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| 25th Annual NJ Storytelling Festival at Howell Living History Farm |
A simple
phone call. A batch of handwritten letters. A beautiful afternoon. Voilà: a
storytelling festival.
That in short is how the first New
Jersey Storytelling Festival got started 25 years ago when the educational
director of Allaire Village, Kit Crippen—fresh from a trip to the national
festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee—dialed Julie Della Torre with a
proposition. She wanted New Jersey to have its own version.
“She knew
the logistics. I knew the tellers,” says Julie, who got to work sending letters
of invitation to all the tellers she knew to promote the idea of showcasing New
Jersey tellers and to give a those just starting out as tellers a chance to
test their skills in public.
Twenty-five
years later, the effort is firmly planted. This year the
event was held September 16 in its fourth location, at the Howell Living
History Farm near Lambertville. It took many more phone calls to get it
arranged. More than a flurry of e-mails. Another beautiful afternoon.
Visitors sat
on hay bales, benches or chairs at four different locations where rolling
farmland and animals filled out the vistas. Howell Farm staff said it was the
biggest crowd they had seen on a September Saturday, with an estimated 250
people who strolled from site to site to enjoy stories.
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| Julie Pasqua at the 25th annual NJ Storytelling Festival |
Some things
have changed, some have stayed the same. For many years the festival has offered
morning workshops for tellers, educators, and all interested in story. A Story
Slam was introduced more than five years ago to kick off the afternoon’s
festivities.
The number
of tellers is bigger—some 40 tellers now. Individuals as well as teams from
swap groups sign up for 45-minute slots over the afternoon. Bigger, yet its
roots have stayed the same: a venue for storytellers from novice to
professional.
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| Julie Della Torre telling at the festival. (photos by Ken Galipeau) |
Although
Julie gave up the reins to running the festival after about ten years,
Storytelling Arts’ tellers have continued to be involved as tellers, workshop
leaders, and festival committee members. For a time the festival was affiliated
with the Folk Project, a music and dance association, and Julie Pasqual
attended meetings to keep communication between parties flowing. Helen Wise
served as liaison with Grounds For Sculpture. I’ve served on the festival
planning committee since 2005.
And in what might be
seen as a fitting bookend to starting the festival, Julie Della Torre, with
co-presenter Paula Davidoff, kicked off this year’s celebration of story
leading the morning workshop. “Gleaning Insight from Critical Moments: Working
Below and Between the Lines of an Oral Text” introduced new tellers and
fortified practiced ones—more than 40 interested participants—with a deeper
understanding of the storytelling tradition.
