Storytelling Workshop: “Everybody Gets To Help Me Tell!”

• Event Date: Saturday, November 18, 2006
• Time: 10:00 am–12:00 Noon (CST)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: $30.00 Pre-registration is required

• Workshop

Description by presenter La’Ron Williams:

“I’m not the kind of storyteller who just sits in one spot and does all the talking while you just sit there and don’t do anything . . . I don’t tell stories like that. Everybody here gets to help me tell!” These are the words with which I start all of my storytelling sessions. No matter what age I work with, every story I do is designed to be participatory, to get the audience actively involved. If you believe you’re ready to take the plunge into this exciting style of presentation, but have been worried about exactly how to do it (while keeping your audiences “under control”) then this fun, interactive workshop can certainly help you acquire the skills to take the next step.”

About the Presenter: Over the past few years, La'Ron Williams has earned a reputation as one of the finest storytellers in the state of Michigan. He has a remarkable rapport with audiences of all kinds. Children and adults respond with equal enthusiasm to his warmth and vigor as he uses dialect, facial expressions and movement to breathe life into tales that transcend the boundaries of class and age. Williams is motivated in part by the belief that the power and beauty of African culture should be shared, and that the lessons of struggle, perseverance, and survival of Africans in the Western Hemisphere are part of a legacy we all should recognize and own. Ultimately, he believes that a narrow love of one's own culture is not enough, that we all have to take the time to tell each other our stories—with all the joy and frowns and pain and smiles that they bring. "...We have to come to know and accept the ways in which we are different and become aware of an appreciate the ways in which we're alike, and…we have to use that knowledge not to ascribe hierarchy or to produce winners and losers, but to promote understanding and resolution."

This event is supported in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.