Storytelling is a living art of meeting each other in person. For 42 years we have been gathering in Toronto, the traditional territories of the Anishnabe, Wendat, Haudenasounee and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations, the original stewards of this land. However, because of the ongoing uncertainty of COVID concerns, our 2021 Festival will consist mostly of online events.
The Festival will blossom in May (instead of March) with a chorus of songbirds and hopes for the possibility of limited in-person indoor and outdoor events. All the necessary and required precautions will be taken with regards to health and safety and any in-person events. May is a beautiful time for Listening to the Voices of Nature!
With thanks to Alette Willis for interviewing me about festivals and social transformation, and for working with stories for a sustainable future for all:
Featured Workshop: Taproot with Mairi Campbell and Dawne McFarlane- embodying sound and story, word and song. For storytellers, musicians, theatre makers, artists, educators and artistic explorers.
Toronto Storytelling Festival 2019: “Stories told eye to eye, mind to mind, and heart to heart”
From our heart to yours- thanks to all who helped, listened, told and heard for making this a spectacular success! Thanks to Luciana Baptista Cohen for this beautiful original festival art image, and Joe Tamko for these photos.
Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2018
Thanks to award winning singer-songwriter-musician Maryem Hassan Tollar, Storytelling Toronto Alice Kane Award, and Canada Council for the Arts for this wonderful opportunity to bring storymusic to SISF 2018! Thanks also to SISF Director Donald Smith and all who create this wondrous festival, Peter Vallance and the generous community at Findhorn who welcomed us, and Jane Flynn for her enthusiastic photography!
Toronto Storytelling Festival 2017
Thanks to musicians Sam and Joe McFarlane Dent for bringing “The Flying Horse of Earthdom” to flight! This beautiful and poignant story comes from Scottish traveller storyteller Duncan Williamson.
Dare To Dream: Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2016
RSCT Summer Festival 2016
Join me for “Streaming Story” July 5-8/16 afternoons
Breathe inspiration into your telling and listening
“For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine…” William Blake
Now more than ever we need to recreate our world. Join us for the steps we can take together.
Streaming Story, and more. Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Summer Festival of Arts and Education. For the full schedule of inspired offerings check out the RSCT website.
The Art Of Waldorf Education; Reykjavik Arts University April/May 2016
Heartfelt thanks to my colleagues in Iceland for this transformative teaching opportunity. I learned so much, and so did my appreciative students. Here are some of their comments about the course;
It almost felt like the room had been smudged or cleansed of all the familiar stress that can take place in a classroom at the university level. The air was different, and so was the experience…The group was diverse, with our reasons for being there as many as we were, but we all shared interest in how Waldorf teaching shapes individuals in different ways…Through this course I gained confidence, and a passion for storytelling was ignited in me. I am a storyteller, something I didn’t realize until after the course.
What I appreciated the most about this course that it was not about lecturing and filling us with information but participation in actual classwork for students. It is great how you can use one story to reflect in many different subjects.
Incorporating storytelling in art teaching will benefit both me as the teacher and the children in various ways.
My students are all with special needs…working with stories and art will be appropriate and helpful
My wish for this course was to get more insight into storytelling and find out if I could do it also. I have been wondering if some people have it in them and some just not at all. And I found out that everybody can do it if that is their wish.
The stories are inspiring, and helping the children in many areas that I didn’t dream of.
The new Labyrinth at Solstafir Waldorf School, Reykjavik
THE HEART OF WINTER AND THE FIRE WITHIN
Four evenings of storytelling and creative writing with Dawne McFarlane; Sundays 5-7pm January 17, 24, 31, February 7, 2016. $200. Limited class size. For registration/info: hearth@sympatico.ca
Deepen the colours of your voice, speak your truth, and write your heart out.
TORONTO STORYTELLING FESTIVAL 2015 March 19-29
for the full schedule check out www.torontostorytellingfestival.ca
MODERN STORYTELLING at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program. Register now- space limited. Join me for ten evenings of writing, telling, and tending your creative hearth fires; Tuesdays 7-9pm from January 27-March 3/15. Wonder anew as the story works on you.
To register: http://learn.utoronto.ca/interactive-course-search#/profile/3083
The 2014 Scottish International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh: Once Upon a Place
The Netherbow Theatre at the Hallowe’en Hearth, Samhain Eve
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL 2014: performing Psyche and Eros at “Curiouser and Curiouser” on June 15
RSCT SUMMER FESTIVAL 2014: METAMORPHOSIS
This year, the RSCT Summer Festival of Arts and Education July 7-25/14 explores the impulse of metamorphosis. Here is the storytelling course information:
Healing Stories with Dawne McFarlane July 7-11, 2-5pm
Telling and listening to stories can be transformative, enlightening, and healing. Stories change every time they are told, depending on who is telling and who is listening. The intention that calls them forth matters. Learn how to create, select, and tell stories to meet the unique needs of your class, family, and community. This course is for tellers and listeners, experienced and inexperienced. Please bring a story to work with or select one from the offerings provided.
For the full festival schedule and registration contact Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto 9100 Bathurst St., Thornhill, ON, L4J 8C7, Canada 905-764-7570 fax 905-889-3336 info@rsct.ca www.rsct.ca
Come to the Storytent at the Wychwood Barns Saturday Farmer’s Market! Just south of Christie and St. Clair. Every Saturday 10am-12noon, stories and good company hosted by one of Storytelling Toronto’s fine storytellers. Cosy up with your coffee and a fresh baked treat and nourish yourself with a good story. Perhaps you have one to tell. Join us!
Storytelling and Creative Writing with Dawne at the University of Toronto, Continuing Studies, Creative Writing Program Jan-April/14. We traveled through the dark nights of winter into the light of spring, on the wings of story. This course was so full of riches, I have the pleasure of telling you it will also run in January 2015. Here are some of the participants’ comments: “it changed the way I write…it helped me to see other perspectives and narrative voices…it’s doing all I hoped and more.” My heartfelt gratitude to all for the deep learning I experienced.
CLOWNING AROUND IN APRIL/14
A workshop for storytellers experienced and inexperienced, parents and teachers.
Dawne and Blondine bring their traditions of storytelling and clowning together in
this unique opportunity to experience the magic of folk tales and their contemporary
relevance. Working with gesture, movement, telling, physical and vocal games and
exercises, we will allow our imaginations to soar while keeping our feet firmly on
the ground.
Dates: Saturday and Sunday, April 26 – 27, 1:00 – 4:30pm
Venue: Wychwood Barns
Instructors: Dawne McFarlane and Blondine Maurice
Fee: $120
You can register with Dian at www.storytellingtoronto.org. Space is limited so register early to ensure your spot.
