- Programs for Adults
Programs of myths, legends and ballads, told with storytelling, music (original and traditional with original arrangements), mask and movement
BALLADS AND RUNES
Click here to se video clip of Medieval Ballads
These stories and songs tell about travels over stormy seas and into the dark north, about love and battles, talking trees and strange creatures lurking under the water.
The art of storytelling is as ancient as humanity. It is the telling of the dreams of our distant common past.
Today we travel easily all around the world and people of different cultures meet and exchange ideas as well as myths, legends and stories. What do these stories have to tell us today? How can we make them come alive?
We have studied and use in our performances, some of the different techniques, used traditionally for storytelling in different parts of the world, such as mask, dance, mime, ballad singing and music.
We tell stories from many parts of the world.
To book contact jhdarsee@yahoo.com or (505) 294-4567
Medieval Ballads
- The Waterman walked upon the maiden's farm
- And in the yard stood the maiden with her long hair let down
- With all honor
This is the first line of a Medieval Ballad that was noted down on an island off the coast of Finland.
- And when they came to the middle of the sea
- Waves foamed white as far as they could see
- Row me over the water with these oars
Ballads can be found all over Europe and in America. Some stories and themes are found in many different places. Some are more local.
- She tapped on the door with her fingers so small
- Stand up young man, pull the latches from the door
- There is a cold wind blowing from the sea
They tell of adventures, love stories, ship wrecks, battles and strange creatures.
Original song texts printed 1934 by The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland
Stories from the Kalevala
The Kalevala is a collection of Rune Verses telling the stories of creation and of the adventures and lives of ancient heroes and heroines. The oldest of these stories go back to the Bronze Age.
In the late 1800 Elias Lonnroth traveled all through Finland visiting remote villages where this very ancient way of singing stories were still a living tradition. He noted the stories down and then collected them into an epic that is today known as the Kalevala.
Some of the stories we perform are:
The Wanton Lemminkainen
"Lemminkainen is a young man with a tendency to get into trouble. His reckless behavior brings down on him the wrath of the Gap-toothed Hag of the North and her shamans. Lemminkainen is killed. But his mother has the ability to bring him back to life. Only for this she has to go down into the river of death itself..."
The Theft of Fire and Light
"The old Vainamoinen was very very old, but when he played on his Kantele, an instrument made out of the jawbone of a pike and with strings of a horse's mane, when he played everybody had to just had to listen, even the sun and the moon.
Louhi, the gap-toothed hag of the North, then got hold of the sun, she caught the moon with her hands and she brought them straight back home to the dark Northland. She hid the sun from shining into a bright breasted rock and she sung the moon from gleaming into a mountain of steel. Then she stole the fire from all the cabins. And now it was night; perpetual, long, pitch dark night ...
The old Vainamoinen is the one who comes to the rescue and saves the day by freeing the sun and the moon."
Stories from India
We tell these mythological stories using the technique from the classical dance form Bharata Natyam, together with storytelling and music.
Some of the spories we perform are:
Tulsi
Tulsi, also known as Holy Basil is a very benifical herb. This is the story behind the plant that i revered throughout India as being a sacred herb. The story tells how Tulsi was once a young girl and the dramatic love story that made her transform into a tree.
Manmata - The God of Love
This is the story of why the God of Love is invisible, why you never see him coming...
