Storyteller’s performance focuses on unforeseen challenges

<p>The sharp-toothed creatures swimming beneath the murky water could be the ruin of them all.</p><p>When storyteller Beth Horner took over operation of her family’s 700-acre farm, she faced a number of unexpected and unforeseen challenges.</p><p>That included trouble raised posed by a certain aquatic mammal infestation in the farm’s lake — beavers.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]<p>“What was I going to do with all of these beavers? Beavers are not happy little cute creatures. They’re big, and they can destroy,” she said. “My story is a metaphor for this — who signed me up for this?”</p><p>The experience of operating the farm, as well as other examples from her life, form the basis of Horner’s storytelling performance, “Who Signed Me Up For This?” At the heart of the story, it’s a humorous and poignant look at what happens when life takes you on unexpected journeys you couldn’t possibly be prepared for.</p><p>Horner will showcase the performance during a special virtual show by Storytelling Arts of Indiana at 7 p.m. Saturday. For those who tune in, she hopes that the show provides a measure of escape during a particularly unusual time for us all.</p><p>“This program is very funny, but is speaks to life’s unexpected events, and how to persevere and get through them,” she said. “I hope they take a break from life and have a lot of laughs and some inspiration to keep them going.”</p><p>Horner is renowned throughout the country for her ability to spin a yarn and connect to an audience. She is a National Storytelling Network 2007 Circle of Excellence Oracle Award winner and performed multiple times at the National Storytelling Festival.</p><p>She was featured on “Live From National Geographic,” at the International Art of Storytelling Festival, the Starlight Educational Foundation of Taiwan and was included in “Lyrics &amp;amp; Lore: A Weekend with Songwriters &amp;amp; Storytellers” at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort.</p><p>For her, storytelling is in her blood.</p><p>Her grandmother greatly influenced her with folktales and fairy tales she’d tell them when she visited from St. Louis to Horner’s family farm in Boone County, Missouri.</p><p>In addition, her father is a natural storyteller.</p><p>“I grew up with his stories of various characters of Boone County, and various ancestors, of both good and ill repute,” she said. “We know, of course, that the ones of ill-repute are much better stories.”</p><p>But Horner never anticipated that storytelling could be anything more than a hobby. An initial interest in theater segued into a career as a children’s librarian, where she was giddy at the prospect of spending her time telling stories to children.</p><p>While earning her master’s degree in library science, one of her professor’s introduced her to the National Storytelling Festival, an annual celebration of the storytelling arts held every fall in Jonesborough, Tennessee.</p><p>“She is the person I learned that there were people making their living traveling around telling stories,” she said. “When I learned about the National Storytelling Festival, of course I had to go.”</p><p>Horner worked for several years as a librarian before deciding at age 30 to launch into storytelling full-time. She’s been doing it ever since.</p><p>One of the delights of her job is that Horner never knows where it might lead her. Stories have led her into the past, with performances inspired by her great-great-grandfather’s Civil War diary. She has explored the story of Li Chi, an empowering warrior from Chinese folklore.</p><p>Through storytelling, she had an opportunity to work on four projects with NASA, after the space agency asked her to help collect the stories from the scientists behind the Apollo space missions.</p><p>“I was approached for those projects because someone at NASA heard me tell a story about sewage, and she said to me, ‘We think that if you can make sewage entertaining, you can make space science entertaining,” she said. “I never knew when I was telling stories to preschoolers that this would branch out into so many different possibilities.”</p><p>Horner’s stories are drawn from a wide range of source material, crafted and shaped with her own sense of humor. Early on, she discovered that adding musical elements to the performances could enhance and strengthen the words she was using.</p><p>“Over the years, I’ve realized that the combination of music and story works really well,” she said. “I’m not an accomplished musician, and would never make my living solely from music, but I add a little here and there.”</p><p>The idea behind “Who Signed Me Up For This?” comes from Horner’s own life. The performance is composed of two stories, the first of which focuses on her father and his life’s passion.</p><p>That is followed by tales of the unforeseen, including the beavers on her family’s farm.</p><p>“Life takes you on unexpected journeys, for which you couldn’t possibly be prepared,” she said.</p><p>Horner worked with Ellen Munds, director of Storytelling Arts of Indiana, to put together the Indianapolis performance. As they were planning the program early in 2020, they decided on “Who Signed Me Up For This?” — even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on our lives.</p><p>But the theme of the story is even more appropriate than ever, Horner said.</p><p>“Even though the story is from my experience, it’s definitely something that everyone has experienced in their own lives,” she said. “They might not have experienced beavers, but they’ve definitely had something handed to them and they go, ‘What? What is this?’ And all of us are living this during this time in our history.”</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="If you go" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p><strong>’Who Signed Me Up For This?'</strong></p><p>Who: Illinois-based storyteller Beth Horner</p><p>What: A virtual performance presented by Storytelling Arts of Indiana focused on Horner’s humorous observations about her own life and the unexpected nature of it.</p><p>When: 7 p.m. Saturday</p><p>Where: Online via Zoom</p><p>Tickets: $20 for individuals, $30 for a household, can be purchased at storytellingarts.org</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]