Maybe you thought you’d missed it but, actually, it hasn’t happened yet.
The annual Yukon International Storytelling Festival is taking place later than usual this year and will be at the Yukon Arts Centre from Oct. 3 to 5.
International storyteller Laura Simms will be joining Yukoners Ivan Coyote, Sharon Shorty, Celia McBride, Luc Laferte, Kim Beggs, Kevin Barr, June Cable and Arlin McFarlane.
The festival is happening in the fall in order to better suit Yukon audiences and performers who often have other commitments during the summer months.
“Summer was ideal for tourists but not for locals,” said festival board member Lil Grubach-Hambrook.
She explained that for the first 16 years the festival was also held outdoors but after a couple of windy and chilly years, and memories of Venezuelan vocalist Eliana Cuevas having to perform wearing a winter coat in June, the decision was taken to move the festival to the Yukon Arts Centre theatre.
“October makes sense. Indoors. Great sound quality. Next to the college. Ample parking. Buses go right to the parkade.”
A regular presence at the festival, Whitehorse resident Arlin McFarlane plans to tell stories this year about Old Raven Woman, Big Boy Montana and Zinnia, a trio of characters who have proved popular with past audiences.
Her actual performance, however, says McFarlane, tends to change each time.
“I like to look at what’s of interest to me in life around the time of the festival and fill that need,” she said, adding that she also likes to respond to the audience as she goes along rather than strictly follow a script.
She’s thinking, too, about experimenting by telling the same story twice – once through words and once through film.
With proved success as a director, filmmaker, choreographer and voice and acting instructor, McFarlane sees herself primarily as a storyteller.
Performance, she says, comes more naturally to her than writing her stories down and getting them published.
“I really would call myself a storyteller and different stories seem to me to need different mediums. I love storytelling because it’s the cheapest medium,” she says.
“Making stories is a fantastic thing. It’s not easy some of the time.”
Likening her artistic life to a dance, McFarlane says: “I try to keep in the air and it’s sometimes a very demanding dance, keeping up in the air. But it is such fun.”
Other artists joining in with the festival fun will be Theatre de la Cohue and Acrofolie from Montréal, described as a mixed media ensemble in the French artistic theatre vein, and Ache Brasil from Vancouver, a group of Capoeira dancers and musicians, along with town crier Daniel Richer from Ottawa, Cathleen Thom from Vancouver, Evalyn Parry from Toronto and Tanya Tagaq from the Northwest Territories.
