Programs

Village of Storytellers
Welcome to Dan Yashinsky's Village of Storytellers! This program of folktales from around the world includes passing the talking stick to audience members, and inviting them to share their riddles, family lore, and traditional stories. Dan's repertoire includes stories from his own crossroads heritage (Jewish, Turkish, Romanian, American, French), as well as unforgettable stories he has collected on his travels as a listener and reader. He has a way of telling his own stories that a grade 8 student once described as "better than Nintendo." As the founder of Toronto's 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling — the longest-running storytelling series in North America — Dan is a warm, encouraging, and enthusiastic guide into the world of oral stories. Even the shyest students (and teachers!) may find themselves taking the talking stick in the Village of Storytellers.

Time: 60 - 70 minutes (flexible according to class schedule).
Grades: 5 - 12.
Audience: up to 150.

The Telling Bee
Dan Yashinsky is available to help launch your school's Telling Bee. See the Telling Bee page for details about this innovative curriculum project.

Speaking Story
This workshop explores the many ways oral storytelling has power in our lives. From family lore to traditional folktales, from proverbs to schoolyard rhymes, we will rediscover the way stories provide a framework for understanding difficult relationships, connecting to hereditary wisdom, and imagining possible futures. Participants will enrich their storytelling repertoire, learn to feel comfortable telling stories out loud, and enjoy the experience of listening thoughtfully to each other's stories. A special focus of the workshop will be on stories that enhance the leadership skills of participants. You will take away at least one new story ready for you to tell in your own leadership setting.

Time: flexible.
Group size: 10 - 20.

The Red Thread of the Story: Exploring Narrative Suspense
The storyteller's secret art is knowing how to juggle with a knife and a balloon at the same time, dancing between suspense and revelation as the story unfolds. Using stories from your repertoires and works-in-progress, participants will explore the inner life — the "red thread" — of the story. What are the moments of a story when everything hangs in the balance? What makes your audience want to know what happens next? This is not a workshop about performance technique or stage-craft, but about deepening the teller's knowledge of the tale.

Dan has done versions of this workshop for the National Storytelling Network's 2006 conference in Pittsburgh; for storytelling guilds throughout Ontario; at Cape Clear, Ireland; at Boca do Ceu storytelling festival in São Paulo, Brazil; as part of his Toronto Public Library's storytelling residency.

Time: flexible.
Group size: 10 - 20.

Contact The Tellery to discuss residency possibilities. Dan Yashinsky has been a storyteller-in-residence for the Education Department at Queen's University; for UNICEF Canada; for Toronto Public Library. These projects can be short- or long-term. For universities, a storytelling residency would include a wide range of cross-disciplinary presentations, including sessions for medical students learning to listen more carefully to patients' oral accounts; students of anthropology learning about the place of the storyteller in traditional societies; religious studies classes discussing storytelling as part of spiritual practice; medieval studies classes learning about story collections like The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron (I tell stories from both, including The Miller's Tale, which I know by heart); a general introduction to storytelling for English and theatre classes; a talk about the power of oral communication for law students. As resident storyteller, I also work with students and faculty who have a special interest in developing their storytelling skill and repertoire. Each host organization can tailor its own residency activities, depending on the needs of its community and program.

Dan Yashinsky can design a program to suit your venue and audience. He is currently touring with musician/composer Brian Katz. For a full concert, there will be a mix of solo storytelling, solo guitar, and shared pieces. The heart of their program is an original canta storia (story set to music) titled Talking You In.

Talking You In
a canta storia
Creators/performers:
Dan Yashinsky (writer/storyteller)
Brian Katz (composer/musician)

Description
Talking You In is a 35-minute narrative performance that tells the story of a family's journey through the harrowing realm of a neo-natal intensive care unit. The piece combines music, storytelling, song, chant, and poetry. It is based on interviews with parents and medical personnel, and on Dan Yashinsky's own experience as a father who had a son in the NICU. Talking You In begins as a baby boy is born with an Apgar score of two. The mother and father are instantly plunged into the overwhelming world of the NICU. Trying to humanize and make sense of the high-tech medical "environment," the mother declares, "I don't want our son's first words to be 'beep beep beep.' " They decide to stay by their son's crib and tell him a continuous stream of stories, rhymes, and songs. This becomes their method of survival in the NICU's world of experts, specialists, medical results, and the ubiquitous beeping of the monitors. Rhyme by rhyme, story by story, the parents begin to build a connection to their baby son, who they call their "starchild." As they seek a way to communicate with him, they imagine that their voices and stories are a beacon that can guide their baby's lost and frightened soul down to earth. They refuse to be passive observers of the medical process, and believe that, through their storytelling, they are participating in their son's journey and possible healing.

Talking You In shows how storytelling and the human voice can provide an essential link to our humanity in the modern medical environments that both save and silence us. In their use of stories, rhymes, and songs, the parents in this piece bring the language of the imagination into the clinical setting of the NICU. As they become emergency storytellers, they reveal the necessity to balance scientific knowledge with the truth, beauty, and wisdom of stories.

Responses
Dr. Wayne Newton, Chief of NICU, Janeway Children's Hospital, St. John's, Newfoundland (responding to a lecture by Dan Yashinsky based on the themes in Talking You In): Your presentation was lucid, erudite, and entertaining. Your talk made all of us think about the other supportive needs of parents that we sometimes forget or do not emphasize nearly enough. Thank you for speaking to us.

Sonia Guinnessy (Wales, 2007): Thank you so much for your moving and heartfelt performance. Some things connect us to the mystery of life, to the common experience of being human and to the wonders that can never be understood. Talking You In did that for me. I was deeply moved by the piece in ways I cannot fully describe or comprehend. I left with a feeling of having shared something profound, of having heard something important that would subtly change my perspective on life. Most importantly I left with a feeling of hope and a conviction of the power of love and the healing potential of stories. And yes I did laugh too! ... Your piece demonstrates the importance of communicating with sick and premature babies and letting them know how much they are wanted and loved. I am sure that this collection of stories will take that important message into the world and be a comfort and help to many, many people. Thank you for weaving this tapestry of experiences together in such a skillful and beautiful way.

Sharon Jacksties (Wales, 2007): Not so long ago another dear friend and colleague was in intensive care and survived against impossible odds, such as a haemoglobin count of 8%. I would sit there almost mute, not knowing how to be amongst the bleeps and tubes. This is because I had not yet seen your show. The most moving point of which for me was when the parents started to tell/read/sing/recite to their babies and so transformed the healing space. Some of my storytelling work is amongst refugee communities ... For many, loss and dread of further losses create a prison of silence. When they start to tell their stories, personal or traditional, they are talking others in.

Project collaborators
Storyteller/writer: Dan Yashinsky
Composer/musician: Brian Katz

Brian Katz is an internationally acclaimed guitarist, pianist, composer, and recording artist, improviser and music educator. He draws on jazz, classical and various world music traditions to form his personal sound. Well-known as a soloist, Brian also collaborates widely. Of his jazz CD Solana for the prestigious European label Bellaphon, the Belgian journal Jazz in Time wrote, "Solana is a recording of abundant intelligence." His CD Collected Stories features him in duet with virtuoso klezmer clarinetist Martin van de Ven ("enchanting" — Toronto Star). Brian is also a Dalcroze Eurhythmics teacher — a method of music education that examines the intrinsic relationships between music and movement — and is currently on faculty at the University of Toronto where he teaches Eurhythmics and music education pedagogy to prospective teachers of music. His guitar music can be found in the Royal Conservatory of Music Repertoire books, and his publication Guitar Music of Brian Katz (Chapin) combines a practicum on improvisation with three of his works. Brian regularly tours, performing solo and in various group combinations — and offers master classes/lectures/workshops/ in Eurhythmics, guitar, and classical and jazz improvisation.

Concert length: flexible.
Group size: 30 - 250.

The Miller's Tale in Chaucer's English
This performance of The Miller's Tale, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, is entirely in Middle English. It features the love of Absolon, a parish clerk; the beautiful-but-not-particularly-faithful Alisoun; her boyfriend Nicolas; and her "sely" husband John the carpenter. Alisoun and Nicolas play a memorable trick on John to get a night of love together. The consequences are hilarious, embarrassing, and (for Nicolas, who gets a hot coulter on his bare bum) painful.

Time: 1 hour.
Group size: 25 - 50.