By Aysha Raad
When people think of storytelling they picture children in a circle, listening attentively to somebody reading from a picture book.
The audience for the storytelling benefit held at Rasputin’s Folk Café on Thursday night was attentive, but nobody read from a book.
The benefit was for the 14th Annual Storytelling Festival coming in early November to the National Library of Canada. This festival will present top storytellers from around the country and offer workshops for aspiring storytellers.
The performers at Rasputin’s once were aspiring storytellers themselves, pulled into this traditional art form by hearing others tell their own tales. Tom Lips, a storyteller, singer and songwriter has been telling stories for 12 years and discovered the craft when he attended a storytelling event for the first time.
“You need to picture the story unfolding in your mind and not focus too much on the words,” he explains. Lips presented an original and refreshing story called “Walter,” about a man who literally goes down the drain of his bathtub.
A newcomer to the storytelling scene, Bob Margeson has been storytelling for less than a year. He attended the Storytelling Festival workshops last year, and has been in the community ever since. “I like it because you are your own director, your own actor, and you get to decide how the story gets interpreted,” Margeson says.
Most of the audience was well acquainted with storytelling. It seems there is a hidden storytelling community in Ottawa that is excited to share their tales.
Barbara Woods assists with the Ottawa Storytellers, a group that meets the first Thursday of every month at the National Library. The group is open to anybody who would like to join, either to share a tale, or simply listen. “I like the variety. A lot of people use personal experiences,” she says. “Some of the stories make you cry, and some of them make you laugh.”
Ruth Stewart-Verger, an organizer for the festival, as well as a storyteller explains storytellers are getting more support because people are recognizing it as a form of art. Epic stories, Stewart-Verger says, which are longer than the average story, helped people realize storytelling is a lot of work. “You are up there for an hour or more,” she explains. “Providing more places ( for storytellers to perform) is the ultimate way of
promoting storytelling,” Stewart-Verger urges. “The more experience they have, the better they get, and the more people will want to see them.” The group and the festival are supported financially through grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Ottawa, the Ottawa Citizen, as well as other groups.
There is a perception of storytelling as people who are doing a reading, or an event that is held for children.
The key, Stewart-Verger says, is to use your imagination. As a parent and a teacher, Stewart-Verger uses stories to relate to children. “A folk tale reaches people . . . and is able to share life experiences,” she says.