First workshop for the June 2014 telling of the Iliad

It's been two years since the Ottawa Storytellers brought the Odyssey to the National Arts Centre, and many of the same tellers are back, along with some new daring recruits, grappling now with Homer's other, perhaps greater, epic story.  On June 14th, 2014, from 10:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night (with breaks for meals etc.) the Ottawa Storytellers will be telling Homer's Iliad at the NAC 4th Stage.  A hardy band of storytellers spent this past  weekend working collectively on bringing this seminal story of Western culture to life.  The work has just begun:  parts must be edited, tweaked, learned, refined, practised again and again.  Funds must be raised. This unique storytelling performance must be marketed and publicized -- tickets must be sold, so that we will not be telling to empty chairs.  Most of all, this rich, violent, complex, tragic story must be internalized, felt, understood, transmuted into a collective performance.  But what a wonderful start!  Already we can feel the different books growing together, the many voices weaving into one big tapestry of story.  Already this epic, which seemed at first to be "just" an interminable battle scene, is revealing its depth and winning us over.  I am so happy to be part of this adventure with my fellow storytellers.

(Picture: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triumph_of_Achilles_in_Corfu_Achilleion.jpg )