You may have only been 10-years-old, but you constantly hear the same story at every family get-together. You hear it so much that you also tell your friends and coworkers. They relate to your story and start telling their own adventures, which inspire others to tell tales, etc., etc. Ultimately, you hear one of these stories that remind you of the same tale you’ve been hearing since your childhood. Everything comes full-circle.
That’s the idea behind Full Circle Storytelling, a storytelling event from Wandering Aesthetics who hosts its Full Circle Storytelling Collected Works Volume 2 this Wednesday night, July 26. Over the last year, audiences and storytellers have gathered at Jilly’s Music Room in Akron, Ohio to hear tales surrounding a different topic each month. This could be anything, ranging from family celebrations, the great outdoors, or even seven deadly sins. One show even included an author’s reading of her first children’s book. It all depends on what comes to mind.
“Storytelling has been connecting humans for generations,” Wandering Aesthetics Artistic Director Kyle Jozsa explains. “Everyone has stories to tell and it gives these people an opportunity to share or to listen to each other’s stories… Akron needed that kind of event where people could come together campfire styles and just swap stories.”
Originally starting in the Akron-Summit County Library system, Full Circle Storytelling was hosted once a month at a different library branch, finalizing at Summit Artspace for the Collected Works show. This season however, the shows began and will conclude at Jilly’s Music Room.
Jozsa admits the show, as well as the quality of the storytelling, grew a lot by moving to this location. “It did change the dynamic because now all of a sudden it feels like you’re performing, as opposed to being in the library, it felt like a community coming together just to share.”
Wandering Aesthetics’ mission is to create works that inspire the community to rediscover their own stories, and through performances, classes, and events foster artistic growth and connect diverse groups. In addition to Full Circle, they run a multitude of different acting and performance workshops, shows, and festivals for both adults and children alike. Regular shows such as the Electric Pressure and B4 Bed: Stories for Adults, classes like Performer’s Toolbox, and their Knight Arts project, Bigger than A Breadbox, all make this organization one of Akron’s premiere arts groups.
As it did last year, the finale of Full Circle Storytelling will feature the best storytellers from the last year of shows, including Benjamin Rexroad, Emily Durway, and myself.
“I hope people coming to Full Circle Storytelling Collected Works Volume 2 take away the quality of experiences and the quality of performers that we have here in Akron, because these are regular people telling their stories,” Jozsa explains. He also hopes that those who come to Full Circle will want to participate more, either as a storyteller or audience. “They meet people and realize how even though we all look so different or we all have these different jobs, that there’s so much that connects us, including stories and all these experience we share.”
Many previous shows stories are available on Akronist’s YouTube page, but if you enjoy other such podcasts as This American Life, The Moth, or Mortified, this is one show you will want to see live. Full Circle Storytelling will take place at Jilly’s Music Room in Akron on Wednesday, July 26. Doors open at 7:00, with tickets costing $10. All money from tickets goes toward Wandering Aesthetics and new arts programs in Akron.