Folklife Center Collaboration Offering ‘Story Bank’ Training Workshops
Contact: Pauleena MacDougall, 581-1848; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO – First-person accounts of the lives of a coastal crab-picker, a logger, a Northern Maine bateau builder and newly arrived Hispanics in the Bangor area are a few of the colorful Maine residents interviewed for “Story Bank,” an ongoing project by the Maine Folklife Center at UMaine and Cultural Resources, Inc. of Rockport.
Hoping to help community groups add to the collection of first-person stories, by learning to preserve cultural traditions in Maine before they vanish, the two non-profits are co-sponsoring a workshop to train others on perfecting methods of collecting, documenting and presenting local vignettes about past and present vocations that help define Maine.
A team of documentary specialists and folklorists will lead the second “Story Bank Institute” workshop, July 7-10 at the University of Maine. Participants will learn fieldwork techniques, audio and video recording, digital photography, archiving and developing public presentations.
The four-day institute is being held in the Bumps Room of the Memorial Union and Room 113 of the D.P Corbett Business Building. Stories resulting from the workshop will be archived at the Folklife Center and possibly included at the Narrative Stage at this year’s American Folk Festival in Bangor in August.
Funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, Story Bank Institute scholarships are available for a limited number for participants. Workshop fees otherwise will be $20 per day or $75 for all four days.
Local stories include personal experiences and local folklore, which can contribute to identifying a “sense of place” for people, according to Pauleena MacDougall, director of the Folklife Center. The term “sense of place” means many things to many people and usually involves what is considered a person’s place in a culture, community or some other environment, MacDougall says.
“All these little vignettes of Maine life are precious because they change over time,” she says. “We really want to try to get stories from everywhere in the state. We want people to talk about what it means to be from Maine.”
The workshop schedule is as follows:
July 7: Workshop I: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Identifying Themes/People, with Jo Radner, a Maine folklorist, and Peggy Yocom, a folklorist at George Mason University and the Rangeley Lakes Logging Museum (Bumps Room); Workshop II: 1-4 p.m., Interviewing & Fieldwork, with Radner and Yocom (DPC 113), followed by a reception with storytelling presentations, 4:30-5:30 (DPC Atrium);
July 8: Workshop III: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Archival Processing, with MacDougall and Pamela Dean, Folklife Center archivist (DPC 113); Workshop IV: 1-4 p.m.: Audio Interviewing, with Rob Rosenthal of the SALT Institute in Portland (DPC 113);
July 9: Workshop V: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Fundamentals of Digital Photography, with photographer and senior lecturer Bill Kuykendall of the Department of New Media (DPC 113); Workshop VI: 1-4 p.m., Fundamentals of Digital Videography, with Jim Sharkey, a Brunswick school teacher and videographer (DPC 113);
July 10: Workshop VII: 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Creating Public Programs, with Kathleen Mundell, folklorist with Cultural Resources (DPC 113); Workshop VIII:1-4 p.m., Project Planning and Grant Writing, with MacDougall (DPC 113), followed by informal conversations, a wrap-up and evaluation.
To register or for more information, contact MacDougall, Maine Folklife Center at (207) 581-1848.