Video: Traditional storytelling workshop strengthens Native arts

This spring, Master Storyteller Ed Edmo and Lewis & Clark’s Indigenous Ways of Knowing Program (IWOK) collaborated to offer a traditional storytelling workshop.

The participants, ranging in age from 18 to 80, represented multiple tribes including Nez Perce, Yakama, Lakota and Shoshone-Bannock.

The storytelling workshop was funded by a National Native Master Artist Initiative grant from the Longhouse Education and Cultural Center at The Evergreen State College. The Longhouse’s support is made possible by the Ford Foundation’s IllumiNation Program, which was established to strengthen Native arts and cultures throughout the United States.

During the workshop series, workshop participants and Lewis & Clark campus community members journeyed down the Columbia Gorge to the famous Native American rock art known as “She Who Watches.”

The workshop series culminated in a public performance where the storytellers demonstrated at least one traditional legend and explained how it relates to the work they do and how they will incorporate storytelling into their everyday work.

In the following video, IWOK Coordinator Se-ah-dom Edmo explains the purpose of the IWOK program.