PAST STORE EVENTS

Magic of One Storytelling Concerts

Aqua Books, in conjunction with Magic of One , is pleased to present the new season of this unique series, the only one of its kind in the province. Since 2003, Magic of One has been bringing spoken word concerts with award-winning storytellers and musicians to a Winnipeg audience. As Winnipeg's premiere spoken word venue, Aqua is pleased to be the new permanent venue for this not-to-be-missed experience.

Friday, February 26/10 7:30pm   $15

Magic of One presents
Kiviuq
Vancouver storyteller Kira Van Deusen

Kira Van Deusen is a professional storyteller and cellist based in Vancouver, Canada. She travelled extensively in Siberia's forests, tundra, and steppe over the 15 years beginning shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, and connected with indigenous traditions, stories, and people—their lives, history, spirituality, and sense of humour. She delights listeners in Canada, the US, Europe, and Russia with adventures in worlds we do not see with the eye, accompanied by her evocative original cello and vocal music.

Friday, April 17/09 7:30pm   $15

Saturday, April 18/09 2pm   $15

Magic of One Storytelling Concert

The Wine Dark Sea: Tales from Homer's Odyssey
Veteran storytellers Jane Cahill, Kay Stone and Mary Louise Chown, with flutist Chad Cornell

Jane Cahill has taught in the Classics Department of the University of Winnipeg for 33 years. She specialises in Greek Mythology. She is the author of Her Kind: Stories of Women from Greek Mythology (Broadview Press, 1995).Since 1992, she has performed with Mary Louise Chown and Kay Stone as Earthstory.

As a trained folklorist and storyteller, Kay Stone writes about oral tales, traditional and non-traditional, as well as reworking traditional tales. She was born in Detroit, Michigan, grew up in Miami, Florida, and came of age as a performer/writer in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She's lived in Winnipeg since 1969. She has BA and MS degrees in cultural geography (BA from University of Miami, MS from Florida State U.) and a PhD in Folklore from Indiana University. She has taught folklore and mythology, folklore in literature, children's literature, and techniques of storytelling, in the English Department at the University of Winnipeg from 1971 until she retired in 1998. While most of her writing has been academic, she has also published several "original" folktales (a complicated topic).

Mary Louise Chown is a Prairie Chicken who began telling stories in public in 1973 when she lived in Germany. You have heard her unique take on life and all that it throws at us at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Children¹s Festival, at Magic of One Concerts, and on CBC Radio. Mary Louise also plays hammered dulcimer, guitar and percussion with a local folk music band and she often includes music and song in her stories.

Friday, January 23/09 7:30pm

Magic of One Storytelling Concert
Love Like Salt

raconteur Ron Robinson, with storyteller Rebecca Hiebert and singer/songwriter Dan Frechette

Cost: $15

Saturday, November 8/08 7:30pm

Magic of One Storytelling Concert
Grandmother's Knee: Singing and Telling the Old Stories

ballad singer Anita Best (Newfoundland), Icelandic storyteller Al Thorleifson (Manitoba), Celtic musicians Susan and Paul Hammer (Manitoba)

Cost: $15

Anita Best grew up on Merasheen Island in Placentia Bay which was abandoned during Newfoundland's community re-settlement program, under Joey Smallwood. This early life in one of Newfoundland's most culturally rich regions inspired a passion to preserve and interpret the traditions which seemed to be departing with the disappearing communities. Initially she began professional work as a classroom teacher, oral historian and folklorist and eventually incorporated these into careers as diverse as radio broadcasting, professional recording and university level instruction.

Anita Best was the host and writer of a popular local CBC radio series, "A Little Ball of Yarns" in 1995-96 which featured singers, storytellers and Newfoundland calendar customs, but it is her singing that has made her most famous. Best has been recorded on several folk albums and has two complete works to her credit, "The Colour of Amber", with Pamela Morgan, and "Crosshanded” unaccompanied renditions of twelve traditional Newfoundland songs. Anita Best's careful and tasteful interpretation has enriched and extended an art form she has devoted her life to preserving.

Anita Best is the creator of Newfoundland Voices, her own production company, which ran an outdoor concert series from Cape Spear every summer for seven years as well as numerous concerts from local venues. Best continues to tour as a storyteller and traditional singer, and also freelances as a policy consultant. In 2001 she accepted an appointment to teach an annual semester course in Newfoundland traditional song at Memorial University’s School of Music. In 2003 the Folklore Studies Association of Canada (FSAC/ACEF) awarded her the Marius Barbeau medal for her contribution to folklore studies in Canada.

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