Wednesday, May 19, 2010

2010 Darwin Storyteller Profiles

Under the Banyan tree: Darwin Storytelling Festival 2010
Storyteller Profiles


Alexandra McCallum




Alexandra McCallum told her first stories sitting on the peeling lino of her family’s kitchen floor. In twelve years experience enthralling audiences around Australia, she has been a featured teller at National festivals in Brisbane, Perth and Tasmania and has also told in the Queensland Art Galleries Asia Pacific Triennial, the Museum of Brisbane and the University of Queensland. She has told in numerous libraries, schools kindergartens and community centres and has a often used story on projects which link communities of different ages and backgrounds. As a community cultural development worker she has particular experience working with young people (including young people at risk and those with special needs) and in cross cultural environments.
She brings a background in theatre and an addiction to words and eight years experience in the community sector to bear on her active welcoming workshops.

Gail Robinson




Gail Robinson is an accomplished community consultant and professional storyteller with over 25 years of professional practice. Gail works both cross-culturally and across artforms, exploring storytelling practices. Her work creates a network of narrative discovery. She delights in making the ordinary become extraordinary! Her work embodies performances, workshops, management/ facilitation of cultural development projects, story creation conference presentations and conference ‘weaving’! Each of Gail’s storytelling performances is a unique experience! Whether based on myth, folk-tales, gathered stories or her own stories, each listener can…expect the unexpected… expect to laugh, expect to learn …expect to be entranced!




Lillian Rodrigues-Pang
Storyteller, Writer, Percussionist.
Prepare to be entertained!
A dramatic, involved and passionate storyteller, Lillian is a pleasure to witness. Born to a Native American Indian mother and Portuguese father right here in Australia. Lillian grew on the food of story.
As a story performer Lillian captivates her audience. With recent theatre, street theatre, cabaret, national folk festival, school and conference appearances Lillian's performance list is impressive. Themes related to culture, mythology, identity, language, caring for oneself and each other, acceptance and sheer floating joy are interwoven into her performance. Lillian is a performer who can adapt to any stage, developing a magical connection with the audience as she involves them and draws then into the world of story.
Although it is working with story that feeds Lillian's passion for stories in our ordinary and extraordinary lives. Throughout her life Lillian has found that story has woven its threads; as an economist, a career of a brother with mental illness, a woman, a mother, a youth worker and language teacher – story has remained her soul food. Lillian works with the true essence of story – energy, community and sharing with people of all ages and cultures.


Kiran Shah



Kiran Shah has been a professional storyteller since 1999 and together with Sheila Wee, has been instrumental in reviving the oral tradition of storytelling in Singapore. Apart from working locally in schools, museums, theatres, parks and for various government ministries in Singapore, Kiran has also performed internationally at the Australian National Storytelling Festival in Brisbane and Perth, at the Children’s Storytelling Festival in Jakarta and at the Skye and Lochalsh Storytelling Festival in Scotland.
Kiran enjoys telling stories to anyone, anywhere. She can tell to 1,600 children at an assembly programme and to just four in another setting. Kiran enjoys telling a wide variety of stories. She tells stories using props for the youngest listeners, tall tales, personal stories and wisdom tales, that teach without preaching. She is particularly interested in Asian folktales and feels strongly that they must be shared with a younger generation as a way to vappreciate our rich cultural heritage.


Anne E Stewart



Anne is a storyteller for everyone from age two to ninenty-two! She has programs for schools, libraries, art centres, museums, galleries, theatres, historic sites and more. An acclaimed storyteller with an international reputation.
Anne is a versatile performer, with the energy and voice to engage any audience. She regularly conducts sessions related to history, arts and culture for general public, tertiary and secondary audiences. She has a wealth of stories and sessions for primary and pre-primary students.
Her focus is on multi-cultural storytelling, and stories shared between cultures. Along with traditional anglo-celtic stories of Australia's history (for example, the history of Victorian gold fields), Anne also has knowledge and cultural permission to pass on many Indigenous Australian stories.
Anne also brings stories from further across the globe, including Ireland, Africa, Italy, China, Japan, and East Timor.


Verena Tay



Verena Tay brings stories vocally and physically alive in her unique fashion, drawing from her more than twenty years of experience in acting, directing and writing for local English-language theatre in Singapore. A co-founder of MoonShadow Stories (http://www.moonshadowstories.org/), she has been telling stories at community venues across Singapore, much to the delight and enjoyment of adults and children. She has also successfully coached members of the Storytelling Association (Singapore) in the craft of telling stories through her workshop, Beyond Storytelling 101, for three consecutive since 2008. In addition, she is an established writer and voice and speech teacher. For more information about Verena, please visit http://verenatay.com.…


Jesse Windwanderer




Jesse's ambition to be a professional storyteller began when he read
'The Alchemist' at the age of 14, and connected with the idea that the
world helps those who follow their dreams. He completed courses in
story medicine and therapeutic storytelling, worked as an education
assistant at Princess Margaret Hospital and a production assistant for
Theatre d'Espirit, helping children aged 12 to 16 put on plays. He has
done a residency at a School in Jakarta where he helped to enliven
their English program through storytelling, had a story filmed by the
Education Department for their Distance Education Program and performed
at various festivals including Denmark Festival of Voice, Whiteman Park
Ground Water, Fairbridge and Fremantle Festivals, plus many schools and
children's parties. He is the current president of the Storytelling
Guild of Australia (WA) Inc.


Jenny Hill




Jenny Hill is a professional storyteller with extensive experience in performance, education and community projects. Her performances include The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Celtic, Russian and Middle Eastern Tales as well as contemporary ones. She conducts workshops and training programs for both children and adults, and teaches storytelling in the Early Childhood Education course at Notre Dame. As well as a focus on performance Jenny has a deep interest in the therapeutic potential of stories, listening to their resonances, and their reflective qualities. She is co-ordinator of ‘The Story Studio’ and the ‘Storytelling Training Program’ in Perth WA


Mary Lou Keaney



Mary Lou Keaney is known as one of the oldest fairies in the business and one of the most memorable. Having cut her storytelling teeth on pre-school story-times in the Darwin Library, she was ready to take on Melbourne’s first fairy Shop, Wonderwings. She has gone on to create Fairy Lou who is always ready with her wand, wishes and stardust and a fabulous and engaging collection of stories for everyone. But watch out, she is shameless and you will be drawn into the stories.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Under the Banyan Tree: Program


Donna Brown, The Gounge

The Australian Storytelling Guild
Invites you to
Under the Banyan Tree: Darwin Storytelling Festival 2010

Join with Australian and International Storytellers at the following events



Thursday 12th August 2-4pm at the Casuarina Library

The Tamarind Tree Storytelling Session

“.......every time we see a tamarind tree, we know the Macassans were here.”
Narrator, Ten Canoes

Like those early traders to the Territory we are coming with our stories. Myths, legends and folktales from around the world will reflect Darwin’s vibrant multicultural population. Storytellers will trade stories as one story inspires another. Who knows where the afternoon will take us?

Fri 13th Aug 7pm Casuarina Library

Spirits of the Night: Story Telling Concert

Many cultures around the world are superstitious about the number 13, particularly when it falls on a Friday. It is associated with the moon and spirits that roam at night. Ghosts are known to appear, supernatural events take place all regaled to you when Australian and International Storytellers share their stories of the “Spirits of the Night.”
(Not suitable for young children)



Sat 14th Aug 3-5pm Tree of Knowledge Banyan Tree, Civic Park

Under the Banyan Tree: A Storytelling Show for the family.

The old Banyan tree is known as Darwin’s tree of Knowledge and there are many stories of its social and historic importance. Always a meeting place, we again invite families to come together and listen.
Paying respects to the grand old tree we will tell of nature and its creatures and the wisdom of listening and caring for our environment. You might even see a fairy or two in its branches.




Sun 15th Aug 5-6.30pm NT Library

Stories from A Broad: Storytelling, the Territory, East Timor and me
Anne E Stewart
For over 30 years Anne E Stewart has practised her art and says the ‘soul’ came into her storytelling in the Northern Territory. These formative years in the 1980’s were spent as Children’s Librarian in the Darwin Library. Since then she has travelled the world sharing her stories. Anne will share some of these experiences, tell some yarns and talk of her connection to East Timor and its people through the death of her brother Tony at Balibo in 1975. You can listen to her ABC documentary “Our Tony at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/360/stories/2009/2571516.htm

Monday, May 3, 2010

Well it’s on, thanks to the enthusiasm and dedication of Darwin Children’s Librarians Rosie Huq and Mary Harmon.

Under the Banyan Tree: Darwin Storytelling Festival 2010 is happening from August 12 – 15th. Having attended a Festival in WA in 2005 and the Gathering Talkfest in Sydney in 2009, Rosie and Mary were keen that the Australian Storytelling Guild head to Darwin.



A fantastic show of storytelling performances has been programmed for the Darwin Festival with lots of other interesting possibilities in the offing.

Festival Producer Anne E Stewart said ,” it’s amazing the support I’ve had from different areas of the Guild and the interest shown from the Darwin Festival Committee and other organisations in the Territory is great.


“We have had a great range of applications; I’m blown away by the diversity and talent of Storytellers in Australia. By including ourselves in the Darwin Festival we will stand along some other major world performers. It’s very exciting.”


Thanks also to Kiran Shan for her support liaising with International tellers