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This is a summary of our Grey-Bruce Chautauqua approach to School Concerts and Projects. If you have seen our flyer, then you can skip the opening remarks in each section. We haven't added a lot of extra detail yet, because these are evolving ideas, but they are starting to take shape.

School Concerts are well-established storytelling events, simple to organize. The storytellers (in this case Leslie and Paul) come to the school on a given day and perform whatever arrangement of concerts best suits the school, its schedule and facilities. School concerts can be arranged for the day or half-day. The repertoire that we would perform would be tailored to the ages of the students, and would be consistent with, but not entirely confined to Chautauqua themes.

School Projects go further to engage the students more integrally in the Voyageur Chautauqua themes of Sense of Community and Sense of Place. We all have stories of how we "came to be" (loaded words) in the community and place where we live. These are "present stories" regardless of their connections with past events. In a School Project we would work through a process with the students to help them create their own "how I came to be here" stories and to tell them to others.

Chautauqua School Concerts

We will shape our Chautauqua School Concerts using our growing store of Grey-Bruce repertoire in age-appropriate forms, drawing on other repertoire where necessary for variety of pace and style, and to keep the whole experience from becoming too single-minded. A "story" in our usage can be a prose narrative (folk or literary tale, or one coming from an oral tradition), poetry, song, or combination. We are particularly recognized for our duet storytelling.

Our Grey-Bruce repertoire for children includes:

> Stories of historical and recent places, people and events;

> Stories of local wildlife;

> Grey-Bruce variations on traditional tales.

Our wider repertoire includes our own and traditional material.

If you have particular interests that you would like us to reinforce, coming from curriculum or other purposes, we would be pleased to adapt if we have enough notice. We are quite adept at that sort of thing, but we are not improvisors. Our style requires some time for preparation.

We use age-appropriate repertoire for primary and junior grades; secondary students are able to enjoy repertoire on an adult level. All repertoire for thi purpose is "school-appropriate," that is, not likely to offend anyone.

Two 45 -60 minute concerts are possible in one half day. Rates are $350 for a half-day, $500 for a full day, for two tellers.

Chautauqua School Storytelling Projects: "How I came to be here ..."

Personal stories, appropriately shaped, serve to enrich sense of community and sense of place both individually and collectively. We have developed a loose framework for organizing these projects, which can be adapted to local needs and circumstances. A Storytelling Project is an organic event, not a package.

Projects can be done with classroom groups, or any group of similar size. They can be done in one session, although they are likely to have more effect if they can extend over two or three sessions. From our point of view they do not need to be confined to Chautauqua week, although some connection would be valuable.

Our framework for Storytelling Projects can include:

> Modelling: We would tell our "How I came to be here ..." stories, and other examples.

> Sharing in Pairs: Students would tell each other their stories, working in pairs.

> Sharing in Groups: Students would tell their pair-partner's story in small, assigned groups.

> Formal telling: Willing volunteers tell 'highlight stories' drawn from the session.

> Conclusion: We sum up the session and conclude with a Grey Bruce Song.

Each Project is a tailored, shaped event and can include teachers' kits for preparation or follow-up. Costs depend on the details of the project.

Storytelling Concerts and Projects: Theory and Practice

We start from the knowledge that storytelling is a natural human activity, dating from the beginning of human time. Its serious purpose is to nurture and communicate our complex understanding of the nature of the world and our relationships with our fellow human beings. Fundamentally storytelling is about sense of place, and sense of community, which are fundamental to each individual's sense and our collective sense of who we are.

The second purpose of storytelling is to entertain. Sometimes in fact that is all it needs to do, but in schools we expect serious purposes to be served, even if there is entertainment in the service.

For example, we tell a story called "How To Talk Bear" which is well received by both children and adults. The situation is simple: a man and a bear share a problem, and they must learn to communicate. They do so, with complete satisfaction to them both. "A sneeze is no, a yawn is yes, and a fair trade makes a friend." This is a humorous story, and can be received on that level, but it holds a lesson: that if we treat wildlife with respect, and try to understand what they are saying to us by their behaviour, then they will treat us with respect. People don't normally respond to bears that way, or rattlesnakes, or all manner of other wildlife. But we do, as do many others of "green" complexion, and enjoy the company of the creatures who live around us.

Respect for others, respect for the land, pride in our community and our place, a properly humble kind of pride in ourselves, an appreciation for the whole of Creation: these are the values that we express in our concerts and projects.

The principal difference between a concert and a project lies in the degree of interaction and the complexity of participation. A storytelling concert is always an interactive medium, but the interaction follows a fairly narrow path, maintaining the distinction between teller and audience, which has many parallels in the distinction, and relationship, between teacher and student. They may interact in the liveliest possible way, but the teacher is always the teacher, and carries a primary responsibility. So too with the teller.

A storytelling project, on the other hand, turns the audience into tellers. The role of the teller lasts only as long as the tale, after which the teller turns back into a member of the audience for the next story, and so it goes. The value of the experience lies only secondarily in the content of the stories and the act of listening. Primarly it lies in the whole process of creation, shaping, communicating and receiving the stories.

We'll leave it at that for the time being. Further ideas will evolve through discussion with schools and will be posted here as they emerge. If you have an questions or comments, please give us a call, or send us an e-mail.

Thank you for reading this page.