November 20 — “More Alike Than Not: A vibrant interfaith storytelling event”
Storytelling performed by Gerald Fierst, Arif Choudhury and Susan O’Halloran (Jewish, Muslim and Catholic) offering a “real life-story tapestry” of traditional, personal and sacred stories illuminating the experience of being an American in a time of religious tension and change.
When: Thursday, November 20, 7 pm
Where: Arthur M. Glick JCC, 6701 Hoover Road, Indianapolis, IN 46260
Part of 10th Anniversary Year Ann Katz Festival of Books.
From the storytellers’ bios:
| Gerald Fierst has traveled the world telling stories, celebrating the journey of life. As a storyteller, a certified celebrant, a recording artist, a writer and a teacher, he has chronicled love and marriage, birth and death, through his own words and through words that are as old as time.Though cultures vary in word and symbol, the essential human experience is constant, keeping the old stories forever new. Stories were never just children’s entertainment, even in their simplest form, stories are moments to be present together. Story is breath—breathing together— Moments to laugh, to cry, to celebrate our lives together.
Celebrants are essentially storytellers. By creating ritual, we reconnect to the spirit of family . Whether a wedding, a commitment ceremony, a house warming, a baby naming, or a death, we are telling the essential stories of the life cycle. Storytellers use traditional and personal tales to tell everyone’s experience. Great teachers are storytellers, filling us with the desire to dream and explore. Storytellers, Teachers, Celebrants use the power of stories to create rituals that touch us, delight us, and connect us to each other and to the world.
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Arif’s story begins when he is in kindergarten and one day his parents legally change his name from the birth name that was given to him by his paternal grandfather for a less “offensive” and less misunderstood name. Arif goes on to analyze the embarrassing and painful nicknames bullies and mean kids gave him to ridicule him for being different. He then focuses on labels and stereotypes that others try to place upon him and his own challenges to keep from labeling and stereotyping others. With the use of poignant and humorous personal stories Arif Choudhury skillfully demonstrates the power of names in shaping one’s identity.
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My life in the arts started in the backyard, putting on shows. My friends and I would always invite our parents (the folks with money and guaranteed positive reviews!), raffle off whatever we could scrounge up, then spend all the profits on a cast party at the local diner. I was sure I’d be in the movies, but in high school I was distracted from the arts by the civil unrest of the 1960s and became involved in a Civil Rights organization for teenagers. After graduation I entered
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