Conteuses: An Evening with Kate Bernheimer

In honour of the American fairy tale writer Kate Bernheimer and in response to her renowned collection 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' (1998), Conteuses invites you to an evening of collective discussion, collaboration and celebration. As we have learned from such critical Scheherazades as Bernheimer, Marina Warner (1994), Cristina Bacchilega (1999) and Elizabeth Wanning Harries (2001), the late seventeenth century gave rise to a trend of aristocratic female storytellers or conteuses, a tendency reflected in late twentieth century art and literature. But what has the early twenty-first century inherited and what constitutes feminist practice today? Is the prefix 'woman' writer/artist unnecessary or does it still have a role to play in fairy tale telling, writing and making? How does it overcome cliché? Following in the glass footsteps of Angela Carter, A.S. Byatt, Kiki Smith, Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington, among many others, we encounter a new generation of uncompromisingly subversive and achingly beautiful practice. This research-through-practice forum aims to explore notions of embodied storytelling by contemporary tellers of tales in a variety of media (including literature, sculpture and performance). Conteuses assembles a new generation of female voices in the hope of conjuring innovative connections and fostering intimate dialogues.