Exploring the Landscape of Stories: Your Voice and Your Vision

• Event Date: Saturday, February 11, 2006
• Time: 9:00 am–12:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: $30

• Workshop

Workshop by Dovie Thomason
Nationally renowned storyteller

Stories and storytellers take their listeners on a walk through an imagined landscape. What can you bring to a story that makes you a trusted guide? What is the voice and vision you bring to a story that makes it a unique trip worth sharing? Dovie’s workshop will emphasize sharing, questioning, imagining, and enjoying. She will lead participants in some practical exercises that can help make your story journey memorable, not memorized!

Dovie Thomason of the Lakota and Kiowa Apache Nations has traveled throughout North America and abroad for more than twenty years, sharing the wisdom, humor and history of her heritage through stories.

Dovie’s performances are “word-weavings” of traditional stories, untold histories, and memories that inspire delight in the spoken word and teach respect for values passed on through the generations. She has captivated audiences at the Grand Opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater, Wolf Trap, The Kennedy Center and The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Festival as well as at universities, conferences, and libraries in the U.S. and abroad. She holds her listeners spellbound with her gift of “astonishing vocal transformation.” A former teacher and university professor, Dovie writes regularly for educators and is featured in anthologies from Oyate Press. Her recordings and writings have been lauded by the American Library Association. She was honored as the 2002 Traditional Storyteller of the Year by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers.

Dovie’s workshops and keynote addresses on cultural diversity, untold histories, ethics, cultural integrity, and the role of stories in reconciliation have been featured at many events, including the 2005 National Storytelling Conference.