International Storytelling Center
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Mission Statement
The International Storytelling Center was established as an educational and cultural institution dedicated to building a better world through the power of storytelling. ISC serves as a Learning Resource Center and a hub for networking, research and innovation for the storytelling field. Founded in 1975, our mission is to help people use stories to engage with, contribute to, and illuminate culture; to nurture world-class talent; to develop and host educational resources and digital archives; and to remain grounded in oral tradition while being open to storytelling’s new, emerging forms. We believe that to tell our stories is more than a human right; it’s an act of love that can change the world. After years of scientific research in 17 different fields, analysts conclude that storytelling is our most powerful tool for effective communication. Through storytelling, we can change lives.
About This Cause
The International Storytelling Center (ISC) is an educational and cultural institution dedicated to building a better world through the power of storytelling. Our mission is to enrich lives through the art of storytelling. For over 45 years, ISC has been at the forefront of America’s storytelling renaissance, a revival ignited in 1973 by the first National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town. The Festival became our flagship event—the world’s first, largest, and most acclaimed public event devoted exclusively to the art of storytelling. ISC turned a grassroots movement into an international storytelling revival, spawning hundreds of storytelling programs, festivals, organizations and activities emerging across the country and around the world. After the first Festival, the vocation of “professional storyteller” was born. ISC helped professionalize storytelling as an industry, as an artistic movement, and as an academic discipline. Today, the National Storytelling Festival remains the world’s premiere storytelling event. Its sister series, Storytelling Live!, the only program of its kind in the United States, offers artistic storytelling residencies in Jonesborough for six months of each year, with additional live shows through the months of November and December. All of ISC’s programming reflects the highest standards, ensuring that a diverse selection of storytellers from existing and emergent traditions are represented. Equity and diversity are values that have been integrated into ISC’s planning as an arts institution. In addition to our diverse Board of Governors, which is composed of nine leaders in the arts and adjacent industries like higher education and peacebuilding, our emeritus board members include four leaders at the Smithsonian Institution (an ISC affiliate), including Dr. Rex Ellis, who’s head of curatorial affairs at the African American Museum of History and Culture, and Michael Mason, who is the director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. ISC has formed key partnerships and collaborations with some of the nation’s most prestigious and influential institutions, including the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Google Cultural Institute, NASA, Harvard, the American Public Health Association, the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation-USA, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, the United Nations (New York and Geneva), US Department of State, Dollywood and the White House. We are building on these relationships to expand our programmatic reach regionally, nationally, and globally, and to establish the art of storytelling itself as integral to building a sustainable and peaceful future for humankind. Moving forward, we’ll leverage new opportunities to serve our core audience, expand our constituency, attract new visitors and artists to East Tennessee, and broaden the applications of storytelling worldwide. Locally, ISC has fostered meaningful relationships within the town of Jonesborough and across the Tri-Cities region to promote Jonesborough’s brand as the “Storytelling Capital of the World.” Our downtown Center, a shared-use facility, is a hub for cultural activity for co-sponsored events with the Town of Jonesborough, the Heritage Alliance, the Jonesborough Yarn Exchange, and the Jonesborough Storytellers Guild. The annual Festival and ISC’s Main Street campus have helped lead a neighborhood-wide effort to tap into its shared story for revitalization and community-building. ISC founder Jimmy Neil Smith was heavily involved in Jonesborough’s revitalization efforts, and over time the work of the organization has become an integral part of the identity of the town itself, preserving the town’s historic identity even as it has evolved into the modern day. Through ISC’s leadership, storytelling continues as one of the region’s primary economic drivers. ISC has often been referred to as an exemplary example of Creative Place-making practice by Main Streets of America program president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, Robert L. Lynch For six months of the year, ISC’s Teller-in-Residence (TIR) program, known as Storytelling Live!, hosts a new performer each week, offering daily matinees, special evening concerts, and workshops from May through October. We partner with local restaurants and shops so ticketholders can receive discounts at local establishments. Altogether, ISC produces more than 300 hours of live storytelling for the community and visitors each year, fueling economic development (with an estimated impact of $7.6 million annually) and providing entertainment and educational opportunities for tourists and locals alike. On an ongoing basis, an ISC staff member contributes to the town’s Main Street development and planning group to ensure that ISC has a voice in local events and collaborations. ISC has been particularly involved in educational outreach, working with area partners such as the Washington County Library system on its summer reading program, collaborating with East Tennessee State University’s master’s program in storytelling, and providing subsidized after- school programming performances for local groups like the Johnson City Boys and Girls Clubs and Coalition for Kids. ISC will continue to develop a two-year youth and civic leadership program in collaboration with local partners. The program serves 30 of the most at-risk youth in a six-county radius. This program offers training, workshops and creative solutions to at-risk youth, using storytelling to speak to the challenges they face. ISC will also hold its second annual young Appalachian leadership conference in Jonesborough to attract young people from the immediate region and neighboring states, including Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. More generally, ISC takes an integrated approach to identifying and serving underserved populations, incorporating diversity into our strategic planning for volunteer programs, public programs, key events, staff, talent, and more. As a major cultural institution (MCI), ISC’s artistic programming makes a conscious effort to reflect the diversity of our population by including artists with disabilities, people of color, and young tellers. At the same time, we work hard to ensure our programming is accessible to everyone who wishes to attend, making sure, for instance, that our Festival performance venues offer reserved seating to hearing-impaired guests and wheelchair users. ISC President Kiran Singh Sirah has worked with, and currently serves on the board of, the Association of American Cultures, a national nonprofit that advocates equity in policymaking, the funding of cultural institutions, and the promotion of multicultural leadership. ISC also offers a wide variety of educational programs, including free online classroom materials with teacher support, live broadcasts, and other digital projects. A variety of grants complement our subsidized ticket offerings, which provide access to our Festival and Residency live performances to more than 2,500 youth each year, especially those from rural communities, immigrant families, and at-risk youth. We also work year-round with local African-American and Latino groups to incorporate storytelling into cultural heritage events across the region, providing support in planning, development, and artistic advising.