The art of storytelling

OLGA LIVSHIN

Over the last two decades, the ancient art of storytelling has been on course for a renaissance – blooming, despite the competition of books, live theatre, television and the Internet, growing new branches in many countries. Among the developments is the Annual Vancouver International Storytelling Festival, which celebrated its 16th birthday this year.

StoryFeast 2008 took place at the Heritage Hall on the weekend of Feb. 1-3. Melanie Ray, one of the founders of the festival, called storytellers "tradition-bearers" and said, "The festival brings together amazing people, letting us all share our oral heritage and cultural wealth with each other."

This year, international guests joined forces with Canadian storytellers to present Vancouverites, young and old, with the three-day "feast" of stories. The festival included a night concert, Latin Quarter cabaret, storytelling for kids and adults, story-creating workshops and multicultural panels. Raconteurs of different cultural and national backgrounds showed the audience that we all breathe the same air, fight the same demons and tell the same tales.

The panel called Crossing Boundaries included three storytellers: Theresa Amoon, a Lebanese woman who grew up in Paris and currently lives in the United States; Jose Garcia Davis, an American of the mixed heritage of First Nations, Spanish, Scottish and Irish ancestors; and Canadian Helen Mintz, who is Jewish. These three exceptional artists shared their struggles against labels and biases, their personal journeys across languages and cultural borders.

Mintz came to Vancouver from Montreal, working as a teacher until 1989. In 1991, she took an evening class in storytelling at the University of British Columbia.

"I realized I had a talent as a performer," she said, "and I wanted to tell the stories of the Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the war. I wanted to show everyone what the Holocaust had destroyed."

She also became immersed in Yiddish, which, like storytelling, has been undergoing revival in recent years. To reawaken the old tongue of European Jews in the new land became her life goal. She strives to become fluent in Yiddish and to bring the rich literary traditions of the language to her audiences.

Stories of hope, healing and peace, folk tales and fables of women's power intertwine in Mintz's work with her delight in Yiddish poetry and her talent as a teacher. Since her first performance as a storyteller in 1992, she has appeared at multiple cultural events and festivals in British Columbia, Ontario, Yukon, the United States, Germany and Lithuania.

"I see myself as a porter, carrying not only the stories, but also the sounds of the Yiddish language and making these sounds sing," she said. Recognizing a romantic connection between Yiddish and the Jewish people, she inspires enraptured listeners with her passion.

Fighting the reputation of being an exclusively Jewish artist, she often performs at Vancouver public schools, as well as teaching workshops and seminars on different aspects of her craft. According to Mintz, folk tales miss intricacies of their meaning when translated, so she incorporates Yiddish words into her storytelling to make the tales sparkle. At her regular course at Langara College, she shares her knowledge with students from different countries, who learn to absorb their native tongues into English storytelling.

Also among the Jewish participants of the festival was children's books writer Joan Betty Stuchner. Reading from her latest publication, Honey Cake (Tradewind Books, 2007), Stuchner had to handle the toughest and most demanding audience of the festival – young children. She did it with the flare of a committed teacher, making at least half of her audience pay attention and listen, while the other half gamboled on the mats in front of Stuchner's chair.

After graduating from UBC with a bachelor's degree in English literature, Stuchner worked for many years at her alma mater as a library assistant. Since 1984, she has been teaching part-time at Temple Sholom, offering classes in Jewish studies and Jewish literature. And all that time, she has been writing her own stories.

"I have always had stories in my head," she confessed, "making up plots, inventing heroes and their adventures." Her writing ranged from poetry to fairy tales to mysteries, until she finally wrote her first children's picture book, A Peanut Butter Waltz, published by Annikins in 1990.

Honey Cake is Stuchner's fourth book. It recounts the rescue of Danish Jews during the Holocaust, told from the perspective of a 10-year-old Jewish boy in Copenhagen. A poignant story, permeated with pride in one's heritage and yearning for freedom, it's dedicated to the memory of "His Majesty King Christian X of Denmark," a courageous man who tried to save the Jewish citizens of his kingdom during the Second World War. Stuchner even sent a copy of the book to the king's granddaughter, the current Danish queen, Margrethe II.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

^TOP