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 Read more »
Tired of the tin sound?
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #024 Larry Johnson
Key of See Storytellers
[wp_eStore:product_id:45:end] for $2.23
How storytelling in your school and classroom creates successful leaders.
Larry Johnson has dedicated his storytelling career to improving the lives of the children around him. Larry spent years trying to convince the state board of education that storytelling and a storyteller belonged in every school in his state.
——Larry Writes.. I started telling “goofy” stories around the campfire in the 60s for campers in trouble thru court services, while I went thru the Broadcast program at the University of Minnesota. When I returned from being an army medic, I began to encounter young adults who looked at me and said, “Aren’t you the guy who told those stories at the camp? Do you remember . . .” These young people, who had extreme trouble in school, then told me stories I didn’t remember because Read more »
Tired of the tin sound?
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #023
Mary Margaret O’Connor
Owner of Itales.com
[wp_eStore:product_id:44:end] for $2.23
Digital Storytelling using emerging technologies with your storytelling.
Mary Margaret O’Connor, has an amazing concept hear that is on the cutting edge of digital storytelling. Are conversation on how to use the online and digital experience to support storytelling is eye opening for any storyteller to see the potential for the storytelling art form in the 21st centaury.
——–Mary writes… iTales.com started as a simple enough idea; create a website to house bedtime stories I tell to my children. But what started as a simple project based on a love of storytelling, evolved into a much better and more complex idea, still based on a love of storytelling! That idea became iTales, a website that allows storytellers to upload and sell individual stories. Over time, iTales will be home to thousands of fantastic mp3 audio stories from around the world and will be a method of Read more »
Interview #021 Carolyn Franzini
Director of the Cave Run Storytelling Festival
[wp_eStore:product_id:42:end] for $2.23
Running the Festival and How Storytellers Become Candidates for Telling at the Festival.
Carolyn Franzini is the Director of the Cave Run Storytelling Festival one of the most successful and prestigious storytelling festivals outside of Jonesborough in the United States in this interview she discusses how to run a storytelling festival successfully and How Storytellers Become Candidates for Telling at the Festival. She has kindly allowed the use for the following ten tips on running a storytelling festival to be included on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf blog.
Eric Wolf
She writes 10 Tips for Organizing a Festival.
1. Know why you want to have the storytelling festival
2. Make sure your reasons for having the storytelling festival “fit” your community, sponsor etc because you need their support
3. Make sure all persons on the storytelling festival organization committee love storytelling
4. Try to make the preparation for the Read more »
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #018
Rev Victoria Burdick
M Div Chaplin
[wp_eStore:product_id:39:end] for $2.23
Storytelling in Ceremony.
She writes on her website… Inter-faith ceremony is an opportunity to merge the richness of our traditions and deepen our understanding and faith through the open doors of diversity. Beyond my accredited Masters of Divinity from a Christian University, I have been blessed with a vast exposure to great teachers; the greatest teachers of all being the beautiful souls beside in Hospice. My ordination promise is to serve God’s love in it’s infinite spectrum. That is why my commitment to your love-story is a necessity to your authentic ceremony.
Love is the most important choice in any given moment. The moment of your marriage is the most sacred of all. You become family, growing the new branch of your merged family trees. When I build a ceremony with you, the elements of your personal story are an essential to what becomes the “living-truth” of that collective moment. Every precious soul in attendance is valued, participating, honored, most especially your families. I do not do the old classic “Dearly Beloved” format. The beauty present is too valuable.
Certainly I have my own style of officiating, but the ceremony is uniquely yours. It has to be. This requires a long meeting together;¦ lots of fun; no pressure on you! All ideas are welcome to the table. I have great resources to assist and inspire your choices;once again, no pressure! I tell my couples; “Your ceremony is already written on your hearts. It’s up to me to pull the threads of your story, and go home to weave the tapestry of what your ceremony will become. Only the actual moment itself, will truly define the divine living-truth of your love.” Personally, I believe there are no coincidences when we connect. It is a great honor to serve your love, and a privilege to stand with you on that sacred threshold as you become family; it is the greatest thing we do in our human walk!
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #005 Doug Lipman
[wp_eStore:product_id:26:end] for $2.23
Selling Ourselves Outside the Storytelling Community.
Why is marketing hard for storytellers?
For one thing, we’re up against a hard situation. Like all artists, we do important work: imagining and communicating what human beings are like and can become. Yet, as invaluable as we are to society, we are not rewarded well or supported well. We are even expected to be both artists and marketers. Few people master two such careers!
Also, like many in our society, we misunderstand the nature of marketing. Because many of us think that marketing is “selling things to people who don’t want them,” we are often reluctant to take the steps that would let society benefit from our work.
Once we understand what true marketing is and does, we can Read more »
[wp_eStore:product_id:25:end] for $2.23
Breaking into Storytelling.
Lyn Ford Writes…
“Breaking” into storytelling isn’t quite the description that fits the beginnings of my career. It was more like leaping off the edge of a cliff, with all the materials to build a strong glider that would carry me wherever I should go, but no blueprint or directions on how to build the thing. I had to trust that I would create both the blueprint and the directions, and be able to make the glider, as I headed toward solid ground. Scary, exciting, and very educational!
My mind and heart were filled with stories from my family’s oral tradition, but storytelling as a career hadn’t occurred to me. Our kids, now grown, volunteered my stories in their classrooms (bless their little hearts!); the experience Read more »
African American, Creating Success, Episode List, Healing Storytelling, Street Storytelling | Brother Wolf | 
October 7, 2007 10:15 am | 
Comments (5) 
