Jan Blake, Ivan Coyote, Robert Cloney, Tom Giles and Marta Singh

For thirty-two years, the Montréal Intercultural Storytelling Festival has brought the city the very best in live storytelling. In this opening event of the festival’s English program, journey from the Yukon to Argentina, with stops in England, Jamaica, and of course, Montréal. Five storytellers will share what harbour means to them—whether it’s laughter, imagination, community, civil protest, or a return to nature. Through their words, they’ll explore how we offer and receive shelter in uncertain times.

Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – Botrel
Free passes obligatory, available as of 14 days before the event
Reservation

A writing workshop especially for queer, trans and non-binary storytellers. Join renowned storyteller and the author of 13 books in this workshop that will help you generate a list of stories, find a thread, and unravel it to help you begin to construct a completed piece.

« I first became something I had no name for in solitude, and only later discovered the word for what I was and realized there were others like me. So now I am writing myself down, sketching directions so that I can be found, or followed. » Ivan Coyote, 2009

École supérieure de théâtre, UQAM
Pavillon Judith-Jasmin
Cost: $65 per participant (tax included)
Information and signup

Jan Blake

Jan Blake is one of Europe’s leading storytellers. She was born in Manchester, of Jamaican parentage. Specialising in stories from Africa, the Caribbean, and Arabia, she has a well-earned reputation for dynamic and generous storytelling. In Wheel Come Back Again, Jan tells circular stories from around the world.

Victoria Hall
Ages 8 and up
Free admission, Reservation

Jan Blake

Superlative storyteller Jan Blake draws us into the hot, enchanted realm of Caribbean and African fairytale – where rules get bent, taboos are broken, people go astray, and family bonds are tightly tied.

Expect shapeshifting, dark encounters and surreal enchantments, as magic is done and undone to restore balance in a dynamic world of wonder.

Eleanor London Côte-Saint-Luc Public Library
Free entry, first come, first served

Jan Blake

In Jamaica, at the end of a village bonfire, children were sent home alone after dark, leaving the parents to tell naughty stories by the fire. The children were given bottle lamps, made by stuffing a rag into a bottle filled with kerosene. After an evening of hearing stories about duppies and boo hags, the walk home was filled with terror, as will this evening of scary stories for adults.

Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – Botrel
Free passes obligatory, available as of 14 days before the event
Reservation

Ivan Coyote

Because sometimes we all just need a good crylaugh. Join writer and storyteller Ivan Coyote around a metaphorical kitchen table for an evening of storytelling to remember the joy in our queer lives and celebrate the strength and bravery it takes to live real life as a trans person. Bring your best hankie.

Théâtre Sainte-Catherine
Entrance fee: $15 (tax included)
Reservation

Ivan Coyote

Writer and performer Ivan Coyote has crafted a playlist of stories that sing to us about how they managed to discover a coded but very possible queer future hidden in the music coming out of the AM radio in the kitchen, lurking in their parent’s record collection, and leaking out of the lyrics in their elementary school musical.

Salle Claude-Léveillée, Place des Arts
Frais d’entrée (frais et taxes compris) : 30 $
Réservation

Before telling a story, storytellers must ask themselves the question: Why do I want to tell this story? Do I want to be seen and heard? Do I want to impart the wisdom that this story holds for me? Or do I want to tell it because what I witnessed in my mind’s eye is so compelling that I am obliged to tell it?   

Jan Blake, one of the world’s leading storytellers, believes that to tell a story, you must allow yourself to experience the story in a physical and nonjudgemental way. You must love every character, even the bad ones; you must have smelled and tasted and touched and heard and seen every moment in your story, viscerally. This utter engagement with the story is what makes it come truly alive.  

In this three-hour workshop, Jan will invite the participants to walk the landscape of a story told by Jan, experience their favorite part of that story and then share it with the group, having lived it so profoundly that their words and their body will communicate with passion and aliveness the true essence of the story.   

Cost : $65 per participant (tax included) 

Information and signup.

Please note that participants will receive an email ahead of the workshop with details about the location. 

Tom Giles and Lynn Kozak

It’s fight night in Theatre St Catherine. Two of Montreal’s premier performers of ancient Greek verse compete in a storytelling contest to deliver the best death scene from the Iliad and Odyssey. Expect swords, sandals, similes and surprisingly specific descriptions of gore.

Théâtre Sainte-Catherine
Entrance fee: $25 general public, $15 students (tax included)
Reservation