Once upon a time, a long way away, a small girl emerged from the trees where she’d been conferring with faeries and practised her magicians’ patter on a watchful audience, thus beginning a lifelong fascination with performing, stories and magic! Before long she had traded top-hats for puppets and then puppets for music and music for the stage. Throughout it all the Faeries whispered, go here. Try this. Ask them… and stories gathered like a flock of birds looking for somewhere to roost.
One day, she woke up and realised that stories followed her and spilled from her lips in response to every moment. They called her into adventures and wrapped her up at home. They poured form her pen and her paintbrush. Stories of love and loss, adventure and coming home. Fighting and feasting and courage and being just enough. True stories and half stories and stories barely recalled… That day was the day her story changed, for she learnt for the first time that the sacred title belonged to her. Storyteller.
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Have you ever fallen in love with someone you only met in fairytales? Have you ever been moved to tears or laughter by a tale? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit around a fire and hear stories that carry you on adventures? The Blue Hare is my guide and she has taught me well. I weave wonders with words and beauty in colour. My name is Halo, and I love telling tales…
I have told tales in in an Iron Age roundhouse…
I have bewitched audiences in improvised performances…
I have enchanted bardic circles…
I have sung songs on stage of love and dragons…
I have woven webs of wonder and carried audiences to faeryland and back again!
I was once terrified of being seen, of any kind of stage. The child that spent hours practising magic tricks and ventriloquism grew up into a teen that froze and cried in front of just two people! I’ve worked hard to undo that knot, to unweave the web of terror so I could leap on stage with an audience of 100 as easily as an audience of five. It began with shakily sharing my paintings with a friend and has included proudly performing at short notice before conference delegates, singing for a Bardic circle, performing poetry at a boat club, storytelling and exhibiting at Chinese celebrations, and more. My art has been exhibited in several (small but mighty) venues and continues to enchant those that see it.
Will you join me on my next big adventure?
A World Enchanted 