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The Listening Hand // Bernadette Hehenberger

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The Listening Hand // Bernadette Hehenberger

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As a shoe craft explorer and practitioner with a background in shoe design, I learn and understand through my hands,  expressing myself. Therefore I am a passionate supporter of the Maker Movement, believing that this connection of creating with our hands is influencing our relation and perception of the world beyond the visible. The medium that is used to create, carries as much of a message as the message itself. Like a space in which the word is spoken or the place on which letters are written.

The Listening Hand is a space that we create together, where we feel the in-betweeness of craftspeople, the land they inhabit and stories.

I invite you to join me around the fire where I will share stories about my recent journey to the volcanic island of La Gomera.

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I am a storyteller and a theatre performer. I use my skills in corporeal mime to tell stories that are vivid and physical.

I am also a carer for my two sons, who have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Two days after they were diagnosed, I told a story in public for the first time. It was the tale of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Ever since then, our family story and the story of the Pigs have been intertwined.

And I want to know:

How do you rebuild your life when the Big Bad Wolf has blown it down?

How do you find your voice as a character you never thought you’d play?

And in real life, can there be a happy ever after?

‘Pig v. Wolf’ is a heartfelt and ridiculous tale, told from the frontline of family disability.

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When Connie uncovers bones in her garden she unearths much more than that. She discovers a story from the 17th century, about Millie and Thomas who grew up together following the parallel paths of folklore medicine and blacksmithing. Both were mysterious arts at this time, but one was respected, the other steeped in suspicion.

Storyteller and musician Annie Sheppard weaves their stories together, provoking questions about the nature of good and evil, justice and judgement. Eventually the piece will be a story walk, set in a country landscape, but for now you are invited to share glimpses of the work as it progresses.

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Treeplay: Tongues in Trees // Rosanna Lowe

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Treeplay: Tongues in Trees // Rosanna Lowe

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There are tongues in trees,

Books in the running brooks…

Shakespeare (As You Like It)

Often the word for world was forest, but most of our forests are ghost forests now.

But can Ghost Forests spring back to life, if we help to nurture those seeds? Trees are our great protectors, but how do we protest and protect them? Drawing on life stories, contemporary eco-activism, the Welsh poem The Battle of the Trees and Norse and Mayan World Tree myths, Tongues In Trees is a promenade story and song sharing through the

trees of Emerson College, a listening to the tales told by, about and for our most beloved trees.

Is the relationship between trees and humans our sweetest love story or our most important fight against climate change? In these urgent times, how can we listen to the Wild Wise Woods and slow down to grow like trees?

Rosanna Lowe is a storyteller, director and writer born in the Forest of Arden and now living in the Forest of Anderida. She works across genres, from sketch-writing for Horrible Histories to travel writing, most particularly about Guatemala, the Land of Trees, where she lived towards the end of its 36 year civil war. Rosanna was shocked to discover that the first woods cut for the HS2 project were Crackley Woods in Kenilworth, the woods of her childhood – now the main base for the HS2 tree protection camp. Recently, the wisest conversations and the most beautiful songs have arisen through encounters with remarkable trees and she is incredibly grateful to them for this blessing.

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Dying To Live

Contemplation on Dying and Living through music, poetry, and stories

In this storytelling performance I invite you to journey inwards and discover the inner world of shadows and light, sound and silence, storm and peace. As these polarities dance, we witness a creation of worlds that emerge from emptiness as waves in the Ocean, and disappear again back to where it all began.

Having been born, we inevitably have to experience dying, and we die in many different ways throughout our lifetime and beyond. So let us gather around the eternal fire of our hearts and listen to the stories of our ancestors, and let us see what treasures can we find there for ourselves and for our loved ones.

Justas Mazeika receives his creative inspiration from the land and the magnitude of all beings, visible and invisible, that co-exist together in harmony of Mother nature. He is a firekeeper kindling his love for stories and music from the deep connection with Great Spirit and the ancestors.

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Wednesday 15th September

18:00 – 19:00 Justas Mazeika // Dying to Live

19:15 – 20:15 Rosanna Lowe // Treeplay: Tongues in Trees (bring a torch with you)

Thursday 16th September

17:30 – 18:30 Georgie Steele // Pig V. Wolf

18:45 – 19:45 Annie  Sheppard // Truth Will Out

20:00 – 21:00 Bernadette Heheberger // The Listening Hand

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The School of Storytelling @ Emerson College has been hosting a three week Storytelling Beyond Words Creative Lab -  a storytelling residency to support storytellers in the development of a body of work, offering time and space for research, reflection, mentoring and creative guidance.

On the 15th / 16th of September we will open the doors of our 'studios' with an invitation to witness work in progress and listen to some of the stories they have been working on.

See listings below for information on time and content. You are welcome to join the whole programme or any individual sessions.
Email storytellingbeyondwords@gmail.com for any further information.