New Voices Mentoring Programme
Beyond the Border’s New Voices Mentoring Programme is a bespoke training programme designed to support the development of new voices in storytelling in Wales.
Storytellers on 2020 New Voices Mentoring Programme
Ceri Phillips
Ceri John Phillips is an actor, writer and comic from Morriston. He has worked extensively in the media in Wales and across Britain, from gigging in dingy comedy clubs to starring in and writing on shows for the BBC,
ITV and S4C.
Ceri hopes to explore the intersection between the bardic tradition of Cymru and modern storytelling and develop a performance piece based on the findings. He is also very excited to expand his storytelling repertoire, develop a suite of work units for pedagogical
storytelling in schools and to find his place in the worldwide storytelling community.
Kestrel Morton
Kestrel Morton is a queer, nonbinary-gendered storyteller, poet, and artist, living near the sea in the Vale of Glamorgan. Their passion for stories is rooted in childhood memories, sitting with their family round campfires or in a tent, listening to the wind or rain, inventing endless tales together that would meander through the dark nights and fill them with imagination.
In the years since those memories were made, they journeyed on a long and tangled path, questioning their identity, their reality, and their future in a world in ongoing crisis. On that strange path they explored the hidden edges of society, living a transient life in squats, abandoned warehouses, traveller sites and forests, amongst the beautiful-ragged populations of interesting characters and passing personalities, each with a song to sing or a yarn to spin. It was here their childhood love of stories was rekindled, telling tales in tall treetops and deep caves, in the wastelands and wild edges where the lines between the real and the mythic are blurred and the otherworld overlaps with this one.
The tales they tell blend traditional legends with new myths woven for the challenges of the world we face today; climate change and ecological collapse, wealth inequality, homelessness, mental health epidemics, rewilding and access to land.
Find out more about Kestrel’s Mentoring so far – Blog 1
Chandrika Joshi
Chandrika Joshi was born to Indian parents in Uganda and came to Wales as a refugee in 1972. Her schooling took place in the Rhondda and she studied dentistry at Cardiff University. She specialised in Special Care Dentistry and has been working with special needs patients for over thirty years.
Chandrika’s father was a Hindu priest and she followed in his footsteps and became a Hindu priestess serving the Hindu community both locally and beyond. Priests narrating stories (Katha) from ancient texts is a big part of the socio religious Hindu community. Her father narrating Katha and her mother entertaining the neighbours with elaborate tales that she had heard from her mother was a big part of her childhood.
Storytelling is in her blood. There were professional Kathakaar (storytellers) on both sides of her mothers and fathers families. She joined Cardiff storytelling circle 8 years ago and has been telling stories ever since.
Find out more about Chandrika’s Mentoring so far – Blog 1
Mentors
The mentors on the New Voices Mentoring Programme are Jan Blake, Cath Little and Daniel Morden.