Winter Tales Workshop: The Storyteller's Journey

• Event Date: Saturday, February 4, 2012
• Time: 9:00 am–12:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: $30 for adults, $20 for students. Preregistration is required.

• Workshop

This workshop is presented by our Winter Tales featured teller, Gene Tagaban. Workshop short description: You are a storyteller. Your life is a story. The way you walk, the way you talk, the way you act, the way you look, the way you treat yourself and others is all part of your story.

We will take a look at developing a life story. The choices we make in telling our story. The direction we want to take our story. Small moments are just as important as life changing moments. Be honest. Be yourself. Use humor. Details! Details! Details! Just begin!

Gene Tagaban has twenty years experience as a performing artist, speaker, trainer, and motivator. His heritage is Cherokee,Tlingit, and Filipino. He is of the Tak’deintaan Raven Freshwater Sockeye clan of Hoonah, Alaska, and the Child of a Wooshkeetaan Eagle Shark clan of Juneau, Alaska. He recently was the featured Native American teller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough,Tennessee, and at the 12th Annual Storytelling Festival in Kansas City. Gene can be seen on Northwest Indian News and Native Entertainment Network. He is also featured in the films Shadow of the Salmon and Sherman Alexie’s The Business of Fancydancing.

Gene’s foremost passion is teaching. Using his gift of storytelling, dance, and music, he travels across the country performing, presenting, and facilitating workshops on suicide prevention, empowerment, leadership, relationship-building, communication skills, self-awareness, spirit, and honor to participants of all ages. Gene has been described as "a delight and inspiration to the human spirit."

Winter Tales events are sponsored by an endowment from Reginald and Gladys Laubin and supported in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.