Saving Pagan Babies: Catholic Culture Clashes

Curt Lund, Paula Reed Nancarrow, Loren Niemi, Ann Reay

Stories for the Faithful, the Faithless, and the Mostly Bewildered. Papal blessings, pagan babies, apostasy and absolution. An hour of irony, epiphany, prophecy and transcendence. From the people who brought you fish on Fridays.

Location:

Chapel

Schedule:

Friday, February 27, 8:30 pm
Saturday, February 28, 7:00 pm
Sunday, March 1, 7:00 pm
Monday, March 2, 7:00 pm
Wednesday, March 4, 7:00 pm

Intended Audience:

Adults and Teens

Cautions:

May include some adult language and content. (Sorry, no guarantees.)

Genre(s):

Storytelling

Running Time:

60 minutes

Special Note: Loren Niemi will also be teaching a workshop during the festival entitled “Story in the Service of Advocacy” which will take participants through the message framing and story processes needed to identify, shape and tell compelling stories around your advocacy issues. Saturday, February 28th from 1:00 - 3:00 and Tuesday, March 3rd from 7:00 - 9:00.

Promotional support for Saving Pagan Babies is provided in part by Northstar Storytelling League. To learn more about Northstar, or to get contact information for any of our tellers, go to http://northstarstorytelling.org/.

Contact:

Paula Reed Nancarrow
Email: prnancarrow@gmail.com
Phone: 952-933-1027 (home), 612-239-8972 (cell)

Cast Bio(s):

Ann Reay is a storyteller who enjoys playing with spiritual themes - and sorting out revelations as they occur in daily life. Raised Catholic in the South she couldn’t help but notice that the Baptists had better songs and more fun with them. In 4th grade she began to pray to the Virgin Mary that she - Mary - not appear to her. And this has been an answered prayer. About that same time it occurred to her that the pronunciation of the word “Immaculate” was icky. Ann is a member of Northstar Storytelling League, Northlands Storytelling Network and is MN State Liaison to the National Storytelling Network. She has a pet rabbit who is just perfect. Hers is our title story, and yes it really happened.

A “deliciously geeky Fringe mainstay” (City Pages), Curt Lund’s literary experiments have descended upon Minnesota Public Radio, McSweeney’s, Fray Day 5, the Minneapolis Geek Slam, Tellabration! ™ 2008, GLBT Pride festivals in three states, and countless other performances around the Midwest and beyond. He and Fringe partner Laura Bidgood have created three consecutive spoken word storytelling hits — “Boys Don’t Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses”, “Take a Left at the Giant Cow: A Beginner’s Guide to North Dakota” and “Two Queers and a Chubby” — and are shooting for a fourth in 2009. He’s a member of both Northstar Storytelling League and the Rockstar Storytellers, and will join any other group with “star” in the name too. Curt presents a feat of Vatican counter-espionage so daring you’ll want to run home and burn your copy of The DaVinci Code. His story demonstrates that a Papal audience is not an opportunity to be taken lightly — unless you’re a decidedly non-pious, recovering-Catholic homo-heathen who just happened to be studying abroad in the right place at the right time.

Loren Niemi has spent forty years telling political and community stories as an organizer and consultant as well as thirty years creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories for audiences of all ages. Loren teaches storytelling at Metropolitan State University and is the author of The Book of Plots and the co-author with Elizabeth Ellis of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories.. The public policy work he does is a fundamental transformative kind of storytelling with a focus on assisting individuals, organizations and communities to recognize that they have stories to tell and to consciously shape and tell them to better their lives and culture. His story is about apostasy and revolution, community and vocation. Loren will also be teaching a workshop during the festival on Storytelling & Advocacy.

Paula Reed Nancarrow has a doctorate in Victorian religious literature, but has always managed to find work anyway. She spent a decade working as a technical writer for the automotive industry before entering the field of nonprofit development, where she now helps organizations develop case statements and secure funding to do their work. Paula’s storytelling focuses on epiphanies in ordinary time, drawn from her own experience and the cultural memory. She has saved all her pagan babies - every thought that did not fit the theological frame of reference into which she was acculturated; ever word outside the canon; every deed labeled sinful, or foolish, or unproductive -and they have all saved her.

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8 Reviews for Saving Pagan Babies: Catholic Culture Clashes

  1. There is something here for every type of Catholic or ex-Catholic. I was enlightened, educated and entertained.

    Comment by John Martin — February 28, 2009 @ 11:53 am

  2. The four engaging stories sewn together in Saving Pagan Babies make for a rollicking journey into the shadow lands of Catholic doubt. Ann Reay’s journey back to grade school sears the heart. Mr. Lund’s heretical acts make you laugh so hard it hurts. Loren Niemi artful form keeps you in suspense. Paula Nancarrow’s digging through the sediments of the sacred are filled with grace. Storytelling at its best!

    Comment by Nora Murphy — February 28, 2009 @ 6:43 pm

  3. These four stories were funny, sad and heartfelt. The first two reviewers expressed my feelings too.

    Comment by Joan Calof — March 1, 2009 @ 6:40 pm

  4. Go to this show! Irreverent/reverent! Passionate/confused; Funny/somber — you will go everywhere with these tellers and even though they are sorting the seeds of Catholicism, there is something for everyone because they tell about Life and Meaning.

    Comment by Elaine Wynne — March 2, 2009 @ 12:50 pm

  5. Loren Neimi hit his story; ‘Orders from Headquarters’ (my title) out of the ball park! Reay, Lund and Nancarrow ably backed him up with scripts that can help anyone cope with an almighty religion.

    Comment by Maren Hinderlie — March 3, 2009 @ 4:02 pm

  6. I’ve never been a Catholic so this was a revelatory experience for me. The written stories were superb and content was hilarious! I wish the tellers would forgo their reading and just tell to the audience like Loren did so marvelously. Making eye contact is more important to me than polished prose.

    Comment by Carol McCormick — March 4, 2009 @ 3:52 pm

  7. Together, the performers presented a rich smorgasbord of people processing their spiritual conundrums, through their individual stories. Really well done. What was presented was beyond the narrow scope of what exists inside of one religious affiliation, but walks the pavement of the earth of spiritual life poured over with concrete in all religious forms that make ‘their way the only road to the divine’ and extends to what we in our civilized demeanor decide to disavow for the protection of structures, even in our daily lives. Too bad the performances were so cloistered together, and there are none this weekend.

    Comment by Roseroberta — March 5, 2009 @ 5:44 pm

  8. For some unexplained reason I was not expecting to see the professional presentation that I saw. I was thoughly suprised, delighted and entertained by the show.

    The shows humor,irony,insight and compassion made me smile and want to go again.

    Comment by Jim Herbert — March 7, 2009 @ 10:58 pm

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