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Laura Simms
Laura
Simms is an award-winning storyteller, recording artist, teacher,
writer and humanitarian based in New York City.
Remarkable performances of traditional stories interwoven with personal
narrative have earned Laura Simms worldwide recognition and honors
since 1968. Laura has created an irresistible cutting-edge
performance style that bridges ancient oral tradition and performance
art. Simms’ storytelling is meaningful and
uncannily entertaining for her international audiences. Her
warmth, depth of understanding, profound effect on listeners, diverse
material, humor, gorgeous voice and range of characterizations have
achieved legendary status.
Laura performs stories for adults and family audiences. She brings her
expertise to collaborative projects worldwide, exploring social issues,
peacemaking, creativity and community dialogue. Her
work has varied from serving as artist-in-residence at universities to
creating original theater-dance works; co-designing a playground based
on a fairytale to working in conflict resolution and peace making with
refugees. She is presently working on a new training process and
workbook of stories for those displaced by natural disaster.
In 1979, Weston Woods Studio produced the first storytelling and music
record featuring Laura’s stories. She has gone on to record
exquisite collections of stories with music that have dazzled adults
and children alike, including Women and Wild Animals, Making Peace, The
Gift of Dreams, Four-Legged Tales, Moon on Fire, and others. (See list
of titles.)
Laura is a spokesperson for the healing properties and meaning of oral
tradition at theaters, festivals, schools, symposiums, corporate
events, museums, conferences and special events throughout the
world. Most recently, she has appeared in festivals in
Romania, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Norway, Republic of China
and Austria. She has been featured at A Traveling Jewish Theater in San
Francisco, New York’s Provincetown Theater and the National
Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
In these times of increased insecurity and change, few storytellers
worldwide have engaged mythic storytelling for individual and community
transformation with Laura’s expansive vision. She has long
been committed to spirituality, healing, education, women’s
issues, human rights and working with children. In 1999, Laura won the
Sesame Street Sunny Days Award for her contribution to children of the
world and has received many awards for her books, tapes and projects.
She is affiliated with The New York Shambhala Center, The Sterling
Foundation, the Center for Story at the Leonardo (Salt Lake City), and
is a Fellow at the Arthur Mauro Peace and Justice Center of the
University of Manitoba. She is a co-facilitator for the NEXT GENERATION
project of the Murie Center for the Environment, Wy.
Laura teaches ongoing storytelling workshops in storytelling as
performance and as social action, for story and healing, meditation,
and individual coaching. She has served three times as an
artist-in-residence for the Lincoln Center Institute and teaches at the
University of Milwaukee, New York University and The Naropa University.
She directs the foremost Storytelling Residency in the United States,
now in its twenty-fifth year. Recently Laura initiated a long-distance
mentor program.
As a writer and editor, Laura has written and served as contributing
editor for Parabola Magazine since 1996. After 9/11, she spearheaded
the publication of Stories to Nourish the Hearts of Children in a Time
of Crisis (Holland & Knight), and, in fall of 2003, created A
Key to the Heart and Other Afghan Tales (Chocolate Sauce) to benefit
children’s education in Afghanistan. Her newest book,
Becoming The World (Mercy Corps, Inc.), has served thousands of
teachers worldwide in addressing issues of tolerance and
resilience. Her most recent adult title, The Robe of Love:
Secret Instructions for the Heart (Codhill Press), is a book of
traditional love stories published with rave reviews. (See list of
titles.)
Laura founded and directs the Gaindeh Project, an international
initiative using storytelling, creativity, meditation and
reconciliation for individuals and communities. In her role
as director of Gaindeh Projects, Laura worked in Romania to teach
storytelling skills to orphans and gypsy mothers and directs a
collaborative project, The Lion’s Roar: A Community and
Compassion Initiative. The Lion’s Roar works to rebuild the
Buhusi Zoo and, in turn, renew a devastated community in Moldavia. She
is presently working with Search for Common Ground's Gillian Huebner in
Washington, DC, on the LIFEFORCE PROJECT; and she is the codirector for
reunion with Mariatu Kumara (Canada's Child Ambassador for UNICEF) of
DISARMED FOR PEACE: The Reunion (4-pg pdf brochure) and Susan
McClelland (producing the documenary). This reunion of amputee child
victims of the Sierra Leone Civil War will be held at the Sterling
Foundation, New York in the summer of 2008.
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