Did you know it is World Storytelling Day 20th March?
And this month is overflowing with a variety of enthralling stories which range from the ancestral to the spiritual.
Learn all about the courageous black freedom fighters, the survival of medieval Norwich Churches and about the fall of the great Berlin Wall.
Corinne Jones is here to give us the overview on the month ahead.
4th March at 7pm, Smithsonian: Black and African Art
Come along for a two-part program covering Black and African American art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Which has one of the world’s largest collections of American art and this is an online/virtual version of the popular in-person tours lead at the museum.
8th March at 7pm, Ancestral Voices
Every writer has a beginning spark and finding the kindling to grow the flame is step one. Stories, lived experiences, dreams and ancestral knowledge is kindling at reach. Join Heather O’Watch as she shares her journey into tending to her fire, and offers some kindling to participants.
About Heather:
Heather O’Watch (She/Her) is a Nakoda and Cree woman from the Okanese First Nation in Treaty 4 Territory. She also has paternal ties to Cegakin (Carry The Kettle) First Nation. Heather is currently enrolled in a Master’s Degree in Public Policy (MPP) at the University of Saskatchewan. Heather tends to her passion for storytelling.
14th March at 1pm, That Happens in a Church? How 18 Norwich Churches Survived Change
Medieval Norwich famously had a church for every week of the year – but with church attendance dwindling in the 20th century, many became redundant. How can these flint-faced buildings that give Norwich its iconic look survive? Find out how the Norwich Historic Churches Trust preserves 18 of these former churches, and how its tenants transform them into thriving cultural and community spaces.
March 15th at 6pm, A virtual tour of London's East End
Black freedom fighters travelled to the British Isles during the 19th century to educate audiences about the brutalities of slavery, to write and publish their narratives, raise money to legally purchase themselves or family members, or to settle and work here. In their radical and politicised journeys of freedom, they travelled thousands of miles to give lectures in large cities like London and Edinburgh, to small villages like Bakewell, Keswick and Pembroke.
This tour will be focusing on the sites where African Americans performed, lectured and preached outside the city centre.
16th March 6.30pm, The Prentice Boy
In 1820 London, landscape artist William Daniell hires Jesse Cloud to be his apprentice. But all is not as it seems as their stormy east coast tour reveals. Both William and his prentice must make their own inner journeys to expose others’ betrayals and explore their own possibilities. Faced with bankruptcy, starvation looms. Friendships fragment. The artist must learn how to see and his prentice must learn how to survive – while the truth shatters all.
17th March. 7.30pm, Cherenkov observatory
The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory will be open to the worldwide astronomical and particle physics communities, as a resource to provide unique observations of the unexplored Universe at very high energies.
20th March. 6.30pm, World Storytelling day
It is World Storytelling Day on 20th March and organisers say that ‘worldwide events have made storytellers in society help build community spirit and inspire change’. This talk is about a moment in time when storytelling changed forever.
In this talk Vivien Morgan looks back at the year 1989 when Europe experienced a massive social and political change. As the Berlin Wall fell, it heralded the beginning of the end for Communist era - first in East Germany and then, like dominoes, huge changes rumbled through the whole of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR.
21st March at 2pm, Medieval Precinct of St Paul’s Cathedral
Medieval St Paul’s was a very different cathedral to the building we know and love in the City of London today. It stood taller than any other building, its precinct walls and gates making it a citadel, looking out over the city and the river. This talk by City Guide Jill Finch explores that medieval precinct, the buildings it contained and the events it saw that made history. Join us to find out more.
March 25th at 5pm, Becoming Human
What makes us human? We will explore the similarities and differences between us humans and our closest living relatives in the animal world. Is evolutionary theory sufficient to explain human language, consciousness, society and symbolic culture including art and religion? Was this a purely gradual process or did it involve revolutionary transitions?
March 31st 12 – 1.30pm, Women in Action Online Short Course
Are you a woman aged 19 plus and live in the Liverpool City Region?
Then why not come along to an online free creative workshop where you can build confidence, get to know new people, use your imagination and get your voice heard!
The online course is a fun mix of drama and storytelling and is a fantastic confidence booster for anyone that could use that little lift!
Sign up by emailing Tessa at tessa@collective-encounters.org.uk
And finally another site to explore at your leisure. I was fascinated by the information about the Kavad stories.
Variously spelt, the Khavad, Kavad or Kaavad is a complex storytelling artefact. It is both a shrine, a pilgrimage in a box brought to a patrons’ house through the desert wildernesses of Rajasthan and a genealogy showing the patron’s direct lineage to the gods in the stories decorating the many doors of the box. Read about it using the link below.