Storytellers spin yarns for children of all ages at the IBTF

By Judie Holcomb-Pack Everybody loves a good story, and especially when that story is told with enthusiasm, humor, and  a little bit of tall tales thrown in. That’s how the members of the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers spun their yarns at last week’s International Black Theatre Festival. Association founder, Pat Stepney, said she got her start telling stories when she worked in the youth section of the public library. She introduced the storytellers and set the stage for an hour when the audience could set aside any stresses of the day and be enveloped in a world of fiction and fantasy – or was it? These storytellers could make believers out of anyone! Michael Conner, an educator at Livingstone College, “wondered how it all began” as he told the Genesis story of creation with a beautiful and dramatic telling of God creating the world that you could easily visualize each day as it unfolded. “And on the seventh day he rested. Amen!” Alice Bittings told an emotional story of “strange fruit” based on the song about the lynchings in the South and told the story of Emmett Till as if telling the story to her son. She reminded us...