Elementals – 9th March at 20:00
What amazing performers do we have this month?
The artists are Ruth Packham and Amelia Armande now doing the collaboration, storytellers Ronnie Conboy and Cath Edwards – then we have saved a space for the commission winner who is, of course, storyteller and scientist, Karin Lundengård
Spoken word artist, Amelia Armande, is a magical, sparky performer, and probably several goblins in a long coat. Amelia makes work about fairytales, death, and how the stories we tell shape us. They have toured nationally as an actor and internationally as a storyteller. Their plays and poems have won awards, and they are a talented artist and graphic designer with a flair for colourful and quirky designs. Amelia is non-binary and asexual, and proud to represent the LGBTQIA+ community.
Amelia began telling professionally with the Brighton Storytellers, and has told at the ‘Get A Word in Edgeways’ Spoken Word Festival, the Oxford Storytelling Festival, the Curious House of Stories, and toured Austria as a storyteller with Helbling Publishing. They are a founder of the Ropetackle Storytellers Club, which they host monthly with Joshua Crisp. During lockdown they also co-hosted Strange Times Online Storytelling Club alongside Abbie Simmonds, and featured in Xanthe Gresham’s Goddess Lounge in a short story-film they created as part of LGBTQ+ History Month, which you can watch below.
Amelia recently starred as Lorna in the ITV detective series ‘Grace’ alongside John Simm, as well as in award-winning indie drama ‘Six Years Gone’ and comedy short ‘It’s What She Would Have Wanted’ for BBC3.
Website: https://ameliaarmande.wordpress.com/
Ruth Packham, Visual Artist, trained as a fine artist, graduating in 1992. Until ten years ago Ruth’s work was print based. Cutting intricate paper stencils to create multi layered screen prints, Ruth worked on fabric, producing bespoke soft furnishing and large scale one off canvasses.
Her work draws inspiration from the natural world; the patterns and colours of nature, flora and fauna, the landscape in which she lives. When Ruth made her first piece of felt using wool fibre she was instantly mesmerised, intrigued and in awe of the new possibilities for her practice felt making offered.
Ruth has taught in schools, youth groups, residential homes for the elderly, art centres and at festivals and craft fairs. Ruth exhibits regularly in UK in galleries and at contemporary craft fairs.
Living between sea and bog on the West Coast of Wales, Ruth is a printmaker, felt maker, painter, sculptor, photographer, stitcher, mother and cat lover. Inspired by expansive skies, jackdaws wheeling on the wind, long winter shadows and the everchanging colour of the sea, she peoples her work and world with elemental beings
Website: www.ruthpackham.com
Ronnie Conboy was brought up on tall tales and wild songs as the daughter of an Irishman in Wales. She discovered the world of storytelling in a dark forest at the Autumn equinox many years ago, and has been chasing tales ever since.
She has told stories in pubs and clubs, at festivals and firesides, in corporate offices and in the wilds of Dartmoor. She worked in healthcare for over 30 years, and uses stories for teaching, communications training, and narrative coaching.
Karin Lundengård, winner of our Step-Up-Commission for 2023, is a Swedish storyteller and researcher with interests in traditional stories and information preservation. She works with research on reproducibility of computational biomedical models, but also has more hands-on interests in crafting, horse riding and archery. She tells a vide variety of stories, from personal memories, to old Viking myths and folklore, and weird tidbits from the deeper levels of Wikipedia.
Karin:
- Is a winner of the National Story Slam off Sweden 2022
- Initiated and ran a local storytelling group in Linköping, Sweden, that met for more than 10 years.
- Organised storytelling circles and shows at different conventions in Linköping for several years.
- is a regular teller at Lichfield Story Circle (in English).
- Has a PhD in computational modelling of physiology
Cath Edwards’ ever-popular Cupboard of Customs will highlight some, lore and customs that are in keeping with the time of year
Cath’s repertoire is largely based on traditional and folk tales. She revels in sourcing stories, making them her own and passing them on so that her audiences can love them as much as she does.
Cath learnt a love of folklore and stories as a small child; as an adult she told stories to her own children, and, as a teacher, worked with children through story.
Cath tells stories to adult audiences, family audiences, very young children, school-age children and children and young people with special needs.
Cath is co-host of Lichfield Storytellers and is the Society for Storytelling Midlands representative. Cath’s book West Midlands Folk Tales is available from The History Press, as is Warwickshire Folk Tales, too.