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• FRIDAY May 24, 2013 F

Teller surveys ‘United States of Storytelling’

Dan Keding, world-class folk teller and long-time collector of tales, will be the next teller in residence for the International Storytelling Center’s popular Storytelling Live! program.

Since his last residency, Keding recently finished an ambitious two-volume set of books called “The United States of Storytelling.” Based on the idea that public schools are required to study their own state at some point in the curriculum, the books are geared towards kids who have been starved of stories.

“If you were to go into a school now and mention Daniel Boone or Amelia Earhart, people like that, kids might not know who they are because of mandatory testing,” Keding explains. “If they’re not on the mandatory test, teachers don’t have enough time to teach those things.”

The books, which feature up to six stories from each state of the union, include many lesser-known tales of famous Americans. Keding has incorporated many of these tales into his permanent repertoire, sharing the story of when Daniel Boone met his wife, Rebecca, or when Abraham Lincoln wooed voters by working with them in the fields of their farms, with both his readers and his listeners.

“I wanted these people to come off as human beings rather than just as great mythical heroes,” Keding says. “I was trying to make sure people were reintroduced to these characters, but in a way where it wasn’t going to bore them. I wanted kids to look at their state and say, oh, look, this happened here or this is one of our stories. And I wanted them to be excited about it.”

Along the way, Keding found some real gems. Take the state of Alabama, which is home to a town that has a statue of the boll weevil in the town square. The town’s economy had taken a turn for the better when the boll weevils destroyed its cotton. The town switched to peanuts, which were much more lucrative.

In addition to American heroes like Lincoln, Keding found lesser-known figures who were also enormously interesting.

“I found these wonderful heroes just buried in their states,” he says, recalling a woman from Montana who became the first woman elected to a democratic congressional body before women even had the right to vote. Another great character was Mayor LaGuardia of New York, who read comics to kids over the radio and took up a collection for a man who got caught stealing bread for his kids during the Great Depression.

The books also collect folk tales that trace each state’s fictional history (which, in storytelling, is just as important as the historical past).

“I wanted to have both in there to have the connection between the present and the past and between what’s true and what’s not,” Keding explains.

Having both also helped even out the coverage across states.

“Some states really didn’t have a lot of real-life figures that fit the mold of what the book was all about,” he says.

During Keding’s week-long residency in Jonesborough, he plans to share folk tales from around the world (especially Eastern European stories, which he learned from his Croatian grandmother), personal stories, old-fashioned ballads and music on guitar and banjo.

Performances will be offered at 2 p.m., daily, July 31-Aug. 4 in the International Storytelling Center’s Mary B. Martin Storytelling Hall.

The Teller-in-Residence series (also known as Storytelling Live!) is a seasonal program that invites a new storyteller to Jonesborough each week through the summer and fall.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $11 for seniors, students and children under 18. Ticket stubs save audience members 10 percent on same-day dining at The Creekside Restaurant, The Dining Room or Main Street Café.

The International Storytelling Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Storytelling Live! is sponsored by Mountain States Health Alliance. Media sponsors are News 5-WCYB, FOX Tri-Cities, Tri-Cities CW4, Johnson City Press, Kingsport Times-News, Jonesborough Herald & Tribune and Cumulus Media.

For more information about Storytelling Live! or to make a group reservation, call (800) 952-8392 ext. 222 or (423) 913-1276. A detailed schedule of the 2012 season is available at www.storytellingcenter.net.

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