ekimages: Story Telling Festival-Ebonie on assignment!

A couple of weekends ago, I announced to my husband, that WE (You know, if I make it sound like a combined effort it always goes over better) had a free date night, Saturday, May 9th! All I had to do is show up and take some pictures for the event coordinator. Happy that the word free was in the sentence, Henry says "So where are we off to???" I casually and quite hastily say..." Oh, a story telling festival concert".

"A WHAT" he replies,

"A story telling festival"

"What does one do at a story telling festival???"

" Tell stories" I announced in a matter of a fact way. Little did I know what it was all about- I didn't quite know. Admissibly, I had visions of staff milling around a water cooler sharing really bad stories of how their weekends went. I pushed the thought aside and put on my voyageur spirit and off we went to the University of Manitoba's St. John's College to attend the concert.

What we saw and heard that evening was no less than a outstanding evening filled with emotion and very real personalities. Four and a half hours of listening to that made us laugh, learn and evaluate ourselves and our interaction with the world around us. We were brought to laughter by the likes of Blake Travis, a very funny story teller and vocalist-percussionist from St Louis along with Christopher Marc Welsh and Duffy his puppet who tell a story without words, and we can't forget the unbelievable youthful antics of Richard Van Camp from the North West Territories.

An Irish nun, sister Cyril Mooney, who runs a school for street children in India, and teacher Marc Kuly and a couple of his students from Gorden Bell made us more aware of events that happen in children's lives here in Winnipeg and around the world, and I know for my husband and I, it was a great reality check to be thankful.

We heard story telling also told through music and song, thanks to Gerald Laroche and Sierra Noble.

Other speakers included Ruth Christie, Dora Maendel and Dan Keding. Wow! Who knew there was such a great festival to attend! (I've had my head in the books with school this past year!) This was the 4th annual festival and I'm really hoping there is a 5th next year! Next year it's a date night for the whole family! You should check it out to!

Above and below: 1,000 cranes mobile designed by Brian Cox , cranes folded and constructed by Grade 4-6 students at Springfield Heights School. The Mobile was later presented to Sister Cyril Mooney for her school in Calcuttta, India.