Ottawa Children's Storytelling Festival Documentary

Trigger Warning: One of the five tellers, Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, shares a story of residential school experiences (22:56-26:45). If you or someone you know needs someone to talk to, you can contact the Indian Residential School Survivors Society for counselling support available at 1-800-721-0066 or a national 24/7 Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.

Behind the voices, who is telling the tales?

Bob Fleck investigated these questions and more. According to Fleck “Wow! It was a week of discovery.” Fleck’s documentary shows how individual personalities, backgrounds, and circumstances deeply affect what tellers share with their audiences.

Bob Fleck, a videographer with 61 years of experience behind the camera, wondered what is this storytelling thing? Why is this oral tradition a growing art form around the world? Fleck met with Jacqui du Toit, Dean Verger, Kathie Kompass, Alan Shain, and Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, five experienced performers, to find out for himself.

Bob Fleck spent nearly half a century in advertising and communications. For the past thirty years, he worked increasingly with non-profit organizations creating hundreds of videos for local, provincial, and national charities.

Jacqui du Toit, originally from Kimberley, South Africa, now resides in Ottawa, Canada, where she performs theatre, dance, African storytelling and leads storytelling workshops. 

Dean Verger has been writing and telling stories for four decades. He has performed across Canada, on festival stages, in concert halls, libraries, playgrounds, classrooms, and small coffee houses.  

Kathie Kompass likes the taste of sharp, keen, vivid words in her mouth. Words that will create a picture in the listener’s mind as the story reveals itself. Kathie is one of Ottawa’s better-known Children’s Storytellers.

Alan Shain is a multidisciplinary artist working in theatre, dance, storytelling, and stand-up comedy. Shain says: “I never frame my work as being specifically about disability. Rather, disability is part of the context of the story I am telling.”

Louise Profeit-LeBlanc Louise is from the Nacho Nyak Dän First Nation in northern Yukon. Louise explains that she was nurtured by the traditional stories told by her grandmother Ellen Profeit, a masterful storyteller. Louise tells stories “because the elders asked me to.”