Storytelling festival starts tomorrow!

Wow! The first performance in a new season of the Mosaic Storytelling Festival is always exciting.

Lorne Brown and Diana Tso lead off the 2013 version of Mosaic tomorrow and we can't wait to hear their tales...

Lorne performed at the festival last year and impressed us all with his songs and stories, mostly from North America. He brought along his 5-string banjo and started out with a traditional song from the East coast about a kangaroo sitting in a tree. (Kangaroo?? Nova Scotia? Okay, it turns out it was one of those mondegreens where "carrion crow" got changed over time to "kangaroo" — so, no worries about your knowledge of Canadian flora and fauna...) 

By the end, Lorne had everyone singing along to "Hang on the Bell, Nellie" and "The Ship Titanic" — and I have to confess that the latter was a revelation. After years of belting this out at summer camp and making up comic lyrics and new harmonies and laughing ourselves silly over this campy classic, when Lorne sang it I suddenly realized (what maybe I should have realized all along) that this song is essentially not funny. This "singer of old songs and teller of old tales" brings such strength and gravitas to his performances that his rendition — even though we all did get to sing along — made the audience suddenly understand just how horrible this disaster was and wonder why we had ever laughed about it. You could imagine the people standing on deck realizing there was no room in the lifeboats and singing a hymn together as they faced their death. Truly a new way of seeing an old favourite. 

There was lots of warmth and humour in Lorne's stories too and we all left smiling.

Diana Tso is new to the festival and comes primarily from a theatre background (she is the playwright and producer of the critically acclaimed play Red Snow, about the Rape of Nanking) with tons of acting roles and some clown study in Paris under her belt. But along the way, she has been digging into the storytelling repertoire and has accumulated a repertoire of Chinese folk tales and myths.

So we can't wait to hear what the dynamic and beautiful Diana will bring us tomorrow — and what our old friend Lorne will bring.

Something old, something new, something from Canada, something from China, a song, a story...

Whatever it will be... here it comes!

Mosaic Storytelling Festival 2013 - Tales from Around the World

Mosaic Storytelling Festival 2013 - Tales from Around the World

Five Sundays of stories for ages 5 to 95


Welcome to the third season of Mosaic Storytelling Festival!

Mosaic offers multicultural storytelling performances every two weeks from Jan. 20 to Mar. 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm.

Location: St. David’s Anglican Church, parish hall (at Donlands and Danforth, opposite Donlands subway station)

Admission: Pay what you can (suggested $5 per person)

For more information: 416-466-3142

The Open Door East End Arts Collective and St. David’s Anglican Church celebrate the diversity and creativity of our rich East End neighbourhood – and our world – through five afternoons of storytelling with tellers and tales from all across the globe.

2013 Schedule:

Lorne Brown and Diana Tso
Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 pm - Festival Opener
Mosaic kicks off our exciting 2013 season with stories about the power of art and about those who dare to make their dreams come true — from China, Canada, and all corners of the globe.
Nathalie Vachon and Marylyn Peringer
Sunday, February 3 at 3:00 pm
Journey through Bali, Japan and French Canada with two mesmerizing storytellers for “Rising Above” — folktales and personal stories of triumph!
Mariella Bertelli and Hugh Cotton
Sunday, February 17 at 3:00 pm
Stories of enchantment, love, and suspense from Italy, England and Ireland — all sure to warm the heart and bring a smile to the lips!
Pat Bisset and Dan Yashinsky
Sunday, March 3 at 3:00 pm
Two veteran Canadian storytellers share Native stories and tales drawn from world myth, folk and fairy tales from all across the globe.
Sandra Whiting and Mutamba Rainos
Sunday, March 17 at 3:00 pm
African mythologies, folklore, and traditional tales from the Caribbean, to make both children and adults laugh, cry, and think. Your ears will smile!



About Our Storytellers:

Veteran storyteller Lorne Brown (January 20) has had his voice preserved by the StorySave program of the national organization “Storytellers of Canada”. His 3-CD album Lorne Brown: A Link in the Chain was released in Yellowknife last spring. “A singer of old songs and a teller of old tales,” Lorne is a co-founder of “Storytelling Toronto”, co-artistic director of “The Legless Stocking”, and founder of “The Ballad Project”. Often accompanied by his 5-string banjo, Lorne has delighted audiences all across Canada with his tales and songs.
Performer, playwright, poet, and storyteller Diana Tso (January 20) is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in France. Author and producer of the play Red Snow, inspired by the survivors of the Rape of Nanking, Diana has worked for various theatre companies across the world for over 15 years, as well as as an artist in the schools in Ontario, helping to empower youth through artistic expression.

As a storyteller she retells Chinese folktales and performs her creation of Monkey Queen, Journey to the East, inspired by Monkey King in the Chinese 16th century novel, Journey to the West. She shares stories about the power of art and transformation in Chinese mythology and about those who dare and have their dreams come true.

Nathalie Vachon (February 3) has delighted audiences in Canada, the United States and Asia with her whimsical and imaginative tales. A lover of folktales, fairytales and personal/adventure stories, Nathalie delivers each story with heart and humour.

Nathalie has been guest artist in public schools, libraries, creative workshops, seminars and corporate events. This year she joins the Roster of Artists at “Prologue to the Performing Arts” to bring her show Imagination on the Loose to schools and auditoriums throughout Ontario.

Marylyn Peringer (February 3), a former English teacher, has been sharing folklore, legends and personal tales with young people and adults across Canada for over 30 years. Based in Toronto, she has toured in several other provinces and has appeared in many folk and storytelling festivals across the country. Marylyn presently serves as co-resident teacher with Storytelling Toronto and is a long-time artist with “Mariposa in the Schools”.

Storyteller, writer, translator and librarian Mariella Bertelli (February 17) draws on her Italian heritage, her own life, and her reading for the development of her unique storytelling repertoire and style. She has appeared at festivals and events across Canada and in the US, South Africa, the UK, Australia, Belgium, and Italy and has experimented with bilingual/multilingual storytelling. A teller for adults and children alike, Mariella’s extensive repertoire of stories includes folk and fairy tales, literary, personal, and original stories.Mariella is an active member of “Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada”, “Raccontamiunastoria Storytelling Group” and “F.I.S.T. (Federazione Italiana di Storytelling)”.
Hugh Cotton (February 17) came to storytelling through teaching. The power of storytelling and story listening is abundantly clear in his grade 4 classroom! While he loves telling stories to children, telling to adults allows him to explore other themes and images — something he relishes. Hugh’s repertoire includes global folktales, with a soft spot for tricksters and wise fools, as well as old European wondertales.
Pat Bisset (March 3) discovered the magic of storytelling through working with children; however, she can enchant adult audiences as well. Highlights of Pat’s career include performances at High Park, Fort York, Harbourfront, the Native Canadian Centre, and the Toronto Festival of Storytelling. Her repertoire includes world myth, folk and fairy tales, and historic stories.Pat was closely associated with “The Buffalo Jump Artists’ Collective”, booking and arranging storytellers and musicians every National Aboriginal Day. She is also a member of “Storytellers of Canada” and “The Canadian Association of Storytellers for Children”.
Dan Yashinsky (March 3) tells traditional stories from around the world and is the author of Suddenly They Heard Footsteps: Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century. In 1979 he founded the “Toronto Festival of Storytelling”. And in 2009 he co-founded, with Lisa Pijuan-Nomura, “FOOL — festival of oral literatures”. He has performed and taught at festivals in Singapore, Brazil, Israel, Germany, Austria, Wales, England, Ireland, Holland, Sweden, the US, and throughout Canada. In 1999 he received the Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling in the community.

Sandra Whiting (March 17) has been telling stories from the time she could talk. She revels in the spoken word, the well-paced narrative, the stage, the public performance. Her stories draw upon the rich oral traditions of West African mythologies, folklore, and traditional tales from the Caribbean. With the lyrical lilt of her Jamaican accent, her storytelling has been known to make both children and adults laugh, cry and think.

Mutamba (Moyo) Rainos (March 17) has told stories and played music at festivals across Ontario and in the US. He combines dance, music, and voice in delivering funny, scary, and witty stories from southern Africa.

Storytelling and song have been a part of Mutamba’s life since he was a child in a small village in Zimbabwe where he grew up. His love for storytelling was deepened by his large family for whom telling stories was a ritual every night — gathered around burning fire under the watching eye of the moon. To this day he draws upon stories that his grandmother, sisters, mother and other relatives inherited from his ancestors.

Mutamba also plays mbira, whose dissonant cacophonic sound creates hypnotic cascading rhythmic patterns. Mutamba’s stories and music will make your ears smile and your skin crawl at the same time.

This page created originally by Digital Jive web consulting.

Summer Camps in the City 2013

To be announced soon! Follow us on Twitter @opendoorstds for updates, or follow our blog!

Check our activities from last summer here:
http://www.stdavidstoronto.ca/opendoor2012/opendoor2012.html

We hope to offer a similarly broad slate this year.

This page created originally by Digital Jive web consulting.

All About the Open Door

About the Open Door East End Arts Collective:

The Open Door East End Arts Collective, who are co-presenting the Mosaic Storytelling Festival along with St. David’s Anglican Church, is a group of artists from Toronto’s east end who love their neighbourhood and the arts with equal passion. We seek to bring rich, beautiful, diverse, affordable cultural experiences to the families who live here. We are Trish O’Reilly-Brennan, Liisa Repo-Martell, and Jerry Silverberg. Our neighbourhood, which includes Danforth Village, the Pocket, and Greektown, is one of the most culturally diverse yet least served areas of the city in terms of the arts. Each of us have deep roots in various arts communities in the city (theatre, music, storytelling, etc.) as well as a network of relationships and connections in this neighbourhood that put us in the unique position of being able to draw on the most exciting artists in the city as well as connect them with our diverse local audience.
Liisa Repo-Martell is an award-winning actor who works all over the country in both film and television and theatre. She has worked extensively with Soulpepper Theatre Co as well as many other theatres in T.O. She has toured the country with two highly acclaimed one-woman shows, I Claudia and The Syringa Tree. Film and television credits include: The English Patient, Unforgiven, Republic of Doyle, Flashpoint, and a recurring role on This Is Wonderland. She has also won a Gemini for her work in the television movie Nights Below Station Street. She is a passionate Eastender and excited to part of bringing the performing arts to this side of the Don.
Jerry Silverberg is a theatre and visual artist whose award winning company, Cascade Theatre, has performed to over 950,000 children and adults in the GTA and across the country from the east coast to as far away as Inuvik. In 1995 his production of Something from Nothing adapted from the book by Phoebe Gilman, won a Dora Mavor Moore Award. Between 1996 and 2007 he produced a successful family theatre series at the Metro Central YMCA. As a visual artist his fine art work has been shown in many cafes and galleries throughout the city; his illustrative work has been seen in the Globe and Mail, Walrus magazine, the Toronto Star, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
Trish O’Reilly-Brennan is a versatile singer and actor, who began her career singing opera then quickly took a 90-degree turn into theatre. Trish is closely involved in her east end community and is the instigator of various community and arts projects at St. David’s Anglican Church. She has performed roles ranging from Barbarina in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro to Lee in Cowgirls to experimental works at the Fringe and SummerWorks theatre festivals and a season at the Blyth Festival (where she premiered roles in two new Canadian plays). Trish enjoys singing in harmony with both the a cappella Renaissance trio The MadriGALS and the 1940s trio Rumboogie. She is currently writing a show featuring popular tunes of the 40s along with real-life stories of Canadian women during World War II, which will be performed at the Legless Stocking in April 2013.


About St. David’s Anglican Church:
St. David’s Anglican Church has served the east end of Toronto for over a century. The current church building was built in 1921 and the St. David’s Anglican community worships there together with St. Andrew’s Japanese Congregation. St David’s serves the Donlands and Danforth community by hosting a children’s drop in, art camps, concerts and other events. Reverend Warren Wilson and the church are very proud to be hosting the annual Mosaic Storytelling Festival and other events.


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