Cric? Crac!

40 years of Storytelling and thousands of stories!

Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest continuing art forms. Ancient storytelling traditions are revived every time a story is told or a new one is added to the world’s store – to the Sea of Stories, as Salman Rushdie called it. As it is a performance art that primarily uses the unadorned spoken word to convey a story, one could assume that it would long ago have been buried by the charms of television, radio or movies, but that has not happened. The ancient art is with us still.

In North America, its latest revival began with at least two major players. Alice Kane, a Toronto children’s librarian originally from Ireland, was telling, not reading, stories in libraries, from around 1930, and Ruth Sawyer, American writer and teller, had her book, The Way of the Storyteller published in 1942. From then, through the 50’s and 60’s, children’s librarians in particular carried storytelling in both countries back into the mainstream.

Of course, librarians had long been reading books aloud to children, but now they were putting the book down, leaving the picturing to the listeners’ imaginations, and telling the story; using their words to create the plot and the scenes, the characters, and the times of a tale.

The revival headed slowly westward across the continent until it reached Vancouver sometime in the 70’s.

In Vancouver, the children’s librarians in the vanguard of storytelling were Sarah Ellis, Bill Richardson, Ken Roberts, Judi Saltman, Judy Walker, and Kit Pearson. Many of these librarians were trained in storytelling by Sheila Egoff, at the then-called UBC School of Librarianship. Researching stories led them to finding tales that were not for young ears, but they still wanted to tell them, so they rented the Quaker Meeting Hall once a month, and told those stories to each other and the growing number of friends who came along for the evening. This was the beginning of what is now known as “Vancouver Tellers”

They called their story swap evenings – Cric? Crac! – a phrase used in Haiti by tellers and their audiences. The teller would ask the question:

Cric? (are you ready for a story?).

And the audience would respond: Crac! (Yes!)

This group was going strong in the early 80’s. In 1983, Bill Richardson organized an event called Bards Against the Bomb — a 12-hour marathon of non-stop storytelling to raise money for End the Arms Race. This event connected the librarians with two women with theatre experience, Nan Gregory and Melanie Ray. They were striving, as Wives’ Tales Story Tellers, to work professionally in such places as schools or seniors’ homes. At that time, this was new to the area. The thespians joined the librarians at their regular meetings for telling adult tales, at the Quaker Meeting Hall. Both groups wanted to tell adult, as well as children’s, stories. Both had found colleagues to learn from and enjoy.

After a time, the storytellers changed their venue to the Naam Restaurant, then Kitsilano Neighbourhood House, eventually finding a long-time home at Hodson Manor in Vancouver. It also changed its name to the Vancouver Storytelling Circle, and got a bit more formal in its organization, including a newsletter, having meetings, etc. The story swap evenings (Cric? Crac!) continued, and provided a platform where all genres of stories were welcome – folktales, history, literature, and personal tales. Anyone was welcome to tell; only two rules: stories were to be told, not read, and were to be no more than 10 minutes long. Snacks and a social time were always, and continue to be, an integral part of the evening.

Around 1988, Nan and Melanie got together with storytelling fan Helen O’Brian. and with the addition of Ray Stothers and Teresa Vandertuin, established the Vancouver Society of Storytelling (VSOS). This was a separate, legally formed, non-profit society, with a mandate to broaden the scope of storytelling in the Lower Mainland, to reflect cultural diversity, connect with tellers from other countries and produce larger storytelling events in Vancouver. A legally formed organisation was needed to obtain funding for large projects, like our first annual storytelling festival. The annual festival continued until 2015.

In 1991, the first of the festivals was put on with more energy than money, supplied by members of the Circle, who volunteered their help and their storytelling. Years passed, the VSOS festival got funding and paid the tellers, but it was still run by Circle volunteers from ticket-takers to those who sat on the Board.

The Vancouver Storytelling Circle continued on as before, but the VSOS funding agencies were asking the Society to prove that they had community involvement, and membership was one good way to do that. Recognising that it would not be good for the community to have a membership fee for two storytelling organisations in Vancouver, they hit upon the idea of amalgamation. There was much discussion and many hesitations, but by the mid-1990’s the union was agreed upon.

The Vancouver Society of Storytelling, was an umbrella group for the whole of our storytelling activities. The VSOS would maintain a membership, a newsletter, a monthly Cric? Crac!, a representative to the Storytellers of Canada – Conteurs du Canada (SC/CC). They would also maintain lines of communication between the Society Board and those who did the organising of the Cric? Crac! However, within that framework, Cric? Crac! (as the Circle was now called) was autonomous concerning how it was run, its calendar of events and its finances.

Now there was a festival, a monthly story swap, and workshops now and then. Individual storytellers, were also doing projects. Some were one-night productions, like house concerts for visiting tellers, some were long standing events, like the North Shore Cric?Crac!, spearheaded by Abegael Fisher-Lang, Tigge Anne Anderson and Allice Bernards and still happening, and the Epic weekend, conceived of and organized by Kira Van Deusen and Anne Anderson for many years. For some time members of the Vancouver Cric? Crac! (in particular Anne Andersen) helped start and organise a story swap in Steveston and one in Burnaby, where Tigge Anne was also a much-respected teacher of storytelling for newcomers.

The Vancouver Society of Storytelling existed until March 2018. From 1991 to 2015, it produced an annual festival; in 2016, the second of two national conferences was held in Vancouver. There were workshops, ongoing events at seniors’ homes, other smaller events, and hosting of storytellers from “away.” Its demise was due to a lack of funding and a lack of new energy for the Board. It was sad to see the work of so many years come to an end, but the telling of stories carried on, as it always will. The Vancouver Tellers was and IS still alive. Many of the same good people who worked for both Cric? Crac! and the VSOS are managing and attending the monthly gatherings, still telling stories to each other, and to the new folks (always there are new folks) as well.

But we need to back up a little now, to catch up on the changes that this continuous event went through, leading up to the present.

For 4 or 5 years, beginning around 2003 or 2004, Dunc Shields, Pauline Wenn and Linda Stender were coordinators of Cric?Crac! and Marjorie Lam looked after the cash, Mary Gavan joined in the last year at Hodson Manor. Sometime in 2003 Dunc asked Erin Graham to host the evenings. She was a dynamic host weaving the stories and tellers to the nights theme. Her co-host was the Accordion of Love at Hodson Manor and then continued in the basement of St Marks until 2008. An amicable relationship with the landlords Hodson had deteriorated by 2007. So it was decided that it was time to decamp.

The first stop was to the basement of St. Mark’s church in Vancouver. Cric? Crac! continued uninterrupted for some years, before getting bumped upstairs to the main hall of St. Mark’s. Mary Gavan was the prime mover and shaker behind the group in those days, with a supporting cast of Philomena Jordan, Priscilla Jones, Jennifer Martin, Doreen Geisbrecht, Marjorie Lam, and Larry Matier.

We were operating under the banner of Vancouver Storytellers at the time. As this was the name of Mary’s personal website, when she retired from her role with the group in 2015, we had to come up with a new name and chose Vancouver Tellers, and that’s where it stands today.

In 2018, we had to decamp once again. This time we moved to The Centre for Peace at the First Memorial Church at 16^th and Burrard. And this time a new evening – not Sunday, as it had been from the beginning, but Friday! And, a new format, sparked by Larry’s experience of the storytelling group in Edmonton and brought forward to the team by Priscilla Jones. As before, there are the tellers chosen ahead of time for the longer stories, but only three of an evening. After these prepared tales, we break into a Story Circle where anyone can tell up to a 4-minute long story, sing a song, or share a piece of poetry. The format is engaging, enriched by longer tales told by the more experienced tellers, and warmed by the circle’s fun, unexpectedness, and true community involvement.

The passing of Dunc, Doreen, Priscilla, and Mary all in a few short years was a huge loss; we continue to miss them. However, storytelling does go on! Philomena Jordan, Jennifer Martin, Marjorie Lam, Beth Hutchinson and Larry Matier stepped up to organise the monthly storytelling evenings.

In 2020, Covid-19 forced us onto Zoom. We missed the conversations and so many connections that were a part of the in-person evenings. However, we were very pleased (thrilled) with our Zoom evenings. We continued to hear great stories, well told. We continued with circle time. We continued to have a sense of community and connection. And we had the pleasure of lovers of stories from other places joining us. Thanks go out to Nan Gregory, who set up and hosted the first 3 months of our Zoom evenings

It’s 2023 and we are now back at the Centre for Peace and to live tellers and a story circle… AND snacks… AND we have continued to maintain our Zoom presence with some online events as well organized and hosted by Russell Hirsch.

Current Organizing Committee

Philomena Jordan, Beth Hutchinson, Jennifer Martin, Larry Matier and Russell Hirsch.

So yes! “Community storytelling” has continued in Vancouver from the 80’s to now, with minor changes. The tradition has lasted for 40 years.

Cric? Crac!

There are so many others that have contributed to the flourishing of this intrepid band of storytellers over the years. We thank them all: the tellers, the listeners, the tea and cookie teams, the set-up teams, the decorators, the promoters.

Co-written by Larry Matier and Melanie Ray September/October /2020

Edited by Beth Hutchinson and Larry Matier, October 18, 2023

Thanks for:

Information found by Melanie Ray in her memory and notes;

the memories of others, including Mary Gavan, Linda Stender, and Marjorie Lam;

and the VSOS files and to Nadine Pluzak, who put the files in order in 2015.