The Art of a Story

When was the last time you had someone tell you a story?
Perhaps as a child as you drifted off to sleep?

I was invited by the Yellow Springs Storytellers, Jonatha & Harold Wright, to attend an event organized by Kevin Cordie (creator of the Story Box Project), and the guest storyteller was Native American Dovie Thomason . Little did I know at the time she is "an award-winning storyteller..recognized internationally for her ability to take her listeners back to the "timeless places" that she first "visited" as a child, hearing old Indian stories from her Kiowa Apache and Lakota relatives, especially her Grandma Dovie and her Dad."
Oh yes, it's true, I listened and was taken back to a timeless place,
mesmerized by the words and lost in the stories.
I shall never sweep the floor and not think of her Grandma looking like Geronimo with a perm wielding a broom like a weapon and muttering at the dirt in the corners, fighing the dirt and wondering aloud why white folks built houses where we have to fight the dirt all our lives.

You can hear a sample of her story "mice make peace" on this page.

The Art of Boosting Creativity
The European Union has declared 2009 the year of Creativity and Innovation with the focus on boosting creativity, "Imagine. Create. Innovate."

Here is a sample of some of the projects:Video games that educate young people about human rights. Language-learning kits for international truck drivers. Local culinary traditions revived thanks to tourism. Art as a tool for economic development and social integration.
One of the debates they will present is "cultural diversity as a source of creativity and innovation".

Which brings me back to my night listening to this oglala lakota storyteller called Dovie.
Different culture, different time, yet her stories addressed universal themes of the human condition . How those universal themes are approached is unique in each culture, and that is where the magic begins, that is where we learn to think outside the box.

20 Tips for Boosting Creativity