School Performer

A published writer, songwriter and singer, Donna immediately creates a warm and comfortable atmosphere with her audience. She is interested in the human spirit and celebrates the foibles and quirks of humanity with compassion, humour and song. The stories are selected from all traditions and cultures, and include folk tales, fairytales, fables and myths. Her program “Imagine That!” always includes singing, audience participation and interaction, and has the children moving from laughter to suspense, relief to shock and finally to identification, as the heroes in the story are revealed to be so like themselves. She masterfully encourages her audience to share their own experience and weaves it into her stories.


Donna immediately creates a warm and comfortable atmosphere with her audience. She is interested in the human spirit, and celebrates the foibles and quirks of humanity with compassion, humour and song. The stories are selected from all traditions and cultures, as well as Donna's original stories and reflect such themes as racism, living with diversity, accepting difference, bullying, conflict, self development, and integrity in a non-didactic, thoroughly entertaining way. The audience (even teenagers!) will sing and laugh and participate actively, as Donna draws on their imagination, and moves them from hilarity to suspense, relief to shock, and finally deep satisfaction. A number of musical instruments and other odd props are used to create interest, and celebrate the multi-cultural element of the show. She is happy to create a show for a particular theme. 

The Performance

Donna Jacobs Sife is a leading specialist educator and performer, at primary and high school levels. She lectures for many teacher training programs and is widely respected for her unique ability to connect with her audiences, from little pre-schoolers to troubled teenagers. A past winner of the National Storytelling Festival in Australia, she is a master storyteller, who travels extensively, performing and facilitating workshops. She is an accredited performing artist, and offers workshops to the students, and the teachers of the schools she visits.

Donna is happy to create a program for particular themes and subjects.
Previous examples include:

Eugenics (SCEGGS Redlands, Cremorne)
Going the Last Mile (All Saints Girls School, Liverpool)
The Beauty Myth. ( All Saints Girls School, Liverpool)
Welcome the Stranger (Ravenswood)
Getting On – Conflict resolution (Ravenswood, Gordon)

All programs are relevant for the crossroads program as outlined by The Department of Education.

Make a booking request

Workshops

All workshops are experiential, fun, group work, with lots of opportunity to tell and play.

Workshops and programs include

STORYTELLING

  • Art and Technique of Storytelling
  • Coaching and Masterclass
  • Adapting Stories for Different Ages
  • Myth Dream Metaphor - Every story we tell is our own
  • Conflict, Anger and Understanding Bullying through Story

FOR RELIGIOUS TEACHERS AND INSTIUTIONS

  • What the Rabbis Say - an exploration of Torah through Midrash
  • Taking Torah to Heart - ways to deepen and enliven the stories from the Bible
  • Rituals for Life - creating rituals for Life Cycle events (often a womens w/s)
  • Teaching Tolerance
  • Ancient Wisdom for Todays World.
  • Many paths to Heaven (inter-religious program, that considers the same stories from a myriad of sources)
  • Stories of Peace, Love and Being Human 

OTHER

  • Feeding the Soul - telling stories that touch the heart (for those who work with troubled teens and in prisons etc)
  • In the Beginning - Why, how, Who and What we can become.
  • Writing an Ethical Will
  • Turning Life into Story
  • Myth inside and Out


EXAMPLE OF WEEKEND WORKSHOP

I and Thou and the Space Between

During ancient times, Rabbi Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" This weekend workshop will rediscover our creativity and our imaginations.

We aim to explore the relationship with our selves, our community and our world. Who am I, what do I yearn for, what is required of me, what sustains and nourishes me and how can I help create a better world? Through traditional storytelling and poetry, through dance, music, writing, drama and storymaking - the weekend will be one that will nourish the soul.

The Big Quest

Through a variety of folk, mythic and legendary tales, this program tells a variety of ‘Quest’ stories – and thereby explores what is Truth, what is Justice, and what is our Purpose. It gives young people a moment to reflect on these questions, at just the time when they are beginning to be asked.

Beyond Difference Stories that explore different ways to resolve conflict, and address prejudice, fear and mistrust. Drawing from a range of traditional stories from multi-cultures, this program goes directly to the heart of concerns that are having such a grave effect on the world today. Although lighthearted and humourous, the ancient wisdom held in these stories can do much to alert us to our own intolerance, and encourage new ways to respond.

©Copyright Donna Jacobs Sife 2019