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Patricia Bathurst, Special for The Republic August 3, 2005 Liz Warren has a story she'd like to tell you. In fact, the southeast Phoenix resident and South Mountain Community College faculty member has several. Several hundred, that is. Warren, 51, is a professional storyteller, one of the staff members of South Mountain Community College's nationally recognized Storytelling Institute. She's just returned from six weeks of teaching storytelling as part of Mesa Community College's Study Abroad -- Ireland program, which took place this year in Athlone, County Westmeath. Storytellers, though, don't just teach. They tell stories. So Warren did much more in Ireland than teach the art of storytelling. She spent an afternoon telling tales to kindergarten and first-grade students who were taking part in a summer program at the Ballinasloe Public Library. And, she performed at the 17th annual Cultra Storytelling Festival at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. The museum sits on 177 acres in County Down and includes cottages, farmhouses -- even a small town -- that were moved to the site, re-creating the Ulster landscape of the early 1900s. "I'd always imagined that, in Ireland, storytellers would have sat next to the kitchen fire to tell their stories," Warren said. "But the first afternoon I told (stories), I was in the parlor of the bank manager's house, which was attached to the bank." Cultural differences presented a small dilemma for Warren at this festival. "I knew that, traditionally, Irish storytellers do not tell family or personal stories. And a big part of my repertoire is family stories." After long thought, Warren resolved her dilemma by considering the foundation of storytelling. "The heart of storytelling is the connection between the storyteller and the listener," she explained. "People relate to the storyteller. Storytellers look their audiences in the eye, and sometimes they address people individually. The more you put yourself into the storytelling, the more powerful the story is." Warren, one of the founders of South Mountain Community College's Storytelling Institute and a professor there, has a wide range. Her stories include folk tales, fairy tales and myths, including epics such as Gilgamesh and The Story of the Grail (her recording of that epic received a "Parents' Choice" recommendation). The heart of her storytelling, though, lies in her tales of Arizona, and what it was like to grow up in the 48th state. A fourth-generation Arizonan, Warren's stories have titles like The Badge, Eating Memories (it's about Thanksgiving, folks, not a relative), Ballerina Eyelashes, The Path of Truth and The Calf Scramble. "When I was a little girl," Warren recounts, "my favorite place in the whole world was Skull Valley, Arizona. That was where my grandmother lived, and when I visited her ..." But that's another story. You just can't do justice to Warren's tales in a print format. To appreciate her skill, you must hear the oratory. The second day of the festival, Warren did get to be "the storyteller by the fire," sitting next to a small peat fire in the kitchen of a little thatched farmhouse called Cruckacladdy Farmhouse. Her Irish audiences there thrilled to stories about Warren's childhood adventures in Skull Valley and more tales of the "Wild West." "In other words," Warren explained, "I was the novelty act." Upcoming events Aug. 12: 7 p.m. Liz Warren and Don Doyle. An evening of Irish stories for Lughnasadh (the Celtic harvest festival) at the Irish Cultural Center, 1106 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. Sept. 16-18: White Mountain Storytelling Festival, Show Low (at the Festival Marketplace). Event opens at 6 p.m. Friday evening with Wild West stories around the campfire. Featured storytellers include cowboy poet Chriss Isaacs, African-American storyteller Madison Walker and singer-storytellers Sue Harris and Dean Cook. Also featuring Jim Easterbrook, Martin Rivera, Don Doyle and Wyatt Earp. Oct. 28-29: Mesa Storytelling Festival. Eight nationally known storytellers including David Novak, Elizabeth Ellis, Eth-Noh-Tec, Bil Lepp, Olga Loya, Barbara McBride-Smith, Willy Claflin and Lyn Ford in a weekend festival presented by the Mesa Center for the Performing Arts at the Centennial Center, 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. CAPTION: 1. Liz Warren of Phoenix just got back from a six-week visit to Ireland with Mesa Community College Study Abroad -- Ireland. CAPTION: 2. Liz Warren of Phoenix just got back from a six-week visit to Ireland with Mesa Community College Study Abroad -- Ireland. |
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