Steve is one of those storytellers who has been around the block. Mastering his skill in storytelling over many years of dedicated work and effort as a storyteller. I found this interview about Steve’s work to bring Storytelling to new communities to be truly inspirational stuff. Storytelling can be for everyone.
Eric Wolf
Interview #020 Steve Otto, one of the founders of the Chicken Festival.
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Bringing Storytelling to New Communities.
Steve Otto has a degree in Speech and Dramatics, from the University of Missouri, with a specialty of Television Production. You have to realize that I got my degree when TV was in it’s infancy, and all production was done live (No video tape) and everything was done in Black and White. I worked at KOMU-TV Channel 8, in Columbia, Missouri, WPTA-TV, Channel 21, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and KETC-TV, Channel 9, in St. Louis, Missouri. I started out as a cameraman, and worked into production as a producer-director. I loved television and really enjoyed the opportunity offered to a right brain person to see images and create pictures before the camera collected them. KETC-TV was the local PBS station and things went well until they Read more »
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #019 Cristin Thomas
Director of the Tejas Storytelling Association
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Exposing new audiences to storytelling.
We covered the following topics…
1. Building a festival
2. Grants
3. Sponsorships
4. Marketing
5. Strategic Planning for an Organization
6. Positioning the organization for continual growth
7. The need for clarity
Planning for the future…
Looking ahead is so important. Know the road that you are traveling with clarity of your mission and knowledge of your vision. Many organizations can trap themselves in the survival of day to day. When this happens it is extremely difficult to Read more »
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #018
Rev Victoria Burdick
M Div Chaplin
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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 #017 Eth-Noh-Tec
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Your highest vision and the niti gritty of your storytelling practice.
What does Vision and Purpose have to do with being a storyteller? How does one find a vision and why is it important? What would a storytelling career look like if the artist in in alignment with ones purpose? On a practical side, once the storyteller has clarified their mission in life, identified a community to serve and method of storytelling to serve them, how does one approach the nitty gritty of running a business as a storyteller?
Eth-Noh-Tec with Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang explored these issues of the professional touring storyteller during this interview. Whether you are semi professional, a novice or seasoned storyteller, come listen to the challenges of the world of storytelling. Eth-Noh-Tec, now in it’s 25th year of storytelling talks about their humble Read more »
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #016 Ellen Munds, Executive Director of Arts Indiana.
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The A B C’s of Running Festival.
Ellen Munds Writes.. In this interview we cover how to;
1. Create your mission statement or why you want to do a festival
2. Determine your target audience
3. Details such as indoor or outdoor, specific site for an event, accessibility, design and traffic flow of the site
4. Artistic Elements
5. Marketing and Public Relations
6. Funding
7. Budget
8. Volunteers
9. Care and Feeding of the storytellers, sponsors and volunteers
10. Evaluation of your Festival.
This interview should be heard by all members of the national storytelling network who are interested in running or creating there own storytelling festival. Storytellers who are serious about working the festival circuit should consider this episode required listening.
Ellen Munds is the executive director of Storytelling Arts of Indiana and one of three co-founders. She has served as the chair of the Read more »
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #015 Eric James Wolf
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Each level of development that storytellers go through has it’s pitfalls and limitations. How can we as storytellers avoid the pitfalls that have befallen those who gone before? In this discussion Eric Wolf and Steve Otto explore how we as storytellers can go to the next level in our practice as storytellers.
From beginners to experts, performers to marketers what are the most common ways that we accept our limitations instead of challenging them? How have others successfully risen to successful practice of storytelling? These are some of the questions that we look at in this hour long episode of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Podcast.
Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #014 Carol Birch
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Copyright issues and storytelling.
Carol Birch writes… “More opportunities equal more responsibilities” is a simple explanation of copyright. As a librarian, I can read or tell stories to children in the library or as part of a school visit. Fair use also permits me to tell stories in classrooms where I teach graduate students. Responsibilities change when I’m hired as a storyteller, then acting ethically means seeking permission. However, Catch 22’s abound.
Clearing performance rights is the first thing to do, when seriously considering a story penned by another. Unfortunately, the first thing publishers and agents ask for are the date(s) and time(s) a story is to be performed. And who knows?
For more information on this topic, listen to the podcast and read an article that will be published in UP FOR DISCUSSION in School Library Journal, August, 2007. We’ve got to work together to establish some precedents to which we can all refer when we contact publishers.
Artistic Marketing, Episode List, Festival Storytelling, Griot | Brother Wolf | 
August 19, 2007 5:26 pm | 
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