Tale Blazing, an event which aims to bring the Bloomington community together through the tales of five different storytellers from different backgrounds, will take place from 7-10 p.m. Oct. 12 at The Hundredth Hill Artist Retreat.
Tale Blazing is the first collaborative art project put on by MDWST Fable, a collaboration that was created to connect diverse artists from the local community through live events and experiences.
The outdoor space will have five campfires occurring simultaneously, each with a different storyteller telling their unique fable.
The storytellers include Monique Philpot, founder and facilitator of Soulcraft Bloomington, who will tell a story about bigfoot. Brother William Morris, a civil rights lawyer and the host of “The Soul Kitchen” on WFIU, will tell a story about justice entitled “Holy Road.”
The MDWST Fable is collaborating with The Hundreth Hill Artist Retreat and Soulcraft Bloomington for this event. Settled on 50 acres, The Hundredth Hill is located at 8275 N Fish Road in the woods of Bloomington where artists can go to reconnect with nature and gain inspiration for their own work. Soulcraft Bloomington is a forest and folk school that helps people connect to nature, folk crafts and the traditional healing arts.
Co-founders of MDWST Fable, Tristra Newyear Yeager and Matt Rice, wanted to bring together these different artists to showcase the talents and backgrounds in the Bloomington community. Their dream is to bring out the positivity and creativity of those attending and inspire them to share stories of their own.
“There’s a lot of energy in this direction right now in Bloomington,” Yeager said. “To really bring all of these disparate resources and people and ideas together, so that we can make this community, which includes IU, way more dynamic.”
Rice said that being in the beautiful space around the fire at the start of Autumn is going to add to the magical feeling surrounding the event.
“This is an audience who wants to kind of fully walk through the door of fall and enjoy just simply the natural ambiance of that,” Rice said. “Then we’re creating kind of some ambient entertainment around just celebrating Bloomington in the fall.”
At the end of the night, attendees will be encouraged to record a story of their own. It can be a debrief of the night or anything that sparked inspiration for them while listening to each of the tales.
Tickets for the event are $15 and can be found on MDWST Fable’s website. IU students can use the promo code STUDENT to earn a discount when checking out. More information about The Hundreth Hill Artist Retreat and Soulcraft Bloomington can be found on their websites.
