About

FOOL – festival of oral literatures celebrates the arts of voice and story. I co-founded FOOL in 2009 with Lisa Pijuan-Nomura (girlcancreate.com), a visual artist and performer who shares my belief that storytelling is – or can be – both a traditional as well as an avant-garde art. Over the three years of FOOL, we’ve featured artists like Ivan Coyote, Regina Machado (Brazil), Luigi Rignanese (France), Peggy Baker, Alan Shain, Hilary Peach, Celia Lottridge, as well as traditional mythtellers like Louis Bird (Omushkego elder) and Ron Evans (Metis oral historian). FOOL is a space where the ancient art of storytelling can find new form through dance, theatre, poetry, and where these diverse arts can be renewed through their contact with oral narrative.

FOOL brings storytellers into farmers’ markets, theatre spaces, art galleries, cafes and bars, as well as to libraries and schools.

FOOL is itself a work in progress, and each year has brought innovations, new partners, new audiences.

FOOL was inspired in part by a conversation I had with Ron Evans, who grew up Metis in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In the worst blizzards, a storyteller would show up at the door of a cabin, determined to bring their stories to people in the community, not matter how isolated. They were called, affectionately and with a touch of awe, “storm fools.”

- Dan Yashinsky, Artistic Director, FOOL