FORTHCOMING ACTIVITIES

Rick and Helen, together with Shonaleigh Cumbers and Hassan Erraji have concluded the current round of performance work on 'Unbridled'. A cd has recently been recorded and is currently available from the contact address on the home page and soon from both Mythstories and the Society for Storytelling. The piece has provoked a lot of constructive discussion and debate but it is not clear at the moment where it will go from here. Here are some brief responses... "The tellers made us aware that the old story is timeless and still meaningful... a profound awareness of history repeating itself over and over again" Dan Keding 'Sing Out' USA Summer 2007. "fiercely strong allegories... very moving" Friargate Theatre York May 2007. "Seamless interweaving of music and stories. Beautiful" F.A.T.E. Feb 2007. This endeavour was made possible by a grant from the Arts Council.

rick at Redriff lunchtime drum club

Helen will be touring in Iceland during November as part of the International Storytelling Festival there.

Rick will be accompanying Hugh Lupton in the telling of Beowulf at the Jorvik Museum, York on February 20th 2009.

Rick's audio installation is now awaiting you at the Mythstories Museum in Wem, Shropshire. It comprises 3 sound stories from the Amazonian rainforest region and is accessed via a cd. The exhibit is completed by pre-recorded told versions of the stories and artwork depicting some of the characters, and is all housed in lush south American fauna. This forms part of several new Museum commissions made possible by a grant from NESTA.

Helen's latest book 'The Singing Storycloth' (A & C Black) is now available. This is a collection of stories and songs, drawn from worldwide sources, about and inspired by cloth and is accompanied by a double cd.

After 11 years, Helen and Rick are no longer resident at the Horniman Museum in south London. The Museum noted "Your departure has left a big hole in our scheduling, both literally and, more importantly, metaphorically. Your sessions are always so well thought out, such fun and so lively that they will be sorely missed. I very much hope our paths cross again".

rick at Redriff lunchtime drum club

"The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us.Let us suppose that our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise....but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. Itis the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative." Doris Lessing

"A story is like water that you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet, and it cleans you ! Very few can sit down in the middle of the fire itself like a salamander or Abraham. We need intermediaries." Rumi

"When the story is in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening to you. With the loss of that, we've really lost something because we don't have a comparable literature to take its place". Joseph Campbell


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