The Storytellers and Hosts

Adwoa Badoe, trained as a physician in her native Ghana but has evolved quite naturally into an African Griot, or storyteller. She is an author, storyteller, educator and African dance instructor, and lives currently in Guelph Ontario. She grew up loving the traditional dances of Ghana, West Africa. Her classes and workshops have a unique and infectious vibrancy, capturing the essence of the people, their celebrations and their lives. She has entertained audiences young and old with her storytelling at the Toronto Story Telling Festival; Montreal Story Telling Festival; Eden Mills Writers Festival; Milton Writers Festival; The International Children's Festival of Mississauga; Hillside Festival and was a featured performer at the 2007 Storytellers of Canada conference in Hamilton. (website)

Fulé Badoe has a passion for rhythm and it shows. Born in Ghana, West Africa, Fulé was exposed to the beauty and power of traditional African drumming and dancing from a very early age. Though he trained as an architect, Fulé is now a dynamic facilitator, instructor, educator and motivational speaker. In his instruction of African traditional rhythms to both kids and adults, his belief is that 'We all have rhythm inside of us. We just need to bring it out'. For the past 6 years Fulé has promoted and taught African drumming in elementary schools, colleges and universities in Ontario, where he believes 'rhythm helps to promote focus, self esteem, respect of oneself and others'. His dynamic style and unique teaching approach enable people learn complex African rhythms within a short period of time. Fulé is also a vibrant facilitator for team building and corporate entertainment. Fulé also leads the enegetic and dynamic drum group of JIWANI African Dance & Drum Troupe. (website)

Matthew and Allan Byrne have been playing music around Newfoundland for many years. Allan's live performance showcases a smattering of all the music he has heard, delivered amidst his own unique, tasteful, and tempered guitar playing. The result is an eclectic set that weaves from Bob Dylan to Archie Fisher, Stan Rogers to John Prine. With strong rhythm guitar work and commanding vocals, Matthew's live performance offers a fresh take on traditional as well as contemporary folk songs. Born into a family of music makers, their roots lie in resettled Placentia Bay and their repertoire is heavily influenced by the folk music they have grown up with. They have retained many of the unaccompanied ballads that are sadly falling into disuse in the transition from one stage to another. Matthew and Allan are regular performers at the Woody Point Writers' Festival, the March Hare Festival of Words and Music, the Random Passage summer concert series, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival.

Born in Cape St. George on the Port-au-Port Peninsula, Newfoundland, Mark Cormier grew up in a francophone family of fifteen children; his love for traditional storytelling and music was instilled at a very early age. For almost three decades, Mark has been a teacher, telling stories acquired from communities on the Port-au-Port peninsula. He sings traditional songs of French Newfoundland as well. Mark has long been a driving force behind the Francophone Association of Newfoundland, and has done much to preserve the Francophone culture of the province.

Paul Dean is a North Harbour, Placentia Bay native who grew up surrounded by good yarns. His keen memory and love of Newfoundland's oral tradition have allowed him to retain many of the old stories and create a few of his own. His written works have appeared in The Newfoundland Quarterly and the March Hare Anthology. He has been telling foolish stories to friends for fifty years, and has appeared at more formal story telling venues around St. John's, Cape Random site, New Bonaventure and Corner Brook. He shared first place in the prestigious Tall Tale Story Competition at the Masonic Temple in 2007. He is a great step dancer and a good hand at catching sheep.

Ramona Dearing is the host of Radio Noon in Newfoundland and Labrador. Since joining the CBC 19 years ago, Ramona has been a radio and television news reporter, a radio news assignment editor and a show host. In 2006, she co-produced a CBC radio network summer show, Socket, which was a finalist in that year's Atlantic Journalism Awards. More recently, she hosted a national radio holiday replacement show that ran on New Year's Eve called "A Large Year". And this year she filled in for Michael Enright for 3 weeks hosting The Sunday Edition. She's also a fiction writer: her short story collection is So Beautiful, and a novel is in the works.

St. John's-based Darka Erdelji is originally from Slovenia. She holds a Master of Arts in Puppetry from DAMU (Prague, Czech Republic). As well as designing puppets for theatrical use, she also uses them for storytelling. She has presented her adaptations of traditional tales in Newfoundland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.

Mary Fearon has been performing professionally since 1997. During that time, she has performed and ran workshops at a variety of festivals, schools and other events both here in Newfoundland & Labrador and in Australia. Her interest in traditional Newfoundland material inspired her to co-develop the book, Over The Big Fat Waves; A Collection Of Newfoundland & Labrador Rhymes, Songs and Language Games.

Lewis Fearon is 11 years old and loves nothing more then to listen to a good yarn, spin it round and tell it back to all who will listen. He has been entertaining family and friends with wonderful stories over the past few years and looks forward to his first public appearance at the St. John's Storytelling Festival. .

Gary Green has been telling stories for a number of years. He has told tales of the sea and local history to passengers aboard the schooner J&B, a tour boat operating mainly out of St. John's, NL and briefly out of Halifax, NS. Gary has performed at the Cape St. Mary's Festival and on television as part of the series Legends and Lore of the North Atlantic. He has presented to groups of children and seniors and is a valued contributor to the St. John's Storytelling Circle.

A crowd favourite at the St. John’s Storytelling Circle, and star of the annual Recitation Night, Margaret Hitchens delights audiences with her renditions of classic English monologues and recitations, including the ongoing adventures of Albert Ramsbottom and Samuel Small. Margaret has been involved for many years with the Kittiwake Dance Theatre, and is the company’s annual choice to play the role of the Grandmother in their Christmas production of The Nutcracker.

The Holy Cross Elementary ArtSmarts Program has been running since the spring of 2007 under the direction of storytellers Mary Fearon (grades K-3) and Dale Jarvis (Grades 3-6), and has seen hundreds of kids introduced to the art of storytelling as listeners, creators and tellers in their own right. This year, the festival will be very pleased to showcase some of Newfoundland and Labrador’s youngest and most enthusiastic storytellers who have taken part in the Holy Cross storytelling program over the past two years, as part of our Thursday night Young Storytellers concert.   (website)

Dale Gilbert Jarvis is a storyteller, performer, researcher, and writer. Dale is the founder of the St. John's Storytelling Circle, and president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. Dale tells fairy tales from the collections of the Brothers Grimm, ghost stories, legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. He has performed locally and at storytelling festivals across Canada, and for the past two years has taught storytelling to grades 4 to 6 as part of an Arts Smarts program in St. John’s. His travels this summer took him to Oslo, Norway, where he was the representative of the national guild of storytellers, Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs du Canada, at the inaugural meeting of FEST – The Federation for European Storytelling.   (website)

Andy Jones has been a professional writer and actor for over thirty years. During that time he has been involved in a number of story-telling programs in the schools in Newfoundland and Labrador. He has conducted a series of workshops called The Oral Tradition Project, where the intent is to introduce storytelling to a generation of young Newfoundlanders by having them become story tellers themselves. At the first Longue Veille in Cape St. George Andy worked with a community collective on Louis et Alain et La Bete A Sept Tetes, a story loosely based on Jack-tales told by Emile Benoit and his brother John Alfred Benoit. Besides performing for three consecutive years at the St. John's Story Telling Festival, he has also told stories at The St. John's Folk Festival and has toured Newfoundland Schools with dramatizations of a number of Newfoundland tales including Jack Meets the Cat (from Pius Power of South East Bight, Placentia Bay) Peg Bearskin (from Mrs. Elizabeth Brewer of Clattice Harbour West,
Placentia Bay and Jack and The Three Giants, and Little Jack The Little Fisherman (both from Freeman Bennett of St. Paul's, Great Northern Peninsula). Andy is very happy to be working on The Queen Of Paradise's Garden, his first collaboration with Darka Erdelji and his first foray into the world of puppets..

Widely known and highly respected on the island as a teller of traditional and community tales, Alice Lannon lives in Southeast Placentia. She has told stories at festivals, workshops and special heritage events, and credits her gift as a storyteller to her grandmother. Alice's performances are always a highlight of our festivals; we are delighted to welcome her back this year.

Amos Lyall, resident of North West River, Labrador, is a museum interpreter with an interest in the preservation of culture and heritage. He serves on the Board of Directors of Them Days magazine, a quarterly publication dedicated to preserving the history of Labrador, and as a board member of the OKalaKatiget Society, a non-profit organization with the mandate to preserve and promote the language and culture of the Inuit.

Kevin MacKenzie is a professional Canadian storyteller. He spent his early years enthralled with wild family tales and jokes at the knee of a master storyteller, his father, David. Kevin has left a trail of stories at festivals, conferences, libraries, schools, prisons, colleges, retreats, and countless other events across Canada and in Brazil, Great Britain, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico and the USA. As an experienced teacher of storytelling, Kevin served as the storyteller in residence for the Regina Public Library, the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and the Regina Board of Education. For the last four years, Kevin has shared his stories on a weekly basis with vulnerable youth for the Ranch Ehrlo Society. His experience with teens is matched by his expertise with younger children, as Kevin is an early childhood educator, and the author of a DVD of 23 original fingerplays called Fingersplay: Fingerplays and Action Rhymes for Children. This unique collection garnered a place on the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s “Our Choice” list in 2003. As a dedicated listener Kevin has volunteered much of the past nine years to organizing more than a dozen concerts, tours, festivals, and literacy events in Vancouver and Regina. Kevin believes passionately that storytelling is integral to identity, esteem and empathy, and that these qualities weave the foundation of community.. (website)

Christine Mayr, born in Austria and living in Montreal, has listened to stories for all of her life. She can remember telling them as early as at the age of five: first to her parents, then to the children of the neighbourhood, later to her own children, nephews, nieces and grandchildren. Finally, since 2001, she shares her stories with the public. She spins her yarn, weaving it around you, inviting you to enter her tales: Tales of wisdom and wonder: the wisdom of laughter, the sheer wonder of being alive…. She tells in English, French and German.

Sara Meyer already has years of performances under her belt. The daughter of renowned Newfoundland musican Dave Panting, Sara has been performing at local folk festivals, concerts and family shows for most of her life. She has performed in plays and films as well. Recently, Sara has been honing her talents as a storyteller. She is a treasured regular at the St. John’s Storytelling Circle, and we are delighted to have her as back at the Festival as one of our featured youth performers.

Louise Moyes performs docu-dances: bilingual one-woman shows she researches, choreographs, and performs, working with the rhythm of voices, language and accents like a musical ‘score’. Louise creates multidisciplinary stories from interviews with people across Newfoundland and Quebec, as well as New York and East London. The result is a highly contemporary, funny, and moving take on what are sometimes very traditional, yet extraordinary lives. Louise Moyes studied at Studio 303 in Montreal and has performed throughout Canada and in Germany, Italy, Iceland, New York and Brazil. (website)

Sean Panting is a St. John’s singer-songwriter renowned for his razor sharp lyrics, unique guitar playing, hilarious storytelling, and brilliant three minute songs about a vast array of topics including, but not limited to Rock and Roll, Sandwiches, Washer-Dryers, Love, Power Outages, William Hurt, Vampires, Springtime, Car Trouble and Revenge. His first two solo albums - Lotus Land (2000) and Pop Disaster (2002) - were both MIANL award winners, and in 2005 he doubled his output with his rock and roll opus, Receiver, and the all-acoustic Victrola. (website)

Now 14, Ellen Power has been singing all her life. She learns her songs from friends and family members, as well as from recordings. Ellen has performed at the Burin folk festival and at the Newfoundland and Labrador festival several times over the last ten years and has participated in the annual March Hare. She is a regular participant in the NLFAC Young Folk At the Hall workshops. Ellen is also a member of the chamber and treble choirs at her school, St. Bonaventure's College. Ellen's dad, Pius Power Jr., and her grandfather, Pius Power Sr., were well-known traditional singers from Placentia Bay. She hopes that someday she will pass on her songs to her children and grandchildren.

A professional musician since 1975, Kelly Russell has been a member of landmark groups Figgy Duff, The Wonderful Grand Band, The Plankerdown Band, Bristol's Hope, Kelly Russell & The Planks and The Irish Descendants. Working closely for many years with legendary fiddlers Rufus Guinchard and Emile Benoit, learning, recording and documenting their unique music, Kelly has inherited genuine status as one of Newfoundland's leading traditional music performers. A prominent musical ambassador, Kelly has performed in such countries as England, Ireland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Spain, the USA and all across Canada. His own record label, Pigeon Inlet Productions (est. 1979), has released well over 30 full length recordings on LP, Cassette and CD. Kelly has also taught fiddle to many students, several now successful performers themselves, and has visited many of the Province's schools promoting an interest in Newfoundland culture with our youth. He has also been active in reviving the art of storytelling and recitation, inspired by his late father, Ted Russell (creator of The Chronicles of Uncle Mose - Tales from Pigeon Inlet). In recent years, along with his wife and partner, Tonya Kearley, Kelly has brought his expertise in Newfoundland music and culture to the growing tourism industry in the province.  (website)

Naomi Russell has been playing fiddle for several years under guidance and instruction from her father, well known fiddler Kelly Russell. With sister Tamsyn Russell, 10 year old Naomi performs in the group Russells in the Corner and has appeared in many shows including Young Folk at the Hall, The Nfld & Lab Folk Festival and most notably, A Time in Pigeon Inlet, a new and already very popular cultural celebration of her grandfather Ted Russell’s work (Tales from Pigeon Inlet). Naomi also plays guitar and sings and has recently taken up storytelling as part of her ever expanding repertoire of Newfoundland performance material.  (website)

Tamsyn Russell comes by her interest in music and storytelling quite honestly, as the 8 year old daughter of musician Kelly Russell and grand-daughter of Newfoundland’s favourite storyteller Ted Russell, creator of Tales from Pigeon Inlet. She has performed, along with sister Naomi, at numerous events, festivals and concerts over the past 2 years as a singer, accordion player and keyboardist including Young Folk at the Hall, The Newfoundland & Labrador Folk Festival in St. John’s and most notably, A Time in Pigeon Inlet, a weekly dinner theatre show held in Bay Roberts this past summer where she acted in a play and performed numerous musical pieces.  (website)

Mary Ellen Wright was born in Nova Scotia. She has been living in Newfoundland for the last twenty years mostly in St. John's, but also in the Placentia Bay community of Southeast Bight. She learned many stories of life and times in Placentia Bay from her husband, Pius Power Jr.