As someone who believes that knowledge is power, i am a firm believer that we should always seek out more info about what we are most passionate about. Every year i have taken part in a number of classes and workshops that challenge and inspire me. This year at FOOL we are offering 3 workshops that cover different aspects of storytelling and performance. Take a chance to learn from 4 great artists!
FOOL Workshops
All workshops $30 ($25 artists/students/seniors)
Sessions are designed for small groups.
Performance Studio with Hilary Peach
Saturday, October 23, 11 – 1 pm:
Location: Community Gallery, Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. (2 south of St. Clair Avenue West)
This two‐hour workshop is for artists who have an existing text that they wish to prepare for performance. By introducing and applying techniques such as range, balance, eye‐focus, rhythm, breath, source, image, gesture, and risk, the artist begins to fully inhabit the text and create a compelling performance. Part rehearsal, part director’s workshop, this class offers tools that the worker can take away andapply to any text or physical score. Participants are required to work on their feet.
Hilary Peach is a writer, audio poet, recording artist, arts activist, and producer. She has performed at events that include the Vancouver International Folk Music Festival, Montreal’s Festival Voix d’Ameriques, and the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam. Her debut recording, an exquisite audiophile CD called Poems Only Dogs Can Hear (2003) suspends surreal vignettes inside a matrix of music. Peach’s 2009 CD release, Suitcase Local, is an adaptation of her touring folk opera of the same name. This spoken‐word and music fusion is a spooky retelling of her experiences working as a Canadian welder in the construction and maintenance of power plants in the USA. Publications include 10 Flowered Cactus (1996), Love is a Small Town (2001), and inclusions in various anthologies and magazines. Hilary Peach is the BC – Yukon representative to the Canadian League of Poets and the founder and Artistic Director of the Poetry Gabriola Festival on Gabriola Island, BC.
See So That We May See with Dan Yashinsky and Dave Pijuan-Nomura
Saturday, October 23, 1 – 3 pm:
Location: Community Gallery, Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. (2 south of St. Clair Avenue West) Note: This workshop is offered in collaboration with Storytelling Toronto
In this workshop, professional photographer Dave Pijuan‐Nomura and storyteller Dan Yashinsky will explore the visual dimension of stories. Using the camera of imagination, you will “see” your story in ways that take you beyond the text. Elements of lighting, perspective, and hidden detail will enrich your sense of the story’s landscape, flow of suspense, and imaginary world.
Dan Yashinsky is the co‐founder/co‐director of FOOL – festival of oral literatures. He has been the 2010 storyteller‐in‐residence at Storytelling Toronto, animating the Artscape Wychwood Barns with a weekly program called Bread and Stories at the Barns and working with community groups in the neighbourhood.
Dave Pijuan‐Nomura is a founding member of FOOL, and a professional photographer with a passion for the stories that pictures can tell. For more info visit www.nomuraphotography.com
Thinking Like A Storyteller with Laura Simms
Sunday, October 24, 1 – 3 pm:
Location: Alliance Française, 24 Spadina Road (just north of Bloor St.)
Drawing on her own experiences as a storyteller on both concert stages and in intimate, healing settings, internationally‐acclaimed storyteller Laura Simms asks participants to explore the unique relationships between teller and listener, teller and story, and between the people and landscapes that make up the imaginary world of the narrative. How does a storyteller dance among these kinds of awareness and expression? Using exercises and discussion, the workshop puts the reciprocity of a storyteller’s engagement with listener, story, and their own intention at the centre of the art.
Laura Simms is a performing artist, writer, educator and humanitarian is engaged in individual and community transformation. Born in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, she performs in the tradition of great storytellers throughout the ages. Her most recent one‐woman show MERCY INTO THE WORLD, premiered in 2008 at the Barbican Theater in London, University of Oslo and Frontier Theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She works with international organizations training teachers, and humanitarian workers. Laura is an artist with Catalyst Arts, a member of the Healing Arts Alliance, and an associate of Columbia University’s Center for International conflict Resolution. She recently received the Brimstone Award for Engaged Storytelling and is co‐faculty with Terry Tempest Williams New Generation Environmental Project. Most recently Laura began a storytelling project with International Medical Corps in Haiti.
Support for FOOL: The Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council Partners: Alliance Française, Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, Native Men’s Residence, Storytelling Toronto, The Stop Community Food Program, Toronto Public Library, NOW Magazine
