connecting stories: 07/12/11

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

My other Summer Job

This summer the Boston Public Library features Norah Dooley telling stories from from around the world, around the branches and neighborhoods of Boston. This is in conjunction with their annual Summer Reading Program. Spoken word is the source and sustenance of written language and oral stories, in performance, make that connection come alive. All performances are free and open to the public, July 6th thru August 15th.

One World, Many Stories

Norah Dooley performs in Boston Public Libraries as featured storyteller for Summer Reading 2011
Norah tells timeless folk tales from around the world. Her stories make audiences sing, laugh, and think. Noodleheads, legends, tricksters, and heroines are well represented as Norah shares engaging
traditional tales from Haiti to India, from Japan to Costa Rica, and from the Mediterranean traditions of Italy, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Algeria –including Mullah Nasreddin stories.

"Art ...enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light."

"Why do we sacrifice so much energy to our art? Not in order to teach others but to learn with them what our existence, our organism, our personal and unrepeatable experience have to give us; to learn to break down the barriers which surround us and to free ourselves from the breaks which hold us back, from the lies about ourselves which we manufacture daily for ourselves and for others; to destroy the limitations caused by our ignorance and lack of courage; in short, to fill the emptiness in us: to fulfill ourselves. Art is neither a state of the soul (in the sense of some extraordinary, unpredictable moment of inspiration) nor a state of man (in the sense of a profession or social function). Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light." --Jerzy Grotowski