Stories from Fargo

Chad is from Fargo in North Dakota, a place where many Norwegian emigrants settled, and the sister city of Hamar. He will be traveling directly from the US to the Norwegian Emigrant Museum to tell us about Norwegians who came to America. Chad has enthralled audiences since the early 1990s with his unique mixture of humor, heartwarming tales, and a message you’ll never forget.

Chad is a Norwegian-American writer, storyteller and comedian from Cambridge, Minnesota. Chad is also a professional history teacher. He has entertained audiences of all ages on stages in both the US and Canada. Chad's visit to Norway will be a journey to the country his ancestors left behind. He will be telling us tales from Norway and stories about Scandinavian immigrants to the United States and their descendants. His narratives are based on American archival material, interviews, and literature. He is very much looking forward to meeting Norwegians with emigrant stories of their own. He finds that the best stories turn up in conversations with people he has met.

He will be joined by two local storytellers, Georgiana Keable Jerstad and Ann-Elin Lium. They will provide various perspectives on how to be an immigrant. Chad focuses on immigration from a Norwegian-American perspective, while Georgiana will focus on the immigrant’s perspective in Norway, and Ann-Elin will present how individuals in Norway perceived Norwegian emigration.

Georgiana Keable has been a pioneer for the storytelling renaissance in England and Norway. She has founded various activities connected to the art of storytelling. She highly enjoys stories about the environment; myths, botany, fairy tales, or historical drama. Among others, she is operating the Opsal Farm Center for Storytelling about Biodiversity. She has established several travelling performances used for several years by The Cultural Schoolbag (DKS), the nationwide programme which ensures that all school pupils in Norway experience professional arts and culture of all kinds. Georgiana has received Oslo City art award for her outstanding effort in Oslo’s artistic life and has written several  books about storytelling.

Ann-Elin Lium started her storytelling in the 1990s after being a storytelling student both in England and Norway. For many years she was a storyteller at The Cultural School in Stange visiting schools and kindergartens with her stories. Through the cooperation partner The Cultural Schoolbag (DKS) she has traveled with several storytelling performances, and The Cultural Walking-stick (DKSS) has invited her to meet senior citizens in institutions telling stories and singing songs. Ann-Elin is a pilgrim and takes great joy in walking with school-children on one of our many old thoroughfares telling stories about our old pilgrim tradition. 

For more information about Chad, see www.chadfilley.com and www.norskstoryteller.com

For more information about Georgiana, see www.georgiana.net and www.opsalgard.no

For more information about Ann-Elin, see www.annelinlium.com