BiGFiSH FOLKLiFE

A folklife community who share God’s love through stories of salt and light

New Concord, OH

We are coming up on our fifth annual StoryFest Radio Show Sunday, September 4, 2022!
This year's StoryFest will be broadcast on 90.7 FM the Orbit. Listen Live Here!

Featuring the Greatest Hits of Storytellers from Festivals Past
Program Schedule

12:00pm - 1:00pm
Retrospective with music from Sacred Turtle, featured visual artist Nora Daniel and first episode of the BigFishFolklife podcast "Falling Hard!"

1:00pm - 2:00pm
Winning submissions of the Big Fail Amateur Storytelling Contest with music from Barefoot McCoy!

2:00pm-3:00pm
Local tellers Rick Hastings, Terri Lott, Rachel Pollock and new teller Jeff Cutlip. New music by Paul Pikna, Tim Pollock Sr., and Shane Poteete!

3:00pm-4:00pm
Excerpts from National Storytellers Kim Weitkamp, Andy Offutt Irwin, and Bil Lepp!



This event is made possible in part with a grant from the Ohio Arts Council!
The 2022 StoryFest Live Radio Show! imageThe 2022 StoryFest Live Radio Show! imageThe 2022 StoryFest Live Radio Show! image

Enter now! Email your story to us at bigfishfolklife@gmail.com!


BiGFiSH FOLKLiFE is a religious non-profit organization in Appalachia with the mission:

  • To bring together artists and audiences in a cultural exchange of folklife stories.
  • To provide retreat, education, and worship opportunities for and by artists.

We define “folklife” as the everyday stories of ordinary people.
Storytelling, in its broadest sense, may include a variety of media and genre (e.g. traditional storytelling, writing, performance, visual arts, music, dance, etc.)
About US image

Donate TODAY! Donations help us to keep StoryFest free AND support our artists, musicians, and performers!

BFFs

BiGFiSH Friends

Check out some amazing Artists!

  •  5/17/2022 03:57 PM

What to do when starting over is all you do

Read More

Journey to Long Nose

Written and Performed by Rachel Pollock

hilarious family oral history as it relates to my face!

Journey to Long nose imageJourney to Long nose imageJourney to Long nose image
This one-woman show written and performed by Rachel Pollock is, "a quirky, original and humorous storytelling foray into my broken cultural identity brought about by my family’s changing oral history and our collective obsession with ancestry DNA, as plain as the nose on my face."

DC Metro Review of J2LN

TESTIMONIALS
“The mark of good drama is that it keeps you thinking -- and Journey to Long Nose certainly did for me. I loved the way [Pollock] showed the challenge of claiming each of [her] identities, wrestling with the perceptions of others, drawing faith and God into the mix of it all and bringing awareness of our current "othering" of people....all within claiming the embrace of self. So many places...and doing it all from Ohio. Good stuff.”
Rev. Chris Johnson Foster
Interim Associate Pastor, Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, MD


“Journey to Long Nose is a profoundly funny performance that carefully establishes trust with the audience by using laughter to smooth out the rough edges we might brush up against when prompted to examine our own insecurities. Rachel Pollock's colorful writing takes aim not only at herself but at each one of us. This is the best kind of art, masterfully pushing people of all stripes right up to the border of our individual comfort zones. Make no mistake: she holds us there just long enough to make sure we've gazed upon the discomfort on the other side, but before it ever gets to be too much, she pulls us into yet another story, and another laugh.”
Greg Brown
Musician, Traveler, Artist, Mount Vernon Nazarene University Alum


Want to host a performance of J2LN at your venue
Please contact us at bigfishfolklife@gmail.com for details!
GENRE: Solo performance with presentation slides
RUN TIME: 55 minutes
AUDIENCE: General audience


2019-2020 ARTIST BIO
Rachel Pollock, Artistic Director, BigFish Folklife is an actor, writer, storyteller and American folklife researcher. Since 2003, she has served as the Director of Forensics (Competitive Public Speaking, Performance & Debate) and Assistant Professor of Communication, Media, and Theatre at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Recipient of multiple grants to research storytelling in the United States (from the National Storytelling Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee to the American Folklife Center Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.), Rachel’s Storytelling Workshop has been published in Great Ideas for Teaching Speech and the Forensics Educator. She is one co-founder of BiGFiSH Folklife, a fun faith-based artists’ collective in New Concord, Ohio. Pollock’s full-length plays in production include “Remember How He Told You”, “Something About the Pope”, “IS (On the Edge of Deaf America) based on Deaf-hearing stories in the Storycorps collection”, and “Journey To Long Nose”. In July 2019, the one woman multi-media show “Journey to Long Nose” premiered at the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C. 

Come to Create, Pray, and Share!

Retreat Center

"Be Still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

Publications

Browse titles supported by BiGFiSH FOLKLiFE

Remember How He Told You

Have you ever wondered what it was like- not knowing what comes next, or what God is doing and why? What does life with the risen Lord mean? Inspired by the New Testament Gospel of Luke, "Remember How He Told You" is a new drama of the Resurrection story from R.R. Pollock. Amidst political upheaval, five Jewish women journey to anoint the body of the crucified Yeshua (Jesus of Nazareth) for burial and uncover a mysterious, new world.

Gone Fishing

Stay in the know!

Get announcements and updates

 
  • 4350 Lower Bloomfield Road, New Concord, OH, USA

Donate image
BiGFiSH FOLKLiFE partners with the Muskngum County Community Foundation.
Please follow the link bellow to make a tax-deductible donation to support our ministry!

Big Fish Folklife Fund