetry community.” Other awards include a Peace and Justice Award from the Cambridge (Mass.) Peace Commission in 1999, the Circle of Excellence Award in 1996 from the National Storytelling Association; the honor of being named Esteemed Elder in 1995, and the Zora Neale Hurston Award in 1986, both from the National Association of Black Storytellers. He received from Boston Music Awards a “Best of Boston” award in 1982 for Best Street Performance. He is also the recipient of an award from the Walt Whitman International Media Competition for Poetry on Sound Tape. In 1975 he received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Local Programming Award, and a Special Citation for Outstanding Solo Performance on Public Radio, for “Miss Wunderlich,” which he told on “The Spider’s Web” (WGBH, Boston). By resolution of the city councils, Brother Blue has the distinction of being official storyteller for two cities–Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Boston.