The Fisherman: A Tale of Passion, Loss, and Hope | Jan Blake | TEDxManchester

Storytelling is an art form that has recently experienced resurgence in popular culture. It would appear however that whilst people like the idea of telling stories, there seems to be a need to modernise them and a desire to shy away from traditional folktales.Through the telling of a traditional folktale, Jan Blake demonstrates that whilst the world may have changed irrefutably over the last one hundred years, our hopes, dreams, and passions have not and that traditional folktales are just as relevant and as capable as the latest blockbuster or art house movie, of guiding us to a reflection on what it means to human.

Jan Blake is one of the leading storytellers, and has been performing worldwide for
over twenty-five years. Specialising in stories from Africa and the Caribbean she has
a well-earned reputation for dynamic and generous storytelling. Highlights include
being resident storyteller at Hay Festival, curating Shakespeare’s
Stories, with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and being the recipient of the Thuringe Marchen Preis,
awarded to those who have devoted their lives to storytelling. Her epic telling of The
Old Woman, the Buffalo, and the Lion of Manding about the Malian hero king Sundiata Keita recently won a British Award for Storytelling Excellence.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx