Storytelling with Michael Harvey

Phil Okwedy is currently on tour with the production company Adverse Camber with his new show The Gods Are All Here. I say 'new' but this show is a lock-down baby that was a couple of years in creation. I worked with Phil on the show and this is the story about how it grew from a glint in his eye to a funded touring production.

This is another fascinating insight into the moment that someone knows that an uncomfortable shift into a creative lifestyle cannot be put off any longer.

Award-winning, international storyteller and director Michael Harvey is in conversation with Indian-born, UAE resident, multi-disciplinary artist Shereen Saif.

Shereen and Michael have been collaborating over lockdown on a Shereen's new project 'A Woman's Mind' based on the story of Ahalya from the Ramayana. In September they will work together in Dubai to put the final touches to the production and including live Indian music.

A Woman's Mind is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation

Sharon Blackie is a writer and teacher who is on a mission to reconnect us to our mythical past and the landscape around us with academic rigour, openness, imagination and humour.

This  conversation ranges wide and includes an exploration of the Peredur/Perceval story from the Welsh and French Arthurian cannon, a good look at the Cailleach - the wild, wise and scary old woman of Irish mythology, as well as how we can use these stories and our landscapes to reconnect to each other, our creativity and our time on the planet.

Learn more about Sharon's writing, teaching and podcasts here https://sharonblackie.net/

Trafodaeth gyda'r storïwr a'r cerddor Guto Dafis. Siaradon ni am y ffordd mae Guto wedi trin chwedl Manawydan o Drydedd Gainc y Mabinogi a sut mae'n  defnyddio y Gymraeg a'r Saesneg ochr yn ochr wrth adrodd, wedi ysbrydoli gan ei fagwraeth dwyieithog.

Mae Dafydd wedi bod yn gyfarwydd gyda'r Mabinogi ers yn blentyn. Mae wedi crwydro'r dirwedd a dod i nabod y straeon a'u gweld nhw'n dod yn fyw wrth droedio'r tir a dod i'w nabod nhw 'trwy sodlau eu traed'. 

Mae'n gweld y Mabinogi fel rhan o'n hunaniaeth fel Cymry a'r cymeriadau fel drych i ni'n hunain a'r ffordd rydym yn ymddwyn yn y byd. Wrth ymweld â'r llefydd mae'r stori yn sôn amdanynt mae bron yn amhosib teimlo mai 'yma ddigwyddodd hi'. Wrth adrodd, rhwng y storïwraig/wr a'r dirwedd a phwy bynnag sydd yn clustfeinio.

Wrth dyfu gyda'r Mabinogi ffeindiodd bod cymeriadau gwahanol y straeon yn atseinio gyda'i fywyd ei hunan mewn ffyrdd gwahanol nes cyrraedd y rhyfelwr Zen Manawydan sydd yn dadwneud hud a lledrith wrth beidio â gweithredu. Y  mae Dafydd yn edmygydd o fersiwn Guto Dafis o hanes Manawydan.  Y mae cyfweliad gyda Guto nes ymlaen yn y gyfres.

I gloi mae Dafydd yn dweud mai cwestiynau yw'r Mabinogi. Pwy oeddem ni, pwy ydyn ni a phwy ydyn ni am fod fel Cymry.

Y mae Dafydd yn gyfarwyddwr Menter y Felin Uchaf ym Mhen Llŷn

Cyfweliad ffraeth a threiddgar gyda'r storïwraig Tamar Eluned Williams www.tamarelunedwilliams.com  

Mae hi'n sôn am ei thaith o'r theatr i'r chwedl a dod nôl i Gymru a'r deunydd oedd wedi bod yn rhan ohoni eirioed - y Mabinogi.

Siaradon ni am rym y chwedlau arnon ni fel rhai sydd yn eu hadrodd a'r effaith ar y gynulleiddfa; natur 'carpiog' naratif y Mabinogi fel adlewyrchiad teg a deinamic y byd sydd ohoni; grym cymdeithasol chwedleua fel arf diwylliannol sydd yn gallu gwneud ei hunan yn anweladwy ac wedyn camu ar lwyfan fawr a llawer mwy.

A story from Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

In this concluding story we return to the beginning to find out what happens at the end of Duncan Williamson's story 'The Thorn in the Kings Foot'.

A story from Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This story is from the Middle East and inspired by the telling of Laura Simms.

A story from Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This story was adapted from a story in Michael Meade's collection 'Men and the Water of Life'

The Introduction to Reverb. A father-son collaboration between Michael Harvey, storyteller and author, and bass player Fred Harvey-Love.

This was a commission from the Festival at the Edge, a storytelling festival based in Shropshire in 2010 and includes stories from an international repertoire based around the theme Boys and Men.

This introductory section features a story adapted from Duncan Williamson's 'The Thorn in the King's Foot'

The seven survivors return to Wales. While they have been away another king has come and seized the throne. The survivors drift into a dreamworld where time stands still. The spell is broken, they return to reality and tell the story.

The Hall of Peace is opened and the Irish and Welsh assemble for a feast. Efnisien starts a fight that turns into an all out battle in which nearly everyone is killed. Bendigeidfran and the survivors return home to Wales.

Bendigeidfran leads his army over the sea to Ireland to save his sister, Branwen. A truce is declared and a huge feasting hall built that even Bendigeidfran, the giant king, can enter.

Efnisien's actions catch up with Branwen. She goes from queen to mistreated servant. She enlists the help of a starling and calls her brother, the giant Bendigeidfran, to her aid.

The giant king Bendigeidfran sees ships coming from Ireland. It's Matholwch, the king of Ireland who has an interesting proposal to unite the two families and countries. A feast on Anglesey is arranged but Efnsien, Bendigeidfran's half-brother, is not invited and he takes a bloody and cruel revenge for this insult. This causes problems between the two kings which are solved by Bendigeidfran (the king of the Island of Britain) giving Matholwch (the king of Ireland) a magical cauldron from the Otherworld, the Cauldron of Rebirth.

Matholwch recognises the cauldron and tells the story of how he first came across it and his encounter with two giants and their terrifying children.

Once the cauldron is given there is peace between the two kings and their countries and Branwen sets sail with her new husband, becomes High Queen of Ireland and has a baby boy, who she calls Gwern, after the alder tree.

The landscape of Wales and the parts of the country where the story takes place and an introduction to the main characters of the story.

Angharad Wynne is a storyteller based in South Wales. She has a particular love for the stories of the Mabinogion and has a clear and deep connection with both the landscape of the stories and the characters in them. She has made a particular study of Rhiannon from the first and third branches.

She is an important figure in the contemporary cultural landscape of Wales and has played a major role in projects and institutions including the Wales Millennium Centre and Beyond the Border International Storytelling Centre and musicians including Catrin Finch and 9 Bach.

She organises a range of myth and walking events including landscape expeditions that  explore the history, archaeology, myths and 'dreaming' of the land. She also runs  retreats and workshops including Return to Centre, In the Footsteps of the Ancestors and Dreaming the Land held at Cae Mabon in the  foothills of Snowdonia in May each year.   
 
Storytelling and running workshops take her far and wide, from Wales,  to Festivals in Portugal and as far afield as India this year. She  combines her deep knowledge of the ancient mythology and spiritual  traditions of Wales with insights drawn from wisdom and healing tales  from indigenous cultures across the world.

In this far ranging conversation we talked about…

• The Mabinogion as a stratified piece of landscape   
• Our shared humanity with the characters of the Mabinogion
• Archetypal nature of the characters and their godlike nature
• Mabinogion characters as types of real people and inspiration as role models
• Otherworldly space co-present with the ‘real’ world
• Annwfn and Nwyfre - Otherworld and cosmic energy. 
• Land