Csenge Virág Zalka's Blog, page 67

Scary Story Festival at a haunted opera house, and other Halloween fun

This year I really managed to cherry-pick the best Halloween gigs.

It all started on Friday, when I participated in the Friday Folklore Tour at the Wood County Historical Museum in Bowling Green. The tour had several stops, all centered on creepy and eerie things, such as a Day of the Dead educational display, a haunted trail, the former asylum, a magician... and yours truly, who set up shop in

Epic-Lovers Reunite!

At the end of my one-year mentorship with Cathryn Fairlee, we celebrated with a storytelling concert showcasing some of our favorite epics. It was almost exactly a year ago. Last November, I got to premiere my one-hour show based on the Persian Book of Kings - but little did the audience know at the time that Cathryn helped me work on not one, but two epics over the course of one year, and the

Once more to the graveyard: The Tales of the Golden Corpse 2. (Epic Day 2016/2)

The whole reason I was in San Francisco last week was to participate in the year's second Epic Day performance. As you probably already know, our epic-loving crowd tells a full story twice in one year (usually in February and October). We have done Tales of the Golden Corpse from Tibet once already, and it was time for the repeat performance.

Our group was a little smaller this time - merely 17

"If our lives be short, let our fame be great": Nart sagas at the Silk Road House

For those of you just tuning in: I have fallen in love with the Nart sagas a while ago. I worked with them for a museum program for Archaeology Day, told them for MythOff, read them for Epics A to Z, and have been waxing poetic about their greatness for quite a while.
Which is why this storytelling event at the Silk Road House in Berkeley was such a perfect convergence of passion and

Hero, heroine, ally, foe: Ramayana exhibit in the Asian Art Museum

I did not know until I showed up at the doors that the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is having a temporary exhibit on the Rama Epic. Being in town for Epic Day, I visited two days before opening, and therefore was limited to staring through the doors with longing, like orphans in a Dickens novel. Since the exhibit would be closed by the next Epic Day, I shifted some of my schedule around,

A better way out: "New trad" storytelling workshop by Danielle Bellone

A year ago I hosted Danielle Bellone as a guest blogger, and she wrote a marvelous post about "new trad" storytelling. She is a dear friend of mine, and a former classmate from the ETSU Storytelling MA program. This year, the BGSU LGBT Resource Center featured her as a performer during Coming Out Weeks, and she brought her "new trad" tales and workshops to our campus. It was an amazing experience

Folklore Thursday: Following Folktales around the World

Today is Folklore Thursday on social media! If you want to find out more, follow this link, or click on the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter! Hosted by @FolkloreThursday.



This spring I started a weekly blog series on my Hungarian blog, titled "Népmesék nyomában a világ körül" - "Following folktales around the world." It was my version of the famous A year of reading the world challenge, in

Folklore Thursday: Girl versus Dragon

Today is Folklore Thursday on social media! If you want to find out more, follow this link, or click on the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter! Hosted by @FolkloreThursday.

Once again I am doing a folktale translation for Folklore Thursday, to help a friend with their research. This tale is a version of Molly Whuppie, and I am translating it from Hungarian. 



Rebeka

Original title: Rebeka

Folklore Thursday: The Slightly Less Handless Maiden

Today is Folklore Thursday on social media! If you want to find out more, follow this link, or click on the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter! Hosted by @FolkloreThursday.

Since two of my storyteller friends are working on an awesome book about the female hero's journey, including variations of Grimm's Handless Maiden, I am doing my small contribution to their research by translating this

Folklore Thursday: Farts, folktales, and feminism

Today is Folklore Thursday on social media! If you want to find out more, follow this link, or click on the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter! Hosted by @FolkloreThursday.

Today we talk about ancient tales about women farting.



This is not a joke, so much so that the folktale type I am talking about has its own number: ATU 1453**** (those are not four tiny farts, those are asterisks for a