RiversEdge Storytellers present 'Tales of Body and Soul’

By Janie Nafsinger

Boom!, Mar 4, 2010, Updated Mar 4, 2010

RiversEdge Storytellers (fom left) Anne Rutherford, Julie Strozyk and Ken Iverson will present “Tales of Body and Soul” March 5-6 and 12-13 at Hipbone Studios.

Ron Geitgey / contributed photo

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Gather around: Ken Iverson, Julie Strozyk and Anne Rutherford have a few new stories to share about themselves. The three local residents, who make up a group called RiversEdge Storytellers, will perform a show titled “Tales of Body and Soul” this month at Hipbone Studios in Portland.

Part theater, part personal recollection, “Tales of Body and Soul” is billed as “belly laughs and soulful reflections on our bodies and our journey to reunite body and soul.”

The show features original stories from the three performers’ own lives. Strozyk will draw from Greek myths and how they apply to her life. Rutherford’s stories will range from King Arthur to her experiences as an artist’s model.

Iverson will offer recollections of the year he turned 13, connecting the person he is now to the adolescent he was a half-century ago — “five times around the wheel of life,” as he puts it.

“What took place in my life at 13 is still amazing,” Iverson says. “Those early experiences become our ally.”

The show is for adults and older teens — some of the material is R rated, the storytellers caution.

“We feel older teens will benefit from and relate to some of this,” Iverson says.

A 65-year-old Milwaukie resident, grandfather and retired warehouse manager, Iverson has told stories his whole life. While serving in the Air Force, he wrote comedy bits for the airmen in his barracks. Later he co-founded the Portland Storytellers Guild, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year (Strozyk and Rutherford also are members of the guild).

Strozyk, 58, who recently retired from 28 years with the phone company, has been a storyteller for about 15 years — “semi-professional, which means I get paid sometimes,” says the St. Johns resident.

Rutherford, 48, lives in Sellwood and has been a professional storyteller for 10 years. A former mediator, facilitator and fiscal coordinator, she found her calling after reading about a man who drove his beat-up station wagon to churches, schools and libraries to tell flannel-board and chalk-talk stories. “People do this for a living?” she marveled.

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