Paul Stout is a Utah businessman who appreciates the value of a good story. He has been attending the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival with his family since its inception at the Ashton’s home in Orem over 20 years ago.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience professional storytelling (as in the oral tradition of storytelling; J.J. Abrams doesn’t count here), the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival has everything you love about your favorite movie, book, cave painting, etc., and puts it into the heart and mind of the audience.
We are a storytelling people. Humans have been doing it since the dawn of time, and while there are plenty of other storytelling mediums around these days, oral storytelling is seeped in history, tradition, and the ability to captivate the listener in a way no other medium can.
When did you first catch the storytelling bug? Can you remember the first time you were charmed as a professional teller spun a captivating tale? For more than 154,000 Utah students, their first taste of the storyteller’s art has happened in their very own school.
In the stories that we tell and the stories we seek out we can look for truth as well as hope.
“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, Who are you building out of the story in your head?
When I first heard about storytelling, I assumed it was all just glorified children’s stories. But the art of storytelling is so much deeper than that.
Tim Lowry is back with his southern charm, dry wit and hopefully a Gullah story or two. We’ve asked him a few questions to help you get to know him a bit.
Not everyone gets the chance to meet a Drut’syla, let alone hear her stories. What is a Drut’syla? Well, I’m glad you asked. Meet Shonaleigh, a storyteller coming to us from East Sussex, UK who was brought up in the Drut’syla tradition by her Bubbe (Grandmother). She has been a festival favorite and we’re glad to have her back. Recently, we enjoyed a pleasant phone conversation in which she was gracious enough to set aside her cup of tea to answer a few questions and give us more insight into what it means to be a Drut’syla.
To honor the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival’s move to their new home at the Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point, this year’s festival’s theme is Stories Grow Everywhere. The new theme caught my fancy and I decided between now and the festival in September, to put this theory to the test. I’m going to look for stories wherever I go and see if I really do find them growing everywhere.
