Presenter: Lona Bartlett

Including puppetry in your programming can be simple but have a big impact; you don’t need a puppet stage and the puppet doesn’t even need a voice. Come learn about using puppetry to accent your performances. It’s a great technique to use to tell in tandem, pull in audience members, or to simply capture attention. Open Face Puppetry also has endless possibilities for classroom management, teaching concepts, telling a story, and including those who would otherwise not participate. You will walk away with manipulation techniques, proper care of your puppets, puppetry vocabulary, resources, and ideas for using puppets in your performances, classroom, or library.

Presenter: Judith Black

A workshop for Climate Activists on creating and shaping short stories from your life that can be used as a bridge of communication, an opportunity to introduce people to issues they are unaware of, or as a base to envision and inspire change.  Facts are important, but what a legislator or neighbor will remember is the story.  Come with an anecdote from your life that inspired you to be an agent for change, or anecdotes that point to the necessity for change.

Presenters: Michele Carlo, Jamie Brickhouse, Robin Bady

Have a story you just can't get right no matter how you tinker with it? Or those napkin scribbles you've been saving for "the right time?" Well, the right time is NOW. At StoryLAB, three renowned NYC personal and traditional storytellers will give you the guidance and inspiration you need to break through.

Bring us a slam-length (no longer than 6 minutes) story and you'll leave with something better than what you came in with. Plus, each session will be recorded and sent to you as an mp3 file, so you can revisit it at your convenience.

Presenter: Karen Chace

Come ready to move, play and get your students hooked on story! Participate in a variety of innovative activities in voice, gesture, and body language based on my book Story by Story and 17 years teaching a successful storytelling program. These activities will improve your story landscape and story characters, and assist teaching artists and educators who currently work with students. All of the activities build upon each other and can be easily incorporated into other areas of your work. Teachers will also find these activities very useful in the classroom to assist their students with writing activities.

Presenter: Linda Schuyler Ford

Fun. Purpose. Those are the two buzz words of every activity professional we know. During this fast paced workshop, you'll gather up ideas-and confidence-to include fun and purposeful storytelling activities on your recreation calendar. Add therapeutic storytelling games, behavior management, and diversion, too. You'll be pleased and amazed by the level of engagement you'll see at all levels of care. And, because resident interaction is everyone's job, we're sharing storytelling activities for the inter-disciplinary team. Take home storytelling props, ideas, confidence, enthusiasm! We'll even include care plan/service plan samples.

This program is perfect for: activity professionals, nurses, nurses' aides, social workers and administrators in nursing homes, assisted living communities, and senior centers.

Presenter: Jackson Gillman

When a song tells a good story, sometimes instrumentation, extra refrains, or even a steady rhythm, can just get in the way. Jackson will demonstrate some delivery choices which enable the song’s story to have more impact. Most of the workshop will allow participants to bring songs to experiment with, and explore performance options for how best to let the story be told.

Presenter: Judith Heineman

Bring your audience up close and personal, right into your story, sharing your space on stage and feeding them character lines seamlessly. This participatory technique will delight audiences and enhance engagement, especially if children are involved. Discover new interpretations of the story in real time in surprising and engaging ways. Everyone will have a chance to try out this interactive  technique. We will work singly and in groups.

Presenter: Muriel Horowitz

Almost two decades of intentionally sharing stories around a virtual “dining room table” has forged strong personal relationships and understandings among people of diverse faiths.  Learn how co-founders of the Dutchess County Interfaith Story Circle created a space  for Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha’i  and others to regularly share stories. Experience an interfaith story circle, learn how to bring this to your community, hear about “ah ha” moments that make a difference and discover ways to cultivate deep listening skills.  Participants will leave with tools to begin a story circle and lists of story resources and theme possibilities.

Presenters: Linda Marchisio and Carrie Robinson

Whether you need to calm down and focus before you tell that new story, loosen up after a long car ride to a job, or energize before stepping on stage, a few gentle movement warm-ups can do the trick. This session is centered on mindfulness and ways to adapt suggested stretches to match your own needs and your own body. Participate in guided movement, stretches, and breathing exercises that are simple and enjoyable.  We will also spend some time engaging in imaginative play, simply for the self-healing fun of it. This workshop offers a chance to reinvigorate and relax.

Presenter: Jennifer Munro

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn valuable strategies that lead to the creation of stories that have meaning and significance.  Working with story endings and powerful story prompts, you will discover those “five-second moments” when you learned something that in some fundamental way changed your understanding about yourself, someone else, or the world.  Once you have discovered this moment, you will work backwards to uncover the narrative arc of your story.

Presenter: Sherry Norfolk

What is a Storytelling Teaching Artist and how can you be one? What are the essential skills, knowledge, attitude and aptitude to be successful as a Teaching Artist?  Storytelling is both an art form and a teaching tool and as tellers, we perform on both tracks simultaneously as we transform education through storytelling.

Presenter: Joey Novick

In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn the skills needed to take your current stories to the corporate market -- how to develop and find corporate meetings, trade associations and industry conferences that need you to be their keynote speaker, provide a Ted talk type of program, or be an inspirational at a company meeting.  You also learn how to develop and create your own market niche for your stories and find a corporate sponsor to sponsor your story. You'll leave the workshop with a pragmatic professional plan.

Presenters: Jennifer Pahl Otto and Eileen DeLorenzo

Tandem Storytelling Performance requires making room for each other for the benefit of the shared story. Developing a successful Tandem Partnership requires mutual respect and empathy between both performers while gauging individual personalities, styles and perspectives. This hands-on workshop joyfully celebrates the process of bringing a story from “yours” and “mine” to “ours” through mutual respect and a willingness to see the work from the other person’s point of view. This refreshing presentation reflects on the effort and awareness needed to simultaneously blend space, voice, and pause - creating a story more meaningful and accessible than with one voice alone.

Presenter: Laura Packer

The world is hungry for your stories, but what do you need to know to make it as a working artist? It isn’t enough to be a good storyteller. To be a working artist, one who makes enough money to live on her work, you need to know how to identify your target audiences, market to them, build a brand, take care of yourself, celebrate success. and learn from failure. You need to be resilient. This hands-on workshop will help you learn how to survive and even thrive as a working artist. Expect to plan, write, talk, think, and listen.

Presenter: Karianna Rosenberg

Come enjoy an experiential workshop that will stimulate all of your senses, give you a new resource for character development through animal and bird communication, all while being a catalyst for change for the betterment of the Earth! What we have a relationship with, we tend to respect more and take care of it. The more people we can help connect with nature, the greater number will respect and care for all her marvelous and beautiful diversity. Awaken and deepen your own connection to nature so your relationship becomes palpable and is transferred through the stories to your listeners.

Presenter: Fran Stallings

We know that stories teach content and concepts. Go even further by spinning off classroom activities based on the stories! We will experience field-tested examples and practice creating our own story-based activities that foster language arts, reading, STEM and geography. We'll discuss difficulty levels and age-level appropriateness. Fran brings us her years of work in classrooms, especially in work with second graders. She will also share tips for working with 5^th graders.  She found that their standardized test scores rose dramatically when they practiced story analysis and retelling.