Confirmed Performers / Geboekte Artiesten
Lisa Schneidau (Eng)
Lisa Schneidau is a storyteller, folklorist and environmentalist based in Devon, south west England. She seeks out, and shares, traditional stories about the land and our complex relationship with it, and works with creative storytelling to enable better connection with nature and landscape. She is a founder member of South Devon Storytellers and also runs Dartmoor Storytellers.
Lisa tells stories for all ages at events, nature reserves, arts centres and schools, including performance storytelling and training for adults, story creation and development within education. She is the author of four books: English Folk Tales of Coast and Sea, River Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland, Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland and Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland (all History Press).
http://www.lisaschneidau.co.uk
... a storyteller-ecologist who knows exactly how to charm the leaves off a tree. Selvedge magazine
...Lisa captivates her audience, and makes you ponder whether the land always has a tale to be told and a voice to be heard... Beaford Arts
...a wonderful and powerful storyteller...Avon Needs Trees
Usifu Jalloh (Eng)
Usifu Jalloh is a highly experienced, talented award winning performer and educator who has been working in arts education for over 20 years. His roots in multicultural Sierra Leone, and his long standing and close association with artists and audiences from a wide range of cultures, have lead him to develop a storytelling style which encompasses international languages, music, dance and story themes.
Usifu has a passion for motivating young people to educate themselves within the context of their culture. Along with Storytelling and music, he has established Maambena Fes tand National Storytelling Festival in Sierra as the vehicles he uses to accomplish this laudable goal.
His production Africa’s Cowfoot and The Cowfoot Chronicles serves as a platform for promoting Sierra Leonean and African cultures as a whole by embodying them within the rich Oral heritages of his ancestry.
He has performed at the Scottish International Storytelling festival and the ReImagined Storytelling festival in Kenya amongst others. His latest production is One Cowrie Shell. An epic story Usifu developed and produced over a four years period.
With extensive radio programs for BBC World Service as a judge for the African Play writers competition and BBC Radio 4 as a presenter and storyteller Usifu Jalloh paves the way for future Storytellers to emulate. He presented the successful radio program Pikin To Pikin Tok with the NGO Child to Child, designed for children in Sierra Leone addressing the issues of health, sanitation and teenage pregnancy.
Usifu Jalloh has worked extensively globally, performing his stories and delivering workshops throughout the educational and entertainment sector. Countries include Argentina, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Nigeria, India, Bahrain, Germany, Jordan, France, Italy, Spain, Peru, Colombia, Kenya, China, South Korea, Poland and South Africa. And now, for the first time, he can add the Netherlands to his long list.
Lisa Lipkin (Eng)
Lisa Lipkin is one of the most innovative story strategists in the consulting industry, using original techniques to find and cultivate great stories from even the most reluctant tellers. What makes her work so unique today is that it is informed by decades in the field as a storyteller, writer, and workshop leader.
Throughout the 1990’s, Ms. Lipkin’s work brought her to the most challenging populations in New York City. She created storytelling workshops in men’s’ homeless shelters and in after school programs for children of sexual abuse; she listened to the poignant stories of battered women living in safe houses in Queens, and traveled to Welfare hotels in Brooklyn to help teens share their experiences. She helped Holocaust survivors and other refugees find the courage to share their dark secrets and trained them in how to tell their stories to others. It was during these early days in the field that she developed Indirect Story Prompts, an original strategy for extracting stories in a safe, non-threatening way. This technique would later become a core strategy in her work with businesses.
Lisa has been performing original stories for children and young people touring schools across America. Learning to control 500 screaming kids in an audience wasn’t easy, but those experiences taught Lisa Lipkin an awful lot about how to capture an audience’s attention - using silences, rhythm changes, repetition, and emotionally engaging material - a whole host of techniques she uses with other people today.
In the late 1990’s, Ms. Lipkin became the storyteller in residence with the Museum of the City of New York, where she created performances that helped bring historical exhibitions and artifacts to life. One of the shows she created for the museum, What Mother Never Told Me, was an autobiographical performance based on her experiences growing up as the child of a Holocaust survivor. It received critical acclaim and led to an off Broadway run and international appearances including Amsterdam, a city that captured her imagination and where she now lives.
In 2008, she founded Story Strategies, a consultancy that helps international clients strategically use the magic of a great narrative to seduce, inspire, persuade, and heal. At Kas-Tales she will perform on Friday and lead two workshops on Saterday.
James Canvin (Eng)
James Canvin is a storyteller based in Epsom, Londen. Since 2014, he has been sharing dynamic retellings of myths, folktales and wonder tales wherever people are willing to listen. Drawing largely on British and European traditions, his stories are filled with gods and tricksters, magicians and lovers, and the curious bargains that shape the world.
He has performed at events including Teddington Arts Festival, Kingston Festival of the Spoken Word and Festival at the Edge, and appeared in venues ranging from libraries to storytelling clubs across the UK.
James helped run Surrey Storytellers for a decade, nurturing a thriving local storytelling community.
Shonaleigh Cumbers (Eng)
Shonaleigh is one of Europe’s leading storytellers. Having learned the Drut’syla tradition from the age of four, she carries thousands of oral stories from the Jewish tradition and shares their magic, mystery and wisdom with audiences around the world.
She is an experienced and highly skilled performer, a passionate advocate for the development of storytelling as a cultural and educational tool, and an associate lecturer in the University of Derby’s Creative Writing department. She is also Artistic Director of the House of the West Wind: College of Storytelling.
Shonaleigh has performed at storytelling festivals and events in Europe, America and Australasia as well as working with acclaimed organisations including the BBC, Hull Truck Theatre and The International Conference of World Affairs. She is also a co-founder of the Step Up Commission, which offers mentoring, funds and support to an emerging wordsmith performer.
For many years, Shonaleigh has shared the techniques of the Drut’syla storytelling tradition with students from across the globe. However, she is probably the last carrier of this age-old tradition.
The Drut’syla repertoire comprises twelve interlinked cycles, each of several hundred tales. Training also involves a complex system of oral memorisation, visualisation and interpretation (midrash) of tales.
Shonaleigh has been active mainly as a professional storyteller to a secular public. By contrast with rabbinical and official Jewish narrative tradition, documentation of the oral Drut’syla tradition is sparse, and much about it remains obscure.
Simon Heywood (Eng)
Simon Heywood holds a PhD on contemporary storytelling from Sheffield University’s National Centre for English Cultural Tradition. He is the author of 'The Legend of Vortigern' (History Press, 2012) and 'South Yorkshire Folktales' (with Damien Barker, History Press 2014). He has toured nationally and internationally in live and contemporary storytelling, and created original commissions for Festival at the Edge and the Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival.
He won Best Collaboration at the 2012 British Awards for Storytelling Excellence, with Tim Ralphs. He won Best Documentary Award 2005 at the Strasbourg Film Festival for 'Contempt of Conscience,' with Joe Jenkins. He has published research and review articles, and prose fiction, poetry, and translations; edited the UK Society for Storytelling's quarterly magazine; contributed to a number of CDs; and given numerous conference papers and other academic presentations. His original songs and music have been covered by nationally and internationally acclaimed folk and traditional bands, including Albireo, Crucible and Melrose Quartet, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
He is currently engaged in original research on modern and historical Jewish storytelling and oral tradition. He teaches on the single and joint honours pathways in Creative and Professional Writing and is year and admissions tutor. His teaching is focused on the practical applications of traditional knowledge to creative thinking and problem-solving.
Veva Gerard (NL)
Veva Gerard is een professioneel opgeleide concertpresentatrice, voordrachtkunstenaar, actrice en verhalenvertelster. Haar opleiding Storytelling aan de Podiumacademie Lier (B) wordt zo druk bezocht door cursisten uit Vlaanderen en Nederland, dat ze fulltime docent verhalen vertellen is.
Voor FEST of de Federation for European Storytelling werkte ze aan een competentiemodel voor oral storytelling en ontwikkelde ze een bijhorende toolbox om met dit model aan de slag te gaan. Hierover gaf ze internationale lezingen en verdiepende masterclasses.
Maar natuurlijk staat ze ook graag zelf op het podium, bij voorkeur samen met haar zus Nele, die professioneel folkmuzikant is en Veva vaak begeleidt op haar diatonische accordeon. Samen vormen ze dan ‘Zus en Zo’.
Op Kas-Tales echter treedt ze solo op, gebruik makend van haar charme, prettige stem, sprankelende teksten en sierlijke bewegingen laat ze haar publiek ademloos luisteren.
https://vevagerard.wixsite.com/info and www.podiumacademielier.be
Tom van Outryve (NL)
Voor Tom van Outryve uit België is de wereld een groot podium vol leven waar hij iedereen die hij ontmoet, raakt met vreugde en gelach. Hij pikt verhalen snel op en behandelt ze als hete jongleerballen die hij meteen wil doorgeven. Hij leeft in het moment, draagt zijn gevoelens en intenties trots op zijn borst en zegt wat hij denkt.
Als verhalenverteller en creatief ondernemer werkt Tom als freelancer voor verschillende verenigingen in Vlaanderen en Brussel. Zelf ontwikkelt hij heel wat projecten - zowel solo als met anderen - en coacht hij jong en oud onder het motto: 'Change through stories'. Door zijn ervaring als jeugd- en sociaal werker te combineren met zijn passie voor verhalen en theater brengt Tom zijn verhalen voor kinderen en volwassenen op een eigen, interactieve en dynamische manier tot leven.
Tom speelde in Vlaanderen en Brussel, Nederland, Denemarken, Polen, Maleisië, Zweden, Singapore, Dubai, Engeland, Schotland, Wales, Finland, Noorwegen en IJsland. Hij speelde in bars, op festivals, in theaterzalen, in de natuur... al dan niet met collega-vertellers of artiesten van verschillende pluimage.
Mieke Aalderink (NL)
Mieke Aalderink is sinds jaar en dag op zoek naar verhalen. Van jongs af aan zat ze uren in de bibliotheek op zoek naar het juiste boek.Ze kwam thuis met enorme stapels en zat er het liefst mee in de tuin, onder de appelboom. Oude verhalen, sprookjes, humor, verhalen die zich afspeelden in verre oorden, geheimzinnige kastelen, ruige natuur of onder water. Het maakte niet uit.
Sindsdien is er niet veel veranderd. De stapels boeken zijn nog net zo hoog. De verhalen net zo divers, maar nu vertelt ze die ook. Al jaren. Verhalen met een link naar het nu, een wijze of onwijze les of gewoon ter ontspanning. De ene keer uit een boek, de andere keer verzint ze ze zelf. Met het grootste plezier, voor jong en oud.
Mieke geniet wanneer ze publiek kan meelokken in de verbeelding van een verhaal. Waar? Op vertelfestivals als Kas-Tales en Alden Biesen (B), in scholen en instellingen, in de tuin en in het bos, in zaaltjes en huiskamers, binnen en buiten.
Meer weten? Je bent van harte welkom op www.verteller.com.