Photography: www.photosjd.com

The 6th JustStories Storytelling Festival was held April 5, 2008 at Divine Word International Conference Center, Techny at Northbrook in Chicago’s northern suburbs. Six professional storytellers led the day of workshops and story-performances under the theme: Handing on the Stories to the Next Generation. This storytelling festival was devoted to strengthening and honoring the human family.

The major theme that wove through the stories and performances highlighted the power of storytelling to cross cultures and generations. The program focused on handing on the light and insight that flows from the best of our stories to the next generation. The tales and content flowed from the true-life personal stories of the storytellers. The storytellers were Brenda Wong Aoki, Motoko, Eshu Bumpus, Arif Choudhury. Michael McCarty and Susan O'Halloran.

At the BridgeBuilder Award Luncheon nine high school students from the Northbrook area were honored with awards for making a difference and bringing people together.

• See the Festival Program
• See more about BridgeBuilder Awards
• View more pictures of the Festival
• Read about the JustStories Project
• Previous JustStories Festivals
  

The JustStories Storytelling festival was presented by Angels Studio of Divine Word, Techny in Northbrook, O'Halloran Communications, The Northbrook Islamic Cultural Center and the Northbrook Community Relations Commission.

www.racebridges.net

WORKSHOP 1 : HANDING ON THE STORIES TO THE NEXT GENERATION
with Susan O'Halloran and team of storytellers.

The workshop will explore the stories of the high school students who have won a 2008 BridgeBuilder Award.  It will also explore stories we have received from our elders and what stories we will pass on to the next generation.  We will discover how to make stories more impactful and compelling. What are the stories that set us free ?

WORKSHOP 2 :  NEW STORIES FROM OLD : MAKING FOLKTALES YOUR OWN presented by Eshu Bumpus.

This workshop is perfect for teachers who would like to use traditional tales in their classroom, storytellers who want to develop new material plus leaders and public speakers who want to use a unique and memorable communication tool.

A terrific buffet and a chance to honor high school students who are making a difference in their communities.  (The Awards Luncheon is included in your full day ticket. Please take your admission ticket with you to present in the Lunch area.) 

ROOM A :  WELCOME : 1.30-2.30:
Welcome and Sampler stories from our wonderful storytellers. Hear a short story or song from every storyteller. It will help you make that hard decision: in the next two sessions where I have a choice, which teller am I going to go hear?

Room A :  Michael McCarty

Michael presents the premier performance of the piece he created under the 2008 JustStories Fellowship, Connecting the Dots. Michael traces his life’s journey from Chicago high school activist to Black Panther Party worker to the U.S. Army to alternative medicine through a spiritual experience in India and, finally, onto professional storyteller. How do the presumably unrelated threads of our lives come together to make a seamless whole?

Room B :  Motoko

Motoko tells Half Girl, the story of a woman facing a health challenge. Motoko will also delight audiences with a mime and humor favorite, The Umbrella Story. Watch words and movement come together in a breath-taking performance of Japanese and Japanese-American folktales.

Room A :  Brenda Wong Aoki
Brenda tells Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend, the story of her great uncle who in 1910 became engaged to the daughter of the Archdeacon of the San Francisco Grace Cathedral. Their pending marriage set off a media blitz of yellow peril headlines, provoked public outrage and death threats. In the end, Gunjiro’s wife lost
her citizenship. How does the storm over their forbidden love still affect Brenda’s family three generations later?

Room B :  Eshu Bumpus and Motoko
Eshu Bumpus and Motoko share an hour of Japanese stories, traditional African and African American folktales plus personal stories. Their combination of wit, movement and music will provide a lively session of original stories and old favorites.

Arif Choudhury will share an excerpt of his upcoming documentary film about a Storytelling Cultural Exchange between U.S. tellers (Susan O’Halloran, Motoko and Eshu were there) and master storytellers in China. The audience will have a chance to reflect: What stories guide you in your life? What stories do you want to pass on? Eshu closes our afternoon of storytelling with music and song.

No meals sold on site.  Great food across the road at Whole Foods and in that shopping area and other nearby eateries. Directions at Front Desk in main entrance.  Enjoy a stroll in the beautiful Techny gounds.

Motoko will tell an insightful story about the racism she and her family have experienced in the U.S. but also the racism toward Koreans that she witnessed growing up in Japan (The Cost of Racism). Later, Motoko and Eshu Bumpus will perform a fun-filled Japanese-African American rap (The Sakura Rap). Susan O’Halloran will share a moment from the Chicago Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s (The Garbage Story). Michael McCarty tells about raising a teenage daughter in a multicultural world (That’s My Baby). Brenda Wong Aoki acquaints us with Japanese-American infants and mothers-to-be as they ride the trains to the U.S. internment camps of World War II (The Train Ride). All the stories are thought-provoking yet filled with humor and uplifting insight.

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The BridgeBuilder Award recognizes the outstanding service of individuals who have built bridges of dialog, cooperation and understanding between diverse groups and communities and who work, attend school or live in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

The Chicago Province of the Society of the Divine Word is honored to present the 2008 BridgeBuilder Award to nine outstanding high school students who, through their actions and energies have begun to make a difference in our world in building bridges of understanding and hope.

The BridgeBuilder Award honorees are from schools in and around the Northbrook, IL area.

Margret-Ann Ferrell
Glenbrook North High School
Northbrook, IL

Claire Tighe
Loyola Academy
Wilmette, IL  

Clemantine Wamariya
New Trier High School
Winnetka, IL

Kenan Medzikovic
The Islamic Cultural Center
of Greater Chicago Saturday School
Northbrook, IL

Erin Sexton
Glenbrook South School
Glenview, IL

Sandra Siegel
Glenbrook Evening School
Northbrook, IL

Lisa Doi
Northshore Country Day School 
Winnetka, IL 

Rosie Kiken
Chicagoland Jewish High School
Deerfield, IL

Claire Kaufman
Regina Dominican High School 
Wilmette, IL

Presenting the awards is Father Mark Weber SVD,
Provincial of the Chicago Province of the Society of the Divine Word.

Members of the Northbrook Human Relations Commission will also present a gift to each of our BridgeBuilder Award winners.

Many thanks to Teacher Mr. Jerome Hoynes of GBN High School who helped coordinate the outreach for this BridgeBuilder Award Project.

Further information about the BridgeBuilder Award
and past honorees go to : www.racebridges.net

RaceBridges is a companion
project to JustStories. Go to www.racebridges.net/schools
for free, downloadable Lesson Plans
for high school students on a
variety of diversity themes.

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The JustStories Storytelling project is an initiative that brings together diverse professional storytellers to develop, write and perform stories that deal with ethnic identity, race relations and dealing with differences. This project seeks to use storytelling as a tool to bring together the races, bridge differences and increase understanding and cooperation.

This project also includes a JustStories Fellowship that supports professional storytellers in developing, writing and readying for performance their own original story about race relations, belonging and inclusive themes.

• 2002 : The multi-ethnic performance Tribes & Bridges with storytellers Susan O'Halloran, Antonio Sacre and La'Ron Williams was deveoped and staged. This performance piece has toured throughout the Midwest and is in a DVD form : Tribes & Bridges at the Steppenwolf Theatre.
  
  
• 2003 : Antonio Sacre was commissioned and supported with a JustSories Fellowship to write and perform four stories about Latino-American life, journeys and challenges.
  
  
• 2003 : The first 2-Day JustStories Festival was held at Techny, IL
  
  
• 2003-04 : A series of JustStories Festivals were held for hundreds of high school students in the Chicagoland area.
  
  
• 2004 : Storyteller Susan O'Halloran wrote, produced and hosted the JustStories TV series for Cable Channel 17 in Northbrook, IL
  
  
• 2004 : The Asian Voices Day and Storytelling Concert with storytelling  duo Eth-Noh-Tec. This event celebrated the pains and joys of Asian-American journeys and lives. A Vietnamese storytelling wprkshop was held in connection with this day of learning, creativity and story-creation.
  
  
• 2004-05 : Lakota-Kiowa Apache Storyteller Dovie Thomason was commissioned to write and perform her story Spirit & Survival.
  
  
• 2005 : Gayle Ross of the Cherokee Nation received support from the JustStories Fellowship in completing her story about her ancestors : Inside the Beaded Beltway: Stories of American Indian Ambassadors.
  
  
• 2005 : New York storyteller Gerald Fierst was supported by a JustStories Fellowship to develop his Jewish-centered stories as part of the ongoing More Alike Than Not storytelling project.
  
  
• 2005 : More Alike Than Not : Stories from Three Americans - Catholic, Jewish and Muslim - a storytelling performance written and performed by Gerald Fierst, Susan O'Halloran and Arif Choudhury was premiered at the JustStories Festival. Also presented at this event : Towards a New Land : A Commemoration of the Vietnamese Diaspora.
  
  
• 2005 : Mexican-American storyteller Olga Loya was commissioned to write and perform her story about her search for identity : Nepantla : Between Two Worlds.
  
  
• 2006 : Olga Loya premiered her story at the JustStories Festival.   This event brought together the talents of storytellers La'Ron Williams, Susan O'Halloran, Antonio Sacre and Arif Choudhury under the theme : Searching For Home.
  
  
• 2005-08 : A schools-version of the More Alike Than Not project was further developed by Arif Choudhury and Susan O'Halloran.  This story-performance continues to engage and delight school students of many ages from Middle School through College age. Renowned Jewish storyteller Syd Leiberman has also joined the More Alike Than Not outreach.
  
  
• 2007 : Northbrook resident Arif Choudhury was commissioned with a JustStories Fellowship to develop and perform his new story My Real Name. It premiered at the 2007 festival.
  
  
• 2007 : The JustStories Festival gathered storytellers Antonio Roche, Susan O'Halloran, Arianne Ross, Anne Shimojima and Arif Choudhury under the festival's diverse tent and theme : Insiders & Outsiders: Stories Across Cultures: Stories As Bridges.
  
  
• 2008 :  The 2008 JustStories Fellow is Los Angeles storyteller Michael McCarty. Michael will premiere his new story Connecting the Dots at this festival.

The stories created under the JustStories Fellowship continue to be told— in forms long and short— in festivals, schools and events, for young and old across the U.S. and overseas.

JustStories is an ongoing initiative of Angels Studio/Chicago and O'Halloran Communications/Evanston, IL.

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