Voyageur Storytelling in Ontario, Canada

Your Gateway to the Web Site of Voyageur Storytelling

Leslie Robbins-Conway and Paul Conway

including our own work, Canadian Storytelling and Storytelling Art more widely

Welcome! And thank you for visiting our site.

You are now poised to learn about

Voyageur Storytelling

located in Northern Bruce Peninsula (Ontario, Canada)

"Charging the Batteries of the Imagination"

**Country Supper Storytelling Concerts **Storytelling Chapbooks**

**Northern Bruce Peninsula Shakespearean Festival**

**Canadian Storytelling Exposé**Storytelling Art**

**House Concerts**Chordelle Concerts **Community Storytelling**

**Country Supper Recipes**

Scroll down to learn more

Our Gateway Picture this summer is Bouche Rieuse (Laughing Mouth) by Alfred Pellan, painted in 1935 and acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in 1950. We post it here in the hope that you will bring your bouche rieuse to our Country Supper Storytelling Concerts ("Roads Taken" and "Sounds Like a Circus") this summer, confident that we will fill it with an ample supper, lively conversation around the harvest table, and diverse tastes of enjoyment by means of our stories, songs and poetry.

Country

Suppers

Chapbooks

Shake

-speare

Canadian

Storytelling

Concert

Repertoire

What's Happening?

Hot Flash! The Bear Walls of Ferndale have awakened.

(Paul painted one of the bears, enlarged here)

Announcement!

Our Canadian Storytelling Exposé is now presentable and improving every day. (In this case "Exposé" means simply an orderly arrangement of facts.)

We have so far identified 365 "conspicuous Canadian storytellers", 72 Groups, and 29 Festivals. These, we believe, constitute "Canadian Storytelling" at the higher and highest levels. We want to understand and document the phenomenon as a whole.

We will publish the results in our Exposé. Find it here:

2012 Summer Season

Our 2011 (10th) Summer Season of Country Supper Storytelling Concerts came to a close in mid-September. We thank all those delightful people who graced our table and parlour, and look forward to our next meeting.

Both Supper Plans and Concert Plans for 2012 are ready. We open mid-June, and will be performing scheduled concerts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings. Other evenings are available for groups.

As we did last year, we will open and close the season with Shakespeare.

Polymath Classicist Appears!

Are you aware that in addition to Alfred Pelland, us, and myriad other wonders, Canada's (and specifically Peterborough, Ontario's) cultural galaxy now boasts the world's only formally recognized Polymath Classicist? The relationship between storytelling (Voyageur style) and polymathical classics (in the only style so far established) is close, not only artistically and culturally (essential as these are), but personally: the featured p.c. is Patrick Conway, Paul's son, recently relocated from Edmonton, Alberta. Patrick has formed an association with the Canadian Canoe Museum (another link with the Voyageur ethos), and is working on other initiatives.

Who We Are & What We Do

We are Leslie Robbins-Conway and Paul Conway, Chef-Storytellers ...

We perform Country Supper Storytelling Concerts at our home in Northern Bruce Peninsula each summer ... Our brand-new 2012 Summer Concerts are now designed and will be ready for our opening in mid-June ... Contact Us for Reservations and Directions or further information, etc.

We write stories, light verse, plays and other forms of literary recreation, and collect them into "Performances in Print" ... We publish our Recipes, at long last (thanks for your patience) ...

We produce festivals and events, most notably the Northern Bruce Peninsula Shakespearean Festival, from time to time ...

We research and publish the Canadian Storytelling Exposé, a unique perspective on the whole phenomenon. We also publish our Repertoire, our own contribution to it.

We perform other forms of storytelling concert when invited, or when opportunity arises ...

We have done other things, and still know how to do them, when we get the chance ...

Our Repertoire consists of both stories (broadly defined) and storytelling concerts, and we like to talk about our work, not only to tell stories, but to theorize about them, and particularly about Canadian Storytelling as a genre in its own right ...

We enjoy good company and conversation, essential to the Voyageur Storytelling Experience, as we hope this web site amply demonstrates ...

We live on 100 acres of productive (at least for walking and talking) land on Bruce Peninsula, of which we try to be good stewards ...

We live with a dog and a cat, of whom we take pictures and about whom we occasionally write ...

Leslie teaches Hebrew and Jewish Life and helps to lead services at Beth Ezekiel Synagogue in Owen Sound, and pursues her life-long interest in Jewish stories, culture, and values ...

Leslie volunteers with the Canadian Cancer Society ...

Paul is on sabbatical from volunteering, getting back into writing, composing, and arranging our concerts ...

We are politically active: Leslie for the Green Party of Grey Bruce and in the most recent Provincial election, for the independent campaign of Shane Jolley; Paul, who refuses to join any party (finding both merit and flaws in all of them) by personal political agitation ...

We are no longer young, not yet old. We are reasonably healthy for our years, although a bit creaky here and there. We have children and grandchildren in distant and not-so-distant places. We have a widely scattered extended family. We live in a beautiful place. We have good neighbours, and many friends. We have a truly excellent dog, and a geriatric cat. We have enough to get by. We keep busy in interesting ways. Life is good.

Note: if you are rambling around this site, and run into pages that don't work, or images that are missing, or broken links, or other apparent oddities or irritations, please send us an e-mail, tell us about the problem, and we'll fix it. Our apologies for any inconvenience. If you are wondering why this web site is designed the way it is, then you may be interested in our Explanation.

A Little More Detail on Some Subjects

with links to more

Click on the icon for each subject and the whole picture will unfold before your very eyes.

	Country Supper Storytelling Concerts Good Food, Good Listening, and Good Company in Northern Bruce Peninsula For 2012, our 11th Season, we are offering two concerts (and our Sabbath concert by special arrangement): one featuring circuses, the other journeying. We are planning to open three evenings per week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. We finally realized in 2011 that three evenings in a row is too much for us. We are not happy about losing the Friday Sabbath supper concerts, because we always have some people who enjoy that particular event. What we'll do, therefore, is remain open for groups of four or more on Friday evenings, but only if we have enough notice so that we can cancel Thursday or Saturday. We will also ask for payment in advance on those occasions, because strictly speaking we should not be engaged in finance on the Sabbath. We look forward to seeing you.
	Performances in Print: Voyageur Storytelling Chapbooks "Our catalogue is (fairly) long, through every passion ranging!" We have made a big push this year, and now offer nine titles in our chapbook series... Meet Torque Furbelow; Bear; Enoch Lightning; Oswald Thornybank; all the big names ...
	And now, finally, we have done something about all those requests for our recipes. No, we have not yet published them in a booklet, to be called The Ultimate Doggie Bag, but they are on this web site, and if you click on the voyageurs cooking supper on your left, you will find them.
	Northern Bruce Peninsula Shakespearean Festival The Bard in the clear air! Collective reading of these great plays ... A whole new experience of the greatest dramatic Master of them all ... We are working our way through the repertoire: nine plays presented so far ... This past summer, to open and close the season: Love's Labour Lost, and All's Well That Ends Well ...
	Canadian Storytelling A new idea and activity for us: watch it bloom in the months ahead ... It has two parts: our Repertoire (of concerts and stories), and our Exposé of Canadian Storytelling. We will continue to expand our knowledge of and contributions to Canadian Storytelling. We will strive to engage other storytellers in the endeavour. We will particularly celebrate those Canadian Storytellers and groups who are pushing the boundaries. We will encourage others to join the conversation ...
	House Concerts and Other Performances We do, or have done, several other things besides these, but if we list them all on this page it gets too long. So we made a new page. On this list are: House Concerts, Portage Concerts; Chordelle Concerts; Community Storytelling; and some other things too, not as closely related to storytelling.

Thank you for your interest. We hope you enjoy exploring our site.

Sincerely,

Leslie and Paul

Your Hosts: Leslie Robbins-Conway and Paul Conway

56 Brinkman's Road, R.R. 1

Miller Lake , Ontario N0H 1Z0

Canada

Tel: (519) 795-7477

E-Mail: mail@voyageurstorytelling.ca

Voyageur Storytelling, May 2012