Mythsinger Legacy Project - Myth & Memory in Community

Myth & Memory in Community - A Year-End Celebration with Creation Stories

Featuring Mythic Tales from Around the World.

Join us as we hear and feed the Ancient Stories that so generously feed us.

Host/Music Judith-Kate Friedman

ASL Interpreter Annie Clark

Daniel Deardorff (Calling Fire & Telling Stories via video + audio from the archives)

Suggested Donation: $20-50 pay-what-you-can, pay-what-you-wish with proceeds benefiting the ongoing work of Mythsinger Legacy Project.

On Sunday December 28, 2025 at 2pm PDT*, the Mythsinger Legacy Project invites you to dive in with us in person (and streaming via Zoom) for a mythic experience like none other. We will gather at the Port Townsend Cotton Building at 607 Water Street downtown (PT WA 98368), around a virtual hearth. There will be live music and drumming from your host award-winning songwriter and Mythsinger Legacy steward Judith-Kate Friedman and surprise guests. Annie Clark will be on hand (literally) to provide ASL interpretation for one or more tales. And master mythsinger/mythteller Daniel Deardorff (1952-2019) will beam in from the archives via video and audio in a multi-media live/recorded blend that brings the heart of the hearer and the heart of the teller together across space and time. After singing about calling fire in the ancient manner with flint and steel, and after we collectively call in all the beings who'd like to hear a story for the turning of the year, Deardorff will give us three timeless ancient, yet relevant, Creation Myths, one from the Norse, one from Sumeria, and one from the Toba people of South America. We'll then reflect and "feed the story that has so generously fed us" in community conversation.

This local/international event takes place in person in Port Townsend, WA with live streaming via Zoom. Tickets are available here on Eventbrite, advance registration encouraged. All ages are welcome. This event is offered on a "pay-as-you-can, pay-as-you-wish" basis with a suggested donation of $20-$50 to support the ongoing work of the Mythsinger Legacy Project and Archive. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
NOTE THERE IS A SEPARATE TICKET LISTED FOR THE LIVE STREAM.

*EVENT TIME ZONES: 2pm to 4pm Pacific Time in PORT TOWNSEND, WA

ABOUT:

JUDITH-KATE FRIEDMAN inhabits flinty places where art, activism, ritual, and Oral Tradition dance. She sings, composes, writes, performs, curates spaces, produces events, tends hearth-fires, tells stories, and celebrates aliveness. An award-winning vocalist, performing songwriter, and producer, she is a three-time National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient for her projects with Songwriting Works™ Educational Foundation, the non-profit she founded. As steward of the Mythsinger Legacy Project, Judith-Kate continues in the lineage of her beloved Daniel “3D” Deardorff (1952-2019) with whom she shared long life partnership, weaving his mythwork and her own music into tapestries of mythic arts. Judith-Kate studied extensively with mythologist Dr. Martin Shaw and holds an M.A. in Poetics of Imagination from Dartington Arts School (UK). Her creative lineage follows Deardorff, Shaw, poet Robert Bly, dancer Anna Halprin (somatics), jazz vocalist Rhiannon, and Dr. Claire Zammit (leadership) among others. alivenessthrougharts.net

ASL interpreter ANNIE CLARK is renowned for her artistry, bring the beauty and fluency, the texture and meaning, the images and intention of the stories to deaf and hearing-impaired, and hearing audiences alike. She has worked internationally to give people with auditory disabilities full access to enjoying and participating in music, arts, humanities, and sciences. She has interpreted for Deepak Chopra, Ani DiFranco, Arlo Guthrie, and dozens of others. http://www.breskin.com/annie-clark/

Mythsinger DANIEL DEARDORFF was a master storyteller, author, singer, beloved teacher, and carrier of ancient oral tradition stories. The Mythsinger Legacy Project keeps his work alive with a series of interactive mythtelling and music events and study opportunities based on his teachings and book, The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche (3rd edition, Inner Traditions, 2022).

A lifelong performing musician whose five-decade career included songwriting, national touring, and producing, Deardorff was a survivor of paralytic polio and resulting paraplegia. He believed that one of the greatest oppressions is the suffering of meaningless wounds. When post-polio required him to retire from the music business, he became an independent scholar of myth, collaborating internationally with Robert Bly, Martin Shaw, Miguel Rivera, and others. He understood that myths hold medicine crucial for culture and essential for current times. Although he "flew out of this story and into the next" in 2019, his hearthside live mythtelling recordings bring him fully into the "room" with us, as we join him in the StoryHut where he called fire and taught myth and ritual for over a decade. Learn more about Daniel at mythsingerlegacy.org.