Around & About SMCC
Those Busy Storytellers....
Liz Warren, SMCC Storytelling Faculty, will produce the Mesa Storytelling Festival -- set for Oct. 23 - 25 -- through a partnership between the Mesa Arts Center and SMCC's Storytelling Institute. The festival is one of the largest storytelling festivals in the country. "Producing the festival really brings lots of great exposure for both the college and the institute," Liz says.
On Oct. 23, LynnAnn Wojciechowicz will perform in a festival concert featuring "The Best of the West," with many local tellers, at the Mesa Arts Center. In addition, Sandy Oglesby, a graduate of the Storytelling Institute, will be a featured teller along with seven other nationally known tellers during the Friday and Saturday evening concerts. (Oglesby was recently elected as the Western Region Board Member for the National Storytelling Network).
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Meanwhile, LynnAnn, Director of the SMCC Storytelling Institute, represented the eight-state western region as a teller at the Regional Concert for the National Storytelling Conference in Gatlinburg, TN., in August.
Western region members were asked to nominate storytellers. Judges selected LynnAnn and her story "Jack and the Skinny Coo" -- a folktale from Scotland, to represent the region.
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And back to Liz... who traveled to Ireland this summer as part of MCC's Study Abroad Ireland program. Liz and local storytellers and librarians hosted the first-ever Three Rivers Storytelling Festival. The festival featured several Irish storytellers who told to children in libraries in counties Galway and Westmeath.
In addition, Liz will tell at the annual Tucson Celtic Festival, Nov. 1 and 2 at Rillito Raceway Park in Tucson
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LynnAnn Wojciechowicz (above), Blanca Flor Beaver, and Jennifer Townsley all received of the Excellence in Teaching Award from NISOD. At the conference in Texas, she presented a workshop on "The Power of Story as a Teaching Tool."
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