bringing the ancient art of the storyteller to contemporary contexts
Julie Perrin is an actor and arts educator who invites people to cross the threshold into the heart of listening.
Her performances of traditional tales resonate with contemporary life. Simple percussive instruments — a rainstick, mbira and Tibetan prayer bells evoke stories from far places. Julie also collaborates with some of Melbourne’s finest improvising musicians.
I tell from a place of
hard-won stillness in a
too-busy world.
I tell hardy folktales,
holy fool tales and
tales of human folly
— mostly my own.
When people ask what I do
It’s very simple
I tell stories
It is not a random thing
or a minor distraction
Stories are potent.
stories – a ‘portable beauty’
In a twenty year career, Julie has appeared in most of the places you’d expect to hear a storyteller, and quite a few you might not. Julie can be seen at festivals and conferences, in community and educational settings, both in Australia and overseas. She has told stories from podiums and stages in town halls and universities and from little chairs in kindergartens. She has performed off the back of a truck, on the side of a mountain and standing knee-deep in a fountain.
You could, without much trouble, commit these poems to memory and have them by heart, like a cello in your head, a portable beauty to steady you and ward off despair.
Garrison Keillor Good Poems, 2002
In order to re-store the world, we need to re-story the world.
David Abrams The Spell of the Sensuous, 1997