Gorgeous! Ringu is an excellent movie.Has she done any recent projects? Tragically, the comment failed due to problems with the verify word at beautifulgurls blogspot! Ghoustly intervention or simple user error? We may never know.
Profile: Will Hornyak
Published by Community Newspapers
Thursday, April 12, 2007
By K. Shawn Edgar
Milwaukie resident says storytelling is 'like a campfire'
Will Hornyak's work as a newspaper reporter started in high school and continued until his mid-twenties, helping to form his storyteller's sensibilities. His favorite assignment was finding interesting people, interviewing them, and then writing a story. Eventually a job opportunity as a carpenter drew him away. "I got a job in South America, and I think it was there that I started to get more interested in oral tradition," said the Milwaukie resident. "It was a combination of things. One was that I was learning Spanish, so I became more aware of the sound of words. And also, just the emotional power of language."
Speaking Spanish made Hornyak feel like a different person. "It made me pay attention to the sound of the language and the feel of the language, not just the meaning of the words," he said. When one steps outside of oneself he is able to see the world without his normal filters, and then his potential is increased. This is an essential experience for live storytellers, because telling is about transforming your personality into another's. The storyteller must learn to assume other voices to portray other lives. And Hornyak chose travel as his teacher.
He found that the culture of South America was imbued with the arts of poetry, folk music and mostly storytelling. "It wasn't a bad influence, being in a country where reciting poetry, telling stories and making your own music was part of an everyday thing," said the Marylhurst University teacher. "And that was the first time in my life I actually had time to read what I wanted to read. I was reading poetry, philosophy and theology -- all kinds of stuff."
Hornyak heard his first storyteller when he was 26 years old. This event affected him greatly. The teller performed Mark Twain and James Thurber -- American writer and cartoonist. He knew then storytelling was a powerful tool, a necessity for living. It gives one the ability to learn other people's stories, or to create one's own material in the moment and on the move.
"I first heard this guy Dr. Fish in San Fransisco. I also heard Jay O'Callahan, who is kind of a famous storyteller, and he really inspired me," said Hornyak.
It was a long journey for Hornyak from reporter to carpenter to professional teller of stories. He did not start out with that goal in mind. But each diverse experience along the way laid the ground work. "As time wore on, I had friends who were teachers in schools. I would go in sometimes and tell stories," said Hornyak. "It just seemed like the more I volunteered my time, the more opportunities there were."
At this point he began to read more Mexican fables, American folk stories and Russian fairy tales to build a repertoire from which to drew material. The seed was beginning to sprout. Another motivator for Hornyak was the men's movement of the 1980s and 1990s as professed by Michael Meade -- leader of the mythopoeic branch -- and Robert Bly.
They envisioned the weaving of storytelling and mythology used for social causes such as helping war veterans, at-risk youth and prison overpopulation. This appealed to Hornyak because story and myth can work together on many different levels.
"It's like a campfire," Hornyak suggests. "It can give people something to sit around, and it can help illuminate ideas for them the way fire does; it can help warm them the way fire does; they can look into it and talk about life. And that's why I think storytelling is valuable -- it is something that people can gather around and it will help create discussion, drew out humor, knowledge and wisdom."
Profile: StoryHarmonics
Published by Community Newspapers
Thursday, April 12, 2007
By K. Shawn Edgar
Storytelling not just for kids anymore
Almost from the beginning Lynne Duddy and Lawrence Howard listened to stories.
For Duddy it was stories and songs her grandmother performed in the living room, while Duddy perched on the couch. "My grandmother was a great storyteller," said the native Oregonian.
Howard's dad would read to him at bedtime from a dog-eared book they simply called "The Green Book." It was fables such as The Tiger's Whiskers and Paul Bunyan that sparked his creativity and imagination. At ten, he learned to recite the Yukon ballads of Robert W. Service.
Together, Howard and Duddy are the captivating duo, StoryHarmonics. "You want your audience to hear in your story a little piece of their own story," said Howard. They have been married for twenty-five years. The couple met in transition. Howard was moving out of a house, as Duddy was moving in.
In 2001, after attending the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, Duddy was transformed. She returned home feeling sure she too could be a storyteller.
Shortly thereafter, Duddy was scheduled to perform at a Halloween storytelling event organized by a friend of theirs. Howard explained, "I wasn't originally supposed to be in it, but someone cancelled at the last minute and she ask if I would step in." The excitement of reciting in front of an audience larger and more diverse than just friends and family hooked them both.
Public storytelling can have different rewards than simply sharing stories one-to-one. "The magic of public performance is exchanging and interacting at a very human level with complete strangers," confessed Duddy. "There's a beauty and sweetness that is unique in the experience."
For Howard there is a truly deep "sense that the audience is on a journey with you. And then there are those rare moments when you know you have touched your listener's heart."
The telling of tales in front of a live invested audience allows StoryHarmonics to break the restrictions of the fourth wall found in most theater, film and television, where by an actor pretends not to be performing for an audience and rarely interacts directly.
But for Portland Story Theater (PST) -- a group Duddy conceived and Howard helped bring together -- the goal is to tell stories that form a complete visceral connection with the listeners. Quoting a Canadian friend, Howard said: "The story is told eye to eye, face to face, and heart to heart." The love of this possible human connection through shared experience motivated Duddy to organize the storytelling group.
PST's latest collection of stories is called "Always Say Yes." Catalytic tales of unlimited possibilities, designed to inspire its viewers to always be open to adventure. For performance dates and times, more information can be found at http://www.portlandstorytheater.com.
One major challenge for storytellers, Howard suggests, is to overcome the commonly-held belief that storytelling is just for kids. "There's this thing where you tell someone you're a storyteller and they automatically ask if you read picture books to kindergartners," he said. Early on when he was performing at local libraries -- with the children up front and the parents in back -- the adults reacted just as much, if not more than their kids. He noticed they were visibly involved -- eyes wide, mouths dilating with every twist and turn.
They believe adults need to hear stories even more than children, and aim to present a sophisticated form for a mature audience. One tactic Howard and Duddy have developed is a tandem telling approach where they are both telling the same story and one just butts in on the other whenever the time feels right. This creates a more complex atmosphere, and it mimics how conversations in adult life sometimes happen. They call it the "butt-in-ski" style.
StoryHarmonics is always up for the task of showing a crowd that their craft is important, and not only for the young-in-years. Working with several groups in the Portland metropolitan area, such as their own Portland Story Theater, the Portland Storytelling Guild and Scratch PDX, Duddy and Howard promote their thesis statement -- storytelling feeds adults' hunger for raw, naked experience. In Duddy's own words: "I believe that people are hungry for story, for an opportunity to connect with the universal human experience."
