MCC-Maple Woods closed out its 11th annual Kansas City Storytelling Celebration with a spectacular performance full of song, story, laughter and lessons. Held Nov. 2-6, 2010, the yearly festival attracted more than 20,000 visitors to over 100 venues in the Kansas City Metro area.
This year’s program featured diversity on many levels, from the guests to the tellers themselves. Seniors, pre-schoolers, school children, adults and members of several cultural backgrounds were all included in the event. There was a rich diversity among the festival’s featured storytellers as well, with the Mexican-American heritage of Olga Loya, the African American history and experience of Bobby Norfolk and Elizabeth Ellis’ portrayal of the more subtle but equally-rich heritage of the American South. Thom and Sarah Howard rounded out the featured line-up with their own take on the local area.
In addition to the line-up of visiting tellers, several regional tellers shared their unique experiences as well. Tellers from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and Missouri embodied the diversity within middle America, from the Native American traditions highlighted by Jim “Two Crows” Wallen, to the Missouri Ozarks aura of Mike and Nancee Micham.
Three new events were added to the festival this year, reaching out to students to share their own stories with a Story Slam open mic night and partnering with one of Kansas City’s museums to enrich local history. The Story Slam event gave students, community members and storytellers alike the opportunity to share their experiences about one of the diverse-yet-shared things: family. Partnering with Kansas City’s unique Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, featured storyteller Bobby Norfolk brought two of the city’s brightest Negro League baseball stars, Satchel Paige and James “Cool Papa” Bell, to life. Olga Loya, sharing stories of her rich Hispanic heritage, gave a special performance at the Mattie Rhodes Art Center, one of Kansas City’s Hispanic culture centers. Loya educated and entertained the audience about the Day of the Dead, one of Latin America’s most-celebrated holidays.
Performances at local libraries, schools, senior centers and Boys & Girls clubs, along with workshops filled out the week-long celebration, which culminated with the festival’s flagship event, the Storytelling Spectacular. Bobby Norfolk, Olga Loya, Elizabeth Ellis and Thom and Sarah Howard performed a family-friendly event with folktales and stories from their very different but still similar backgrounds.
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