The stage is set: Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival is ready to tell the tales with new, old talents
Storyteller Dolores Hydock (cq) tells the adventures of a midlevel warrior woman while dressing the part of the time period during the 21st Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Timpanogos Park, Saturday. September 4, 2010 KRISTIN HEINICHEN/Daily Herald
Mississippi Mud, playing big band style out of Orem, perform in one of the tents during the lunch break at the 21st Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Timpanogos Park, Saturday. September 4, 2010 KRISTIN HEINICHEN/Daily Herald
Many families were engrossed with their storytellers during the 21st Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Timpanogos Park, Saturday. September 4, 2010 KRISTIN HEINICHEN/Daily Herald
Mark Nelson (cq) of the Jugglenutz (cq) returns the swords and flaming sticks back to his performing partner Brent Jensen (cq) during the 21st Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Timpanogos Park, Saturday. The duo have been performing at the festival for about 18 years. September 4, 2010 KRISTIN HEINICHEN/Daily Herald
Six year-old Dillan Bunker (cq) listens intently to the event Youth Swappin's Grounds during the 21st Annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at Timpanogos Park, Saturday. In regards to the festival, his aunt explained that Dillan told those working the front gate that "my grandma's been taking me before I can listen." September 4, 2010 KRISTIN HEINICHEN/Daily Herald
Storyteller Bill Harley performs during the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in 2010. Photo by Matthew Thomas/Timpanogos Storytelling Festival
Once upon a time, a few friends of the Orem Public Library decided to hold a storytelling event at a private residence in Orem. In 2011, after nearly a quarter-century of yarns, anecdotes, tales, sagas, spiels and fables, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival has its own permanent venue (Mt. Timpanogos Park in Provo Canyon), attracts thousands of visitors every year, and is an attractive destination to the best “tellers” in the business.
“The storytellers love us so much that they talk us up wherever they go,” said Karen Acerson, executive director of the festival. Plenty of visitors hear the good word and come running, but the positive word of mouth also keeps the festival, which kicks off Thursday night at Mt. Timpanogos Park, stocked with top storytelling talent.
“People think Bil Lepp is an old name we’ve always had,” Acerson said. Lepp, a four-time attendee who’s not on the roster for 2011, is legendary at the festival for his popular “deer story,” but the relationship began when he sought the festival out. As Acerson put it, “He wrote to us and said, ‘I’ve just won my fifth title at the West Virginia Liars Contest, and I think I’m ready to come to your event.’ “
The festival also keeps a sharp lookout for talented tellers at other showcase events. “We go to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., and we listen and pick the very best,” Acerson said. “Then we bring them here.”
New blood
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for an occasional newbie, such as longtime KSL television news anchor Bruce Lindsay. “I have never before appeared at a storytelling festival,” said Lindsay, who will be a featured teller at Mt. Timpanogos Park this year. “This is a new experience for me.”
Of course, you could certainly say that Lindsay is accustomed to speaking in front of large groups of people. And, in 2008, he published a collection of stories, “The Hometown Weekly,” that give a Lake Woebegone-style perspective on life in the fictional Utah town of Parley’s Grove.
Acerson said that, despite the continued presence of longtime favorites like Donald Davis, Milbre Burch and Antonio Rocha, all of whom will be in attendance this year, there’s always room for a new voice like Lindsay’s: “We have a great audience that’s very accepting of new tellers.”
The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival wants to help new storytellers, including very young ones, learn about the process. Acerson said that most of the featured storytellers arrive a few days before the festival starts, and spend their extra time in Utah Valley making school visits (something that continues, here and there, year-round). For schoolchildren, learning to tell stories is both fun and educational.
“As kids learn the process of telling a story, putting their thoughts in order, organizing details,” Acerson said, “their test scores start to go up.” Not only that, but the next generation of storytellers to entertain audiences in Provo Canyon begins to emerge: not in five years, or 10 years, but right now.
Youth tellers, generally chosen through school district storytelling competitions, are now a major presence at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.
More to do than sit and listen
Storytelling, of course, is the main attraction at the festival, but it’s far from the only activity or entertainment that goes on there. There are musicians — performing everything from jazz to bluegrass to folk, using everything from harps to accordions to mandolins — puppeteers, jugglers, mimes and even ventriloquist (and Elvis impersonator) Kerry Summers.
Juggler Brent Jensen, who’s one-half of the performing duo Jugglenutz, said that he and partner Mark Nelson have been tossing torches, knives and just about anything else you could imagine at the festival almost since it began. “We thought we’d go help them out one time,” Jensen said.
Now the pair, who perform at Mt. Timpanogos Park wearing what Jensen called their “Robin Hood costumes” are in the middle of their second decade with the festival, and Jensen said it’s their most high-profile gig. “It’s fun to be out shopping and have someone say, ‘Oh, you’re the Jugglenutz guy,’ ” he said. “The storytelling festival is probably the one thing we do on a regular basis that people remember us from.”
Another popular “in between” activity at the festival is handled by a number of local potters under the direction of master potter Dennis Zupan. Jerel Harwood, who lives in Orem and helped out with the pottery activities at the festival for the first time last year, said that people on a break from visiting the storytelling tents stop by to make something ceramic.
“We throw everything from bottles and vases to bowls and cups,” Harwood said. The potters assist festival patrons in creating their own clay keepsake, and patrons can also join in the group festival project. “Every year Dennis Zupan sculpts a dragon,” Harwood said. “People can go over and make any addition to it that they like.”
With a fast-growing Midwinter Conference in February, and a handful of other events scattered throughout the year (the festival is offering two five-day retreats with Donald Davis at Sundance Resort in November), the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival is fast becoming one of Utah Valley’s biggest cultural landmarks.
The festival’s own story may not get to an ending any time soon, but the details are flying past. If you’ve never heard any of them before, then maybe it’s time to pull up a chair.
22nd Annual Timpanogos StorytellingFestival
When: Schedule of events starts at 6 p.m.Thursday; final event concludes at 10 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mt. Timpanogos Park in Provo Canyon andSCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre in Orem
Age requirement: No babes in arms; childrenyounger than 10 must be accompanied by an adult
Cost: Weekend pass $40 general admission, $35seniors (over 65), $25 child (age 12 and younger), $120 family ofsix ($20 each additional family member); evening and day rates alsoavailable
Info: timpfest.org
