STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »Beowulf Live
Come see Odds Bodkin perform the Epic Beowulf live at the Riverwalk Cafe and Music bar in Nashua, NH. Be part of a live recording!
Get Details »BEOWULF: A Live Recording Event
With a full 12-string guitar score, Odds Bodkin tells Beowulf. Voices for Beowulf, Hrothgar, Unferth and others, plus vocalizations for Grendel and Grendel’s mother. 90 minutes with intermission. Come feast and drink and enter the elemental world of the ancient Danes and Geats. The Riverwalk Music Bar in Nashua, NH.
Get Details »The Sweet Pea Festival in Bozeman, Mt
Odds takes the Family Stage at the Sweet Pea Festival in Bozeman, Montana August 6 & 7, 2016. With 12-string guitar Celtic harp he’ll tell his best, funniest family tales! Saturday and Sunday shows at 1:30 pm!
Get Details »Sweet Pea Festival in Bozeman, MT
Join Odds at the Family Stage in Bozeman, MT for the Sweet Pea Festival. Family tales, singalong stories and more, for kids and adults!
Get Details »Once Upon a Lake Storytelling Festival
Odds Bodkin performs at 1:00 and 7:00 pm at the Once Upon a Lake Storytelling Festival in Hammondsport, NY. Visit the Finger Lakes and hear Odds tell tales for children and adults!
Get Details »Once Upon a Lake Storytelling Festival in Hammondsport, NY
Join Odds Bodkin at 1:00 for a children’s show and 7:00 for an adult show at Hammondsport Central School in Hammondsport, New York on the Finger Lakes!
Get Details »The Iliad: Book I at Loyola University Maryland
Odds returns to Loyola for the 8th year to perform The Iliad: Book I for Honors and Classics students and faculty. Andrew White Student Center at 7:00 p.m.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK I for Loyola’s Classics and Honors Students
Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore to perform The Iliad: Book I for Honors and Classics students with faculty.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE School Performances (K-2, 3-5)
GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS performances at Willard Elementary School in Concord, MA. 9:15 and 10:15 a.m.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST
Odds Bodkin performs The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for 5th grade students at Thoreau School in Concord, MA.
Get Details »TALES OF THE MOON at the Peabody Essex Museum
Odds tells TALES OF THE MOON at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts on Saturday, October 15th, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. A journey into mythology and moon lore.
Get Details »TALES OF THE MOON at the Peabody Essex Museum
Odds Bodkin tells three Tales of the Moon on October 15th at 11:00 a.m. onstage at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Get Details »Storytelling School Residency/Captain Samuel Douglas Academy
A storytelling performance followed by Door to Imagination workshops fill an exciting day of music, creativity and literacy learning for elementary school students.
Get Details »DARK TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Odds Bodkin’s scariest tales told with 12-string guitars, Celtic harp and alto recorder. Recommended for older children to adults.
Get Details »TALES OF THE LAND FAMILY CONCERT in Lafayette, CO
Bring the family to laugh, imagine and sing along as Odds tells stories at Angevine Middle School in Lafayette, Colorado on November 2nd at 6:30 p.m.!
Get Details »Storytelling Workshop in Boulder, CO
Join Odds from 1-4 at Boulder Valley UU Fellowship in Boulder, CO to learn to tell stories. Open to beginners through pros. Stories, cognitive experiments, music and philosophy combine to explore the Five Imaginations and how to use them to tell stories in your own words, without memorization.
Get Details »Storytelling Workshop in Boulder, Colorado
Join Odds for a Door to Imagination Workshop to learn to tell stories in your own words, without memorization. We open the Five Imaginations by using fun cognitive experiments, music, stories and conversation. Great for parents, teachers, clergy, grandparents, presenters––anyone who wants to tell stories.
Get Details »Storytelling Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado
Storytelling Workshop in Lafayette, CO
Join Odds from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at Pioneer Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, CO to learn to tell stories. Open to beginners through pros. Stories, cognitive experiments, music and philosophy combine to explore the Five Imaginations and how to use them to tell stories in your own words, without memorization.
Get Details »Storytelling Workshop in Lafayette, Colorado
Join Odds for a Door to Imagination Workshop to learn to tell stories in your own words, without memorization. We open the Five Imaginations by using fun cognitive experiments, music, stories and conversation. Great for parents, teachers, clergy, grandparents, presenters––anyone who wants to tell stories.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: Stories that Teach Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Louisville Elementary School with Golden Rule: Stories about Empathy. Three stories kids love, with lots of participation, come first. Then, Odds’ asks students ethical questions about the stories. They leave the show singing and knowing about the Golden Rule.
Get Details »StoryEarth: Odds Bodkin and Martin Ogle at UColorado
Odds Bodkin and Naturalist Martin Ogle team up to tell stories and use stunning multimedia to ask if old stories we tell about the Earth can use a science-based update . Bodkin performs Fall of the Titans (adult themes) as part of the show and public conversation.
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving/School Performance
The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving/School Performance
Three tales of giving and kindness capture the spirit of the Holidays for elementary age students.
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving/School Show
Odds Bodkin performs The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving for students and staff at Holy Trinity School in Laconia, New Hampshire. Funded by The Putnam Fund, the performance features 3 tales performed on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp, a host of character voices and engaging vocal effects. An Arthurian tale, a Chanukah story and a German folktale comprise the performance.
Get Details »THE WINTER CHERRIES: A Family Holiday Concert Performance
Odds Bodkin tells Holiday and Chanuka tales with music, humor and audience participation at Hollis Social Library in Hollis, New Hampshire on December 7th at 6:00 p.m. Three warm, family friendly tales appropriate for all ages! Come re-discover the Spirit of Christmas!
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving
Odds Bodkin tells Holiday Tales for families at Lawrence Barn, 28 Depot Road in Hollis, NH. With music on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp, he’ll tell two Christmas stories and a Chanuka tale. Sponsored by Hollis Social Library.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: Choose Kindness (K-3 & 3-5)
Odds Bodkin performs Golden Rule: Choose Kindness for K-2 and 3-5 students at Ledge Street Elementary School in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Get Details »The Winter Cherries Show: Tales for the Holidays
Odds Bodkin’s family-friendly show features three tales, Sir Cledges and the Winter Cherries, Chanukah’s Most Generous Man, and The Christmas Cobwebs. Celebrate the Holidays with imagination, humor and warmth. Odds tells these tales with 12-string guitars and Celtic harp.
Get Details »StoryScience: An Ancient Earth Myth Meets Modern Science
Bodkin performs the Greek myth “Fall of the Titans” about Gaia, her Titans and the birth of the Gods of Olympus for 40 minutes, then lights go down and the storyteller narrates his original multimedia presentation, Buildup of Knowledge. Modern science’s insights into how Earth came to be, how we know its age and how we are currently taking its climatic temperature are shared with images, videos, graphs and maps.
The 90 minute presentation contrasts ancient stories that explained Nature with science’s challenging, but more accurate viewpoint found today.
Learn more about the program at: https://www.oddsbodkin.net/story-science
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving/School Performance
Odds Bodkin tells three tales to a middle school audience at Laconia Middle School in Laconia, New Hampshire. With 12-string guitars, Celtic harp and character voices, Odds will spin his best-known Holiday tales. This performance is made possible by The Putnam Fund.
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving/Public Performance
Odds Bodkin performs The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales of Giving at the Lane Library in Hampton, New Hampshire on December 15th at 6:30 p.m.
Get Details »The Winter Cherries: A Holiday Storytelling Concert in NH
With his 12-string guitars and Celtic harp, Odds Bodkin tells heart-warming stories for the holidays. Includes The Winter Cherries, his beloved tale from the days of King Arthur, a Chanukah tale and a sing-along story. Appropriate for all ages, this performance begins at 6:00 p.m. at Plainfield Elementary School in Plainfield, New Hampshire. Sponsored by Plainfield Public Library. Bring the whole family!
Get Details »ThinAirMusic©:Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad
ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad is a 4-day residency for middle and high students that explores the use of digital instruments in Garage Band software. By learning to create and record original content––music and sound effects––students learn technology, arts and literature in one creative learning process.
Session #1
Each with a personal iPad pre-loaded with the audio “work story” (Bodkin reads with no music or sound effects), students explore “touch instruments”, live recording and creating samples in Garage Band. Strings. Guitars. Keyboards. Percussion. Voice recording. Environmental sounds recording. We explore “smart instruments” versus live recording capability. First multi-tracked test recordings are created by students.
Get Details »Odds Bodkin School Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Woolwich Central School in Bath, Maine for a storytelling performance.
Get Details »ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad
ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad is a 4-day residency for middle and high school students that explores the use of digital instruments in Garage Band software. By learning to create and record original content––music and sound effects––students learn technology, arts and literature in one seamless learning process.
Session #2
We explore leitmotifs as musical language for characters/situations. What actions or emotions occur in the work story? What are Foley effects? Students create an actions/emotions map for the work story and experiment with leitmotifs in instruments of their choosing. How do I record my music? How do I cut and paste it? How do I delete bad takes? How do I share?
Get Details »Odds Bodkin School Performance
ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad
ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad is a 4-day residency for middle and high school students that explores the use of digital instruments in Garage Band software. By learning to create and record original content––music and sound effects––students learn technology, arts and literature in one seamless learning process.
Session #3
Student put skills into practice. Working off their actions/emotions maps, they create and record music and/or Foley effects, multi-tracking beneath the work story. To finish their projects, students are encouraged to work after school.
Get Details »Odds Bodkin School Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Bath Middle School in Bath, Maine to perform for 6th through 8th graders.
Get Details »ThinAirMusic©:Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad
ThinAirMusic©: Creating Music and Sounds on the iPad is a 4-day residency for middle and high school students that explores the use of digital instruments in Garage Band software. By learning to create and record original content––music and sound effects––students learn technology, arts and literature in one seamless learning process.
Session #4
Students play their projects for fellow creators, Odds Bodkin and teachers. Bodkin offers suggestions and tips for further independent work by newly-minted digital musicians.
Get Details »Odds Bodkin School Performance
Odds Bodkin School Performance
The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits The Park School in Brookline, MA for his annual performance of The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for the 4th grade. This 60-minute Greek mythology performance journeys with Odysseus of Ithaca from inside the Trojan Horse to his escape from the cave of Polyphemus the Cyclops. The performance is accompanied by a full score on 12-string guitar.
Get Details »Odin and Thor Battle the Frost Giants: Viking Adventure Myths
Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA hosts Odds Bodkin as he performs THOR AND ODIN BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: VIKING MYTHS OF ADVENTURE on January 8th at 5:30 p.m., with seating commencing at 5:00 p.m.
Two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known lore (Thursday is Thor’s Day; Wednesday is Wotan’s Day) told by Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin. First, a tale of magic and illusion as Thor and Loki journey to Utgard, capital city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. Then, the Mead of Poetry, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his best friend who’s been murdered, his blood brewed into a wisdom-bestowing elixir. Told with 12-string guitar scores and Celtic harp musings, with character voices and vocal effects.
An adult storytelling performance.
Get Details »THE FIRST GAME OF THRONES: Fall of the Titans
This epic Greek myth from Hesiod explains how the Earth came to be, and how Gaia, the original Titan, birthed twelve titan children to create rivers, add salt to the sea and bring prophecy into the world. But when she also gives birth to monsters, her husband’s displeasure leads to a chain of events that rivals Game of Thrones. Revenge, hunger for power and betrayal infect the Titans until Cronus the King devours his own children––the Gods of Olympus––to prevent them from overthrowing him. But Gaia hides the baby Zeus, not knowing that when he grows up he will overthrow them all. Performed by Odds Bodkin with Celtic harp and 12-string guitar, plus a score of characters, this performance is not recommended for children.
Get Details »The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast/Holderness School HS Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Holderness School to perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for the student body and faculty. While playing leitmotifs on 12-string guitar, Bodkin narrates and enacts characters for Odysseus, his crew, the Lotus Eaters and Polyphemus the Cyclops as he relates the opening scenes of his four-hour epic telling of Homer’s renowned story.
Get Details »Fall of the Titans: The Original Game of Thrones
Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin presents the epic tale of Gaia, first Titan of the ancient Greeks, her Titan children, Earth’s creation and the eventual overthrow of the Titans by Zeus and Gaia’s Olympian grandchildren. Based of Hesiod’s Theogony (Birth of the Gods) set down in 700 B.C., the tale is performed with a 12-string guitar score, character voices and vocal effects, interspersed with Greek mythological lore described during Celtic harp extemporizations.
A performance for adults. Contains violence and sexuality.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST/Eaglebrook School
Odds Bodkin returns to Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, MA to perform a 60-minute version of THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST. With character voices, vocal effects and narration accompanied by a full score on 12-string guitar, Bodkin relates the adventures of Odysseus, from outside the Gates of Troy through the Great Storm and onto the Isle of the Lotus Eaters. The telling culminates with the horror inside the Cave of the Cyclops, and the Greeks’ escape after blinding the monster.
Get Details »Beowulf: The Only One
Odds Bodkin’s latest epic tale, told with 12-string guitar music, is rugged, bloody and true to the original poem. Grateful to a Danish king for saving his father, a fearless Beowulf sails to Denmark to kill Grendel, a raiding demon. With Celtic harp extemporizations, Bodkin fills in the tale with some Viking history, including the Medieval Climate Optimum, even how Viking dragon ships were water-proofed.
A performance for adults.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: Choose Kindness for K-2 & 3-5
Two GOLDEN RULE performances at Alcott Elementary School in Concord, MA for early grades and upper grades schoolchildren.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS show in Framingham, MA
Odds Bodkin visits Potter Road Elementary School in Framingham, MA to offer GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS, a show that combines stories with follow-up ethical discussions with students. Imaginatively spellbound students find themselves filled with the desire to answer questions posed by three stories. Available for K-2 and 3-6 audiences.
Get Details »WORLDS APART: TALES FOR LOVERS/performance at Grendel’s Den
For Valentine’s Day, master storyteller and musician Odds Bodkin tells two long love tales, The Crane Wife from ancient Japan, performed with pentatonically prepared Celtic harp, and The Dame Ragnell, a moving and hilarious version of Chretien de Troyes’ 14th century feminist tale, performed with character voices and a full score on 12-string guitar.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS school shows for Grades K-2 & 3-5
Odds Bodkin visits Thompson Elementary School in Arlington MA to tell GOLDEN RULE stories with follow-up ethics questions for Grades K-2 and 3-5. Each performance includes three tales from around the world told with characters, vocal effects and music on African sanza, 12-string guitars and Celtic harp.
Get Details »The Loathly Lady and the Magic Wife: Love Stories
To save King Arthur’s life, Sir Gawain agrees to marry the Dame Ragnell, the world’s most hideous woman. No one knows who she really is, but hilarity ensues when she shows up for the wedding and makes Gawain a happy man. A moving love story about appearances and illusions, performed with character voices and 12-string guitar.
A mysterious young woman appears at a lonely sailmaker’s door during a storm. She stays, becomes his wife and fulfills him until he learns she can weave magic sails. Her only condition: never watch me as I work. He has no idea how magical she is until it’s too late. Performed with character voices and a haunting score on Celtic harp tuned to Japanese scales.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for Kindergarteners/Belmont, MA
Odds Bodkin visits Wellington School in Belmont, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: STORIES THAT TEACH EMPATHY to kindergarteners with a follow-up set of questions for the young audience. Tales include THE NAME OF THE TREE from Africa, THE WIND AND THE SUN from Aesop, and THE TALE OF THE KITTENS from Italy. Music on 12-string guitar, African thumb piano and Celtic harp accompany the stories. Bodkin welcomes the children with Celtic harp extemporizations prior to the show.
Get Details »AWESOME TALES for Grades 3-6 School Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Salisbury Elementary School in Salisbury, MA to perform AWESOME TALES for 3-6 graders. Three stories from cultures around the world accompanied by original music and character voices bring wisdom and empathy to imaginative life for students.
Supported through the Salisbury Cultural Council Grant – a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Get Details »FANTASTIC FAIRYTALES for Grades K-2
Odds Bodkin visits Salisbury Elementary School in Salisbury, MA to perform FANTASTIC FAIRYTALES for Grades K-2. Using Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments, Odds tells tales that young children love and learn from, all the while imagining vividly.
Supported through the Salisbury Cultural Council Grant – a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS shows for K-2 & 3-5
Odds Bodkin visits Brookfield Elementary School in Vermont to offer two GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS performances for K-2 and 3-5 students. Each show contains three stories followed by ethical questions that urge students to consider the benefits of empathy and kindness.
Get Details »Young Hercules: The Legendary Bully/Middle School Show
Odds Bodkin returns to Andover Middle School for the 7th year in a row to perform Young Hercules: The Legendary Bully. The hour-long performance followed by a Q&A is Bodkin’s empathy-awareness program for middle school students. Trapped in the Underworld, Hercules has to tell his own life story to Hades and Persephone in order to ascend to Mt. Olympus. His youthful rages and murders, his Twelve Labors and final discovery of seeing himself through the eyes of others leaves a lasting impression on young teens, both boys and girls.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS/2 Elementary School Shows
Odds Bodkin visits Thompson Elementary School in Dover, NH for two GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS empathy-awareness storytelling performances with follow-up questions for students. Young audiences of K-2 and 3-5 graders are each welcomed with harp extemporizations, then hear three stories from around the world.
Get Details »Door to Imagination Workshop/Round Hill Community Church
Odds Bodkin visits Round Hill Community Church in Greenwich, CT to tell stories and conduct a Door to Imagination Workshop for the community. For information contact Reverend Ed Horstmann.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS (2 elementary school shows)
With Celtic harp, African thumb piano and 12-string guitar, Odds Bodkin offers two different GOLDEN RULE performances with follow-up conversation with students in grades K-2 and 3-5. Stories from around the world that urge children to consider empathy are followed by Odds’ intriguing ethical questions.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast/Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square
Meet Odysseus of Ithaca inside the Trojan Horse, about to bring down Troy after ten years of siege. He longs for his wife and son. Little does he know he’s about to embark on the epic adventure that bears his name. There is death on the beach at Ismaros followed by drugged Lotus Eaters on a strange island, but nothing prepares him for the horrors inside the Cave of the Cyclops. Trapped with his men who are being devoured two by two, Odysseus must use his legendary wits to escape the beast Polyphemus without killing him.
Experience Odds Bodkin’s renowned epic telling of Homer’s The Odyssey as the master storyteller accompanies himself on thunderous 12-string guitar while enacting vivid characters. A feast for the Mind’s Eye. Odds includes an introduction to the tale on Celtic harp.
Get Details »INDIA’S ANCIENTS: Tales from The Mahabharata and Beyond/Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square
King Yudisthira’s time to die has come, but his brothers and wife won’t let him journey to Mt. Kailasa alone. When a stray dog insists on following them, the travelers don’t mind. Awaiting them, high in the snows, are the gates to the Celestial City, guarded by the God of a Thousand Eyes. But the journey proves to be terrifying, and one by one, Bhima, Arjuna and even Draupadi perish on the road to the Silver Mountain. Only the King and the dog make it to the gates. What happens next is one of the most mind-blowing endings to any story Odds Bodkin knows.
He’ll tell Yudisthira at Heaven’s Gate from The Mahabharata and other unforgettable stories from India in this magical performance, self-accompanied with sitar-like music played on 12-string guitars, vocal effects and vivid character voices.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL/Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square
Killed by a love charm, Hercules is dead, but instead of awakening on Mt. Olympus as he was promised, he’s trapped in the Underworld with Hades and his reluctant queen, Persephone. She longs for news of the living and Hades demands that Hercules tell his life story in order to be freed. Forced to reflect on his murderous rages when young, the hero tells his own tale. Haunted by guilt after killing his wife and children, he’s given a path to redemption––a set of impossible labors. The Bull of Zeus. The Sacred Stag of Artemis. The Hydra. The Augean Stables. Twelve in all. But the tale doesn’t end there.
Odds Bodkin performs this award-winning story using vivid character voices, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar. He opens with an introduction to Hercules’ place in Greek mythology on Celtic harp.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast/High School Performance
Odds Bodkin returns to Parker Charter Essential School to perform a high school version of THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for 9th and 10th graders. Accompanied by 12-string guitar, Mr. Bodkin enacts numerous characters, creates vocal sound effects and narrates this 70-minute tale.
Get Details »A DAY OF STORIES: K, 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 Grade Levels/Evening Family Performance
Odds Bodkin offers a special day of brief, grade-appropriate storytellings for K, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 at Page Hilltop School in Ayer, Massachusetts, followed by a public evening performance for families. Music on 12-string guitars, Celtic harp, African sanza and alto recorder flavor the tales in each 20-minute show.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY for the New Hampshire Classical Association
Six hundred Latin students from New Hampshire high schools visit St. Anselm College’s Dana Center to receive awards and hear master storyteller Odds Bodkin perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS (3 elementary school shows)
Odds Bodkin performs 3 GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS performances for K-1, 2-3 and 4-5 grade levels during the day. Each performance features three tales from around the world followed by Odds’ intriguing ethical questions for his young listeners. GOLDEN RULE is designed to urge children to practice kindness and empathy in their lives. Music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST/School Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Sacred Heart School in Greenwich, CT to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for students and faculty.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST/Special 4th Grade Version
Odds Bodkin visits Old Greenwich School in Greenwich, CT to perform a special 4th grade-appropriate version of The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS for Kindergarteners
Odds Bodkin visits Memorial Elementary School in Natick, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS to kindergarteners. He includes follow-up questions for his young listeners.
Get Details »Evening Performance of GOLDEN RULE Empathy Stories for Title I Families
Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin visits Penacook Elementary School for an evening performance of GOLDEN RULE: STORIES THAT TEACH EMPATHY for Title I families. Encouraging reading and imagination, Odds tells fun family stories with follow-up questions for the audience about kindness and compassion for others.
Get Details »INDIA’S ANCIENTS: Tales from the Mahabharata and Beyond
King Yudisthira’s time to die has come, but his brothers and wife won’t let him journey to Mt. Kailasa alone. When a stray dog insists on following them, the travelers don’t mind. Awaiting them, high in the snows, are the gates to the Celestial City, guarded by the God of a Thousand Eyes. But the journey proves to be terrifying, and one by one, Bhima, Arjuna and even Draupadi perish on the road to the Silver Mountain. Only the King and the dog make it to the gates. What happens next is one of the most mind-blowing endings to any story Odds Bodkin knows.
He’ll tell Yudisthira at Heaven’s Gate from The Mahabharata and other unforgettable stories from India in this magical performance, self-accompanied with sitar-like music played on 12-string guitars, vocal effects and vivid character voices.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS All-School Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Sanderson Academy Elementary School to perform GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS for a Pre-K through Sixth grade audience.
Get Details »A Family Stories Extravaganza in Glen Providence Park
Bring a picnic and the kids for Odds Bodkin’s FAMILY STORIES EXTRAVAGANZA in Glen Providence Park in Media, PA on June 3rd at 5:00 pm. Odds will bring his harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments to help him tell his funniest family-friendly stories. Babies welcome! Usually even they listen!
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: CHOOSE KINDNESS for K-3 & 4-5
Odds Bodkin visits Blanchard Memorial School in Boxborough, MA to offer two performances of his empathy-awareness storytelling program, GOLDEN RULE for grades K-3 and 4-6. In each show, three stories are followed up with Odds’ intriguing ethical questions for the audience.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL
Killed by a love charm, Hercules is dead, but instead of awakening on Mt. Olympus as he was promised, he’s trapped in the Underworld with Hades and his reluctant queen, Persephone. She longs for news of the living and Hades demands that Hercules tell his life story in order to be freed. Forced to reflect on his murderous rages when young, the hero tells his own tale. Haunted by guilt after killing his wife and children, he’s given a path to redemption––a set of impossible labors. The Bull of Zeus. The Sacred Stag of Artemis. The Hydra. The Augean Stables. Twelve in all. But the tale doesn’t end there.
Odds Bodkin performs this award-winning story using vivid character voices, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar. He opens with an introduction to Hercules’ place in Greek mythology on Celtic harp.
Get Details »Acoustic Music Porch Concert/12-String Guitars and Celtic Harp
Odds Bodkin will offer an Acoustic Music Porch Concert on Saturday, July 1 from 10 a.m-Noon at the Sweet Beet Market in Bradford, New Hampshire. He’ll extemporize on two 12-string guitars and Celtic harp for visitors to Sweet Beet during Bradford’s 4th of July festivities. Instead of telling tales with music, Odds will play a series of original pieces of music for customers as they come and go from Bradford’s newest and coolest business, the new storefront for the Kearsarge Food Hub. Located at 11 West Main Street, Sweet Beet Market offers fresh produce and locally sourced food products in its shop at the old Bradford Inn, currently being converted into a multi-purpose facility and venue.
Get Details »Stories at the Stone House/Private Family Performance
Odds Bodkin performs at a private gathering.
Get Details »Family Gathering Performance
Odds Bodkin says thanks to his web designer and mentor, Dave Ventresca, by offering a kids’ performance and adult performance to Dave’s extended family.
Get Details »Outdoor Campfire Tales
Odds Bodkin visits Camp Glen Brook in Marlborough, New Hampshire for an evening of tales for 4th-9th grade campers.
Get Details »WHEN THE MOON DANCED WITH THE SUN: Tales for an Eclipse!
Join Odds Bodkin, master storyteller and musician, for an afternoon of cosmic tales to celebrate the solar eclipse! How can the Moon possibly have twenty-seven star wives without annoying the Sun? When moon fairies show up during an eclipse, can they really save a girl’s life? Odds tells these and other stories with character voices, natural vocal effects and live music played on Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments.
Get Details »A Family Stories Extravaganza at The Livery at Sunapee Harbor
Bring the kids (even babies listen!) to hear Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin use wild voices, amazing natural sound effects
and live music on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp to tell fun, family-friendly stories. Called “a consummate storyteller” by The New York Times, Odds creates “imagination movies” in a storytelling style that Wired calls “one of the great voices in American storytelling.” From performances at Lincoln Center to The White House, this New Hampshire artist now brings his infectiously fun Family Stories Extravaganza to The Livery at Sunapee Harbor.
CAMP! Stories for Kid Campers in Vermont
Odds Bodkin joins storytellers Simon Brooks and Karen Pillsworth for his 4th appearance at CAMP!, a special experience for special kids.
Get Details »WHEN THE MOON DANCED WITH THE SUN: Tales for an Eclipse!
Join Odds Bodkin, master storyteller and musician, for an evening of cosmic tales to celebrate the solar eclipse! How can the Moon possibly have twenty-seven star wives without annoying the Sun? When moon fairies show up during an eclipse, can they really save a girl’s life? Odds tells these and other stories with character voices, natural vocal effects and live music played on Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments.
Get Details »The Lighter Side of Odds Bodkin: A Collection of Humorous Tales
Funny, urbane tales from Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Africa, China and other lands. Some with songs. Musical scores on 12-string guitars, Celtic harp and African sanza (thumb piano). Unless you’ve seen Odds Bodkin perform for family audiences, you probably haven’t heard these vivid, hilarious stories, many with an infectious beat and a chance to get crazy. Kids are welcome, too!
Get Details »WHEN THE MOON DANCED WITH THE SUN: Tales for an Eclipse!
Join Odds Bodkin, master storyteller and musician, for an afternoon of cosmic tales to celebrate the solar eclipse! How can the Moon possibly have twenty-seven star wives without annoying the Sun? When moon fairies show up during an eclipse, can they really save a girl’s life? Odds tells these and other stories with character voices, natural vocal effects and live music played on Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast/University Level
Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore to perform THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast for Honors and Classics students.
Get Details »LIVING BEYOND HOPE AND FEAR: Boulder Climate Symposium 2017
Odds Bodkin visits Boulder, Colorado to present climate storytelling workshops and an evening performance at LIVING BEYOND HOPE AND FEAR: WARRIOR PRINCIPLE, CLIMATE ACTION, a climate symposium hosted by Shambhala Center September 15-17, 2017.
On Saturday the 16th, Odds will offer special DOOR TO IMAGINATION workshops for climate scientists and activists that focus on how to tell compelling stories about climate issues, one at 10:45 a.m. with a repeat workshop at 2:30 p.m.
On Saturday evening at 7 p.m., with Celtic harp, 12-string guitar and computer, he’ll perform two tales, THE ELF OF SPRINGTIME on Celtic harp (children welcome) and then, GAIA: FALL OF THE TITANS, his epic version of Hesiod’s THEOGONY, the ancient Greek creation myth, on 12-string guitar. Then, to contrast ways of knowing, he presents his multimedia movie, BUILDUP OF KNOWLEDGE with live narration.
On Sunday the 17th he’ll lead a plenary session to explore how to move into the world armed with compelling climate-related stories.
Get Details »TALES OF THE LAND for the Belknap County Farm Bureau Annual Meeting
Odds Bodkin performs TALES OF THE LAND for farmers and land use professionals at the annual meeting of the Belknap Country Farm Bureau in Gilford, New Hampshire.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror at Riverwalk Music Bar
From man-eating werepanthers (think werewolves) who must kill their own father to a dark road wraith chased across New England by Nature’s vengeance, Odds Bodkin’s tales of horror build to climactic scenes in your imagination. Driven by virtuoso 12-string guitar playing, Celtic harp and other instruments along with riveting character voices and vocal effects, each of the evening’s tales are guaranteed to take you deep into your worst fears. And don’t forget the story of a greedy priest in Russia who bleeds everywhere he’s donned the skin of a dead goat.
Horrible, yes. Fun, yes. Plus ancient Celtic lore about the origins of All Hallow’s Eve.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Thoreau School in Concord, MA to offer two GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY performances for grades 1-2 and 3-5. After each different set of stories, Odds follows up by asking students intriguing ethical questions.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Horror Tales for Adults Next to the Cemetery in Bradford, NH
FOR ADULTS. Odds Bodkin’s HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN TALES OF HORROR near the cemetery at The Sweet Beet in Bradford, New Hampshire takes place this October on Friday the 13th at 8 pm.
FRIDAY THE 13TH!
From man-eating werepanthers (think werewolves) who must kill their own father to a dark wraith chased across old New England’s roads by Nature’s vengeance, Odds Bodkin’s tales of horror build to climactic scenes. Driven by virtuoso 12-string guitar playing, Celtic harp and other instruments along with riveting character voices and vocal effects, each of the evening’s tales are guaranteed to take you deep into your worst fears. And don’t forget the story of a greedy priest in Russia who bleeds everywhere he’s donned the skin of a dead goat.
Horrible, yes. Fun, yes. Plus ancient Celtic lore about the origins of All Hallow’s Eve.
An adult performance. Not for children. An outdoor show. Bundle up!
Spooky food and drinks will be available at the show from the chefs at The Sweet Beet.
Tickets $10 in advance and $12 at the gate.
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at the Wakefield Opera House
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 and 12-string guitar and Celtic harp.
SPONSORED BY GAFNEY LIBRARY
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at Hopkinton Library NH
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 and 12-string guitar and Celtic harp.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast in Greenwich, CT
Odds Bodkin visits Old Greenwich School in Greenwich, CT to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST in a special version for 4th graders.
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at The Burren in Somerville MA
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 and 12-string guitar and Celtic harp. A special performance at The Burren Back Room in Somerville, MA.
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at Bethlehem Public Library in NH
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 and 12-string guitar and Celtic harp.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Woodland Community School to perform GOLDEN RULE for a K-12 audience in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at Dunbarton Public Library
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 and 12-string guitar and Celtic harp.
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at Warner Town Hall, NH
When a train with a banshee howling above it saves a trainload of families, you know it’s Halloween. When a girl who’s dancing with a tall stranger almost vanishes from the dance floor, you certainly know it’s Halloween! And when a little boy who cannot grow outwits his enchantment by stealing singing apples from the witch who guards them, oh, it’s really Halloween!
Join Odds Bodkin, Master Storyteller and Musician for Fun Spooky Tales for Young Families. With original music on 6 and12-string guitars and Celtic harp, he’ll use character voices and amazing natural sound effects to give you just enough chills for the Halloween season, but not too many. Recommended for families with kids ages 4 and up.
Presented by Schoodacs of Warner.
Get Details »THE HARVEST: Stories of Thanksgiving in Ossipee NH
Odds Bodkin performs three Thanksgiving Stories with character voices, sound effects and music on Celtic harp,
African thumb piano and 12-string guitar. For all ages.
• A poor Swedish farmer inherits a farm that has not produced food for one hundred years. Why is it so unlucky? Why
won’t crops grow? The good farmer doesn’t discover his farm’s secret until he meets a curious being who lives beneath
his cowshed.
• Kaddo discovers how to grow more millet than anyone in his village. Keeping the secret to himself, he amasses enough
to build a wall of millet around his house and refuses to share with his fellow villagers. Will he let greed overcome him?
• Marie, a brave and curious little girl, goes into the garden in search of chicory at her mother’s request. Instead, she
finds a giant cauliflower with a ladder beneath it that leads down into the earth. At the bottom, she discovers a
magical world of kittens harvesting their garden. And so the tale begins, one filled with audience questions about delicious vegetables, laughter and song.
THE HARVEST: Stories of Thanksgiving in Scarborough, Maine
Odds Bodkin performs three Thanksgiving Stories with character voices, sound effects and music on Celtic harp,
African thumb piano and 12-string guitar. For all ages.
• A poor Swedish farmer inherits a farm that has not produced food for one hundred years. Why is it so unlucky? Why
won’t crops grow? The good farmer doesn’t discover his farm’s secret until he meets a curious being who lives beneath
his cowshed.
• Kaddo discovers how to grow more millet than anyone in his village. Keeping the secret to himself, he amasses enough
to build a wall of millet around his house and refuses to share with his fellow villagers. Will he let greed overcome him?
• Marie, a brave and curious little girl, goes into the garden in search of chicory at her mother’s request. Instead, she
finds a giant cauliflower with a ladder beneath it that leads down into the earth. At the bottom, she discovers a
magical world of kittens harvesting their garden. And so the tale begins, one filled with audience questions about delicious vegetables, laughter and song.
SPONSORED BY SCARBOROUGH LIBRARY, SCARBOROUGH, ME
Get Details »FUN SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES in Suffield, CT
A banshee howls behind a train full of passengers.
Will she take their lives, or is she trying to save them?
Who is he? A beautiful girl dances with a handsome stranger.
But, why is she so dizzy? And why is she vanishing?
Will the boy who cannot grow break the spell by taking the magical singing apples?
And will the wicked witch who guards them, let him?
Odds Bodkin tells child-safe spooky tales with voices, sound effects and music on 6 & 12-string guitars and Celtic harp.
Sponsored by Kent Memorial Library.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits Greens Farms Academy in Westport, CT to perform THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast for 9th and 10th grade students. After the 70-minute performance, he follows with a brief Q&A.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy in Acton, MA
Odds Bodkin visits Douglas Elementary School in Acton, MA to perform two GOLDEN RULE assembly performances for K-2 and 3-5 students. Intriguing ethical questions for the children follow the two distinct sets of stories. Music on 12-string guitar, Celtic harp and African thumb piano. An “all people have wisdom” performance.
Get Details »THE HARVEST: Stories of Thanksgiving in Plainfield, NH
• A poor Swedish farmer inherits a farm that has not produced food for one hundred years. Why is it so unlucky? Why won’t crops grow? The good farmer doesn’t discover his farm’s secret until he meets a curious being who lives beneath his cowshed.
• Kaddo discovers how to grow more millet than anyone in his village. Keeping the secret to himself, he amasses enough to build a wall of millet around his house and refuses to share with his fellow villagers. Will he let greed overcome him?
• Marie, a brave and curious little girl, goes into the garden in search of chicory at her mother’s request. Instead, she finds a giant cauliflower with a ladder beneath it that leads down into the earth. At the bottom, she discovers a magical world of kittens harvesting their garden. And so the tale begins, one filled with audience questions about delicious vegetables, laughter and song.
Get Details »THE HARVEST: Stories of Thanksgiving
Odds Bodkin performs three Thanksgiving Stories with character voices, sound effects and music on Celtic harp,
African thumb piano and 12-string guitar. For all ages.
• A poor Swedish farmer inherits a farm that has not produced food for one hundred years. Why is it so unlucky? Why
won’t crops grow? The good farmer doesn’t discover his farm’s secret until he meets a curious being who lives beneath
his cowshed.
• Kaddo discovers how to grow more millet than anyone in his village. Keeping the secret to himself, he amasses enough
to build a wall of millet around his house and refuses to share with his fellow villagers. Will he let greed overcome him?
• Marie, a brave and curious little girl, goes into the garden in search of chicory at her mother’s request. Instead, she
finds a giant cauliflower with a ladder beneath it that leads down into the earth. At the bottom, she discovers a
magical world of kittens harvesting their garden. And so the tale begins, one filled with audience questions about delicious vegetables, laughter and song.
SPONSORED BY SANDOWN PARKS AND RECREATION
Get Details »THE WINTER CHERRIES: TALES FOR THE HOLIDAYS in Colebrook, NH
Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin (“a consummate storyteller”—The New York Times) weaves masterful music on Celtic harp and 12-string guitars with a cast of voice creations and uncanny sound effects to tell THE WINTER CHERRIES: Tales for the Holidays. A miraculous Christmas Eve adventure from the days of King Arthur. A Chanukah tale of generosity with a startling surprise ending. And a song-filled German folktale of gratitude where we all sing together.
Like movies for the imagination, these tales dive deep into the true spirit of the Holidays. Poverty and wealth. Generosity and greed. Physical things versus acts of kindness. All told with plenty of humor and lots of warmth.
THE WINTER CHERRIES is appropriate for all audiences. Join this New Hampshire artist who Wired Magazine calls “one of the great voices in American storytelling.”
Sponsored by Colebrook Public Library, the performance will be held at The Tillotson Center in Colebrook, New Hampshire at 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 26th, 2017.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2 & 3-5
Odds Bodkin visits Lura A. White Elementary School in Shirley, MA for two GOLDEN RULE performances. Different sets of tales for each show lead to a Q&A with students in response to Odds’ intriguing ethical questions based on the stories. GOLDEN RULE is a unique approach to issues of bullying versus kindness that one principal praised as “the best anti-bullying program we’ve ever had, hands down.”
Get Details »THE WINTER CHERRIES: Tales for the Holidays
Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin visits Harvey-Mitchell Library in Epping, NH on Dec.1 2017 at 6 p.m. to perform THE WINTER CHERRIES: Tales for the Holidays. Three heartwarming and at time humorous tales of giving, love and the Holiday Spirit told with character voices, natural vocal effects and live original music on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp. Appropriate for all ages. Bring the family. An Arthurian Christmas legend, a German folktale and a Chanukah tale blend into a message of warmth.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST at Lawrence Academy
Odds Bodkin visits Lawrence Academy in Groton, MA to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for the student body and members of the public on January 12, 2018 at 6:30 p.m.
Get Details »IN-CLASS WORKSHOP about The Odyssey at Lawrence Academy
With his 12-string guitar, Odds Bodkin visits three 9th grade classes at Lawrence Academy prior to his evening performance of The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast. He demonstrates the musical leitmotifs students will hear, and how they convey emotions, and how Homer recited his epics using voices and music on the lyre. Imagination’s link to memory as a cognitive skill comes next. He’ll then delve into life in the Bronze Age and how the ancient Greeks viewed life, death and the mysteries of nature.
Workshop sessions are at 12 noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
Get Details »Once We Were Kids. Now We’re Parents Ourselves. Come Tell Us Stories!
Odds Bodkin performs for a large family gathering to celebrate a month of birthdays. Kids who grew up with Odds’ stories––now parents themselves––have asked him to do this private show.
Get Details »EPIC VIKING MYTHS at Schoodacs of Warner
With live music, characters and vocal effects, Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin tells two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known Viking lore (Did you know that Thursday is Thor’s Day and Wednesday is Wotan’s Day?).
First Odds offers background lore accompanied with Celtic harp. When did the Vikings travel and what was their mythic worldview? Why did they believe that Yggdrasil, the World Ash tree, held up the Nine Worlds of their cosmos? Learn how Viking travels during the Medieval Warm Period ended up naming Russia itself.
Then, accompanied by thunderous 12-string guitar, a tale of magic and illusion unfolds as Thor and Loki journey to Utgard, capital city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. At first they are confident, but all is not as it seems. A tale filled with both humor and adventure, with a stunning surprise ending.
After intermission, Odds offers more lore, and then performs The Mead of Poetry, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his murdered best friend. Evil dwarves have brewed Kvasir’s blood into a wisdom-bestowing elixir, but already is has changed hands. Told with a haunting 12-string guitar score and wild sound effects, not to mention the voices of numerous giants, this story is filled with intrigue, seduction, betrayal and murder.
Typical Viking fare, these stories are recommended for mature children through adults. Two hours of high-end imagination entertainment in an intimate setting.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK I at Groton School
Odds Bodkin visits Groton School in Groton, MA to perform THE ILIAD: BOOK I for high school students. The tale, accompanied with themes on 12-string guitar, encompasses the Judgement of Paris as lead-in mythic material to Book I of Homer’s Greek mythology classic. The tale includes character voices for Achilles, Agamemnon, Khryses the Priest, Khalkas the Diviner, Odysseus and others. Also included are voices for Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Zeus, Hephaestus and Paris Alexandros. Mr. Bodkin offers an introduction accompanied with Celtic harp that explores Bronze Age life and spirituality in an age before the printing press.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Potter Road Elementary School in Framingham MA to offer a GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY performance. Odds follows the stories with intriguing ethical questions for students.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Memorial Elementary School in Natick, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy, for kindergarteners. He’ll tell three fun, participatory stories with music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar, and then follow up with intriguing ethical questions for the children.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy/Middle School Level
Odds Bodkin visits Hoosac Valley Middle School for a special middle-school-appropriate performance of GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY. A Q&A about ethics follows the three tales in the show.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY Evening Performance for Elementary School Families
Odds Bodkin visits Hoosac Valley Elementary School for a Reading Night performance of GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST: Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin return to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square to perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast, his renowned modern adaptation of Homer’s classic tale. With Greek myths backstory explained while he plays Celtic harp, Bodkin picks up his 12-string guitar and sudden wind and seabirds set the scene for the tale. Follow Odysseus of Ithaca and his men from inside the Trojan Horse all the way to their escape from the Cave of the Cyclops.
A college freshman who attended The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast in 2017 writes:
“I also wanted to talk about how fantastic the Odds Bodkin performance was! I didn’t know what to expect and I was completely blown away by the whole thing. The way he told the stories was so captivating! With all of the sounds he was able to make, the unique voices of each person, and intricate guitar playing…it was unbelievable. I was hanging on each and every word and if possible I would have stayed all night long. I can’t wait to go next year if he comes to Loyola again!!! With all of the sensory details he provided it really was as if I was there, during ancient times, transported to 700 B.C. in the “Belly of the Beast” so to speak. I absolutely loved his Polyphemus voice, the old man/priest in Apollo’s temple who gave Odysseus the brandy, the men who accompanied him during the travels, the people in the lotus flower scene within the ivy of the sickly-sweet perfumed island–everything! The way he created such a vivid scene made imagining a transcendent and effortless gift. While I don’t think I blinked for five minutes straight because I was in complete awe of his talent and skill, other times I would close my eyes for a brief moment to fully picture it.”
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: Evening Performance for Title I Families (elementary school level)
Odds Bodkin performs GOLDEN RULE––stories about empathy followed by ethical questions––for Title I readers and their families in this evening performance.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE Empathy Performances for Grades K-3 & 4-6
Odds Bodkin visits Conant Elementary School in Acton, MA to offer two GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY performances for grades K-3 and 4-6. Odds poses intriguing ethical questions to students after the stories.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Barnstable-West Barnstable Elementary School to perform GOLDEN RULE for grades K-3. Three tales followed by intriguing ethical questions urge students to consider kindness in social situations.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE at the Riverwalk Music Bar
Odds Bodkin returns to the Riverwalk Music Bar in Nashua, NH to perform BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE, his epic telling of BEOWULF. A full original score on 12-string guitar underlies narrations and character voices for Beowulf, the monsters Grendel and Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar of the Danes, faithful Wyglaf and others. A powerful adult tale of mass murder, faith and gratitude featuring one of the greatest heroes of literature. Includes episodes spanning the entire epic, from Beowulf’s triumph over Grendel to his battle with the Fire Dragon fifty years later.
Recording available at Odds Bodkin’s download shop.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE/Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin visits Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA to perform Beowulf: The Only One, his feature-length musical telling of Beowulf. Characters, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar animate this ancient tale of heroism and gratitude. Voices for Beowulf, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar and many others along with haunting motifs on guitar blend into a compelling and vivid imaginative experience. Bodkin’s telling is based closely on the original Beowulf manuscript, the earliest known piece of literature in English.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Acton-Boxborough School District to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stores About Empathy for an after-school audience of schoolchildren. Three tales are followed by Odds’ intriguing ethical questions for students. Music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 students
Odds Bodkin visits Birch Meadow Elementary School in Reading, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy, for kindergarteners through second graders. He’ll tell three fun, participatory stories with music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar, and then follow up with intriguing ethical questions for the children.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS/Adult Storytelling at the Riverwalk Music Bar
Odds Bodkin returns to the Riverwalk Music Bar to perform ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: VIKING MYTHS OF ADVENTURE on Sunday night, April 1 at 7:00 p.m..
Eat and drink adult beverages like a Viking, then hear two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known lore (Thursday is Thor’s Day; Wednesday is Wotan’s Day). First, a tale of magic and illusion as Thor and Loki journey to the city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. Meet Thor, big, strong, slightly dim and lovable, along with Loki, everything Thor is not. You’ll hear characterizations for these mythic characters, along with peasants and immense giants. And of course, a full score on 12-string guitar. Then, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his best friend who’s been murdered, his blood brewed into a wisdom-bestowing elixir. Hear another 12-string, along with more music and voices for dwarves, a dangerous, lonely giantess, and Odin himself.
Plus little-known Viking lore (Russia was named after the Vikings?) explained as Odds plays Celtic harp and shows his scholarly side.
Adventure, humor and great acoustic music!
“one of the great voices in American storytelling”—Wired
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST at Hillsboro-Deering Middle School
Odds Bodkin visits Hillsboro-Deering Middle School to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for middle school students. Accompanied by a score on 12-string guitar, the seventy-five minute tale journeys with Odysseus of Ithaca from the Gates of Troy through his escape from the Cyclops’ Cave. It features narrative, numerous characters, vocal effects and hypnotic music performed in-the-moment.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Center Woods Elementary School in Weare, NH to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for schoolchildren. After the three tales, he asks them intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »HERCULES THE LEGENDARY BULLY for Middle School Students
Odds Bodkin visits the Cooperative Middle School in Stratham, New Hampshire to perform HERCULES THE LEGENDARY BULLY for middle school students. The ancient Greek myth about madness, bullying, murder, hope and redemption sets a powerful example of a human life, one lived with great power and fraught with mistakes. Using a 12-string guitar score, Odds enacts numerous characters to bring the tale to life. He then takes questions from students about the story’s content.
Get Details »SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS Music and Story Festival in Virginia
Odds Bodkin visits Camp Bethel in Fincastle, VA to join storytellers Kevin Kling, Sheila Arnold Jones and Jim May plus The Company Store Band for the Sounds of the Mountains Storytelling and Music Festival. Located in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, the festival takes place on 470 acres of streams, mountains and meadows. Odds will bring his stories told with music on 12-string guitars, Celtic harp and other instruments to perform for schoolchildren and the public. Save the dates: April 27 & 28, 2018!
Here’s the schedule!
Friday, April 27, 2018
5:30pm Doors Open. Soups, salads & snacks/drinks available.
7:00-9:00pm Evening Olio: Kevin, Odds, Sheila, Jim (order of performers may vary)
9:15-9:45pm Campfire with Storytellers, including s’mores (weather permitting & bring your flashlight!)
Saturday, April 28, 2018
8:30am Doors Open: Snacks & drinks available.
9:45am Morning Olio: Kevin, Odds, Sheila, Jim (order of performers may vary)
12:00pm Lunch Break with Blue Ridge Dance Fitness Cloggers
1:00-2:00pm: Kevin Kling & Sheila Arnold Jones
2:00-3:00pm: Jim May & Odds Bodkin
3:00pm Music & more by The Company Store Band
3:00pm Guided Nature Walk (weather permitting)
4:00pm Short Olio: Kevin, Odds, Sheila, Jim (order of performers may vary)
5:00pm Dinner Break and “Swapping Ground”
6:00pm Music & more by The Company Store Band
7:00-9:00pm Evening Kevin, Odds, Sheila, Jim (order of performers may vary)
GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY
Odds Bodkin visits Infant Jesus School in Nashua, NH to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for schoolchildren. After the three tales, he asks them intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »A Performance for Young Storytellers in New York State
The Genesee Valley Educational Partnership invites student storytellers onstage each year to try their storytelling skills before a live audience. This year, Odds Bodkin is the professional storyteller who will anchor the event with a special performance.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Kindergarteners
Odds Bodkin visits Lilja Elementary School in Natick, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for kindergarteners. After the three tales, he asks them intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Bartlett Elementary School in Manchester NH for an evening family performance GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST at Broomfield Middle-High School, Harvard MA
Odds Bodkin visits Broomfield Middle-High School in Harvard, MA to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST in a classics event for grades 6-12. Bodkin scores the tale with 12-string guitar and enacts numerous characters including Odysseus, the Lotus Eaters and Polyphemus the Cyclops. Time permitting, he then takes questions from the audience.
Get Details »LIBRARIES ROCK! Sing-Along Tales with a Solid Beat
LIBRARIES ROCK! Three great stories, three great sing-alongs!
KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN
Kids and parents will blast it out when Odds Bodkin invites them to learn simple, catchy songs and really SING as part of these three great stories. Here’s a mix of pure imagination, fun and music for the whole family!
With a pulsing beat on African thumb piano, first Odds tells KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY, a Togo folktale from West Africa. Odds invites the audience to add in creative rhythms with claps, finger snapping and harmonies.
Next, THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS hits with fast rock ‘n roll. This is Odds’ much-beloved and irreverent version of this Old Mother Goose tale. Performed with some of his best riffs on 6-string guitar.
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN features the hilarious voices of a giant, a dog, Finn and his wife Oona, and their house guest, Big Gall. All with a fabulous driving rhythm on 12-string guitar and a refrain we all sing together: “Hoy that hurts!”
Kids leave motivated to use their imaginations even more. Odds reminds them that the best way to do that is summer reading, and staying away from the “summer slide.”
Get Details »ODDS BODKIN FREE MUSIC CONCERT/Harp and Guitars
Odds Bodkin brings his 12-string guitars and Celtic harp for a morning of free-flowing instrumental music. Pull up a chair, order some breakfast from the Sweet Beet Market, and enjoy this informal porch concert.
Get Details »LIBRARIES ROCK! Sing-Along Songs With A Solid Beat
LIBRARIES ROCK! Sing-Along Stories With A Solid Beat with Odds Bodkin
Three great stories, three great sing-alongs!
KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN
Kids and parents will blast it out when Odds Bodkin invites them to learn simple, catchy songs and really SING as part of these three great stories. Here’s a mix of pure imagination, fun and music for the whole family!
With a pulsing beat on African thumb piano, first Odds tells KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY, a Togo folktale from West Africa. Odds invites the audience to add in creative rhythms with claps, finger snapping and harmonies.
Next, THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS hits with fast rock ‘n roll. This is Odds’ much-beloved and irreverent version of this Old Mother Goose tale. Performed with some of his best riffs on 6-string guitar.
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN features the hilarious voices of a giant, a dog, Finn and his wife Oona, and their house guest, Big Gall. All with a fabulous driving rhythm on 12-string guitar and a refrain we all sing together: “Hoy that hurts!”
Kids leave motivated to use their imaginations even more. Odds reminds them that the best way to do that is summer reading, and staying away from the “summer slide.”
Supported by the Ossippee Town Library.
Get Details »LIBRARIES ROCK! Sing-Along Tales With a Solid Beat
LIBRARIES ROCK! Three great stories, three great sing-alongs!
KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN
Kids and parents will blast it out when Odds Bodkin invites them to learn simple, catchy songs and really SING as part of these three great stories. Here’s a mix of pure imagination, fun and music for the whole family!
With a pulsing beat on African thumb piano, first Odds tells KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY, a Togo folktale from West Africa. Odds invites the audience to add in creative rhythms with claps, finger snapping and harmonies.
Next, THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS hits with fast rock ‘n roll. This is Odds’ much-beloved and irreverent version of this Old Mother Goose tale. Performed with some of his best riffs on 6-string guitar.
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN features the hilarious voices of a giant, a dog, Finn and his wife Oona, and their house guest, Big Gall. All with a fabulous driving rhythm on 12-string guitar and a refrain we all sing together: “Hoy that hurts!”
Kids leave motivated to use their imaginations even more. Odds reminds them that the best way to do that is summer reading, and staying away from the “summer slide.”
Get Details »A FAMILY STORIES EXTRAVAGANZA: Free to the Public
Odds Bodkin donates a free to the public FAMILY STORIES EXTRAVAGANZA performance at Brown Memorial Library in Bradford, NH. Families welcome. Enjoy stories for all ages with live music on 12-string guitars, Celtic harp and African sanza.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin performs GOLDEN RULE for YMCA campers in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin performs GOLDEN RULE for campers in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL/Adult Storytelling at Riverwalk Music Bar
Adult storytelling.
Killed by a love charm, Hercules is dead, but instead of awakening on Mt. Olympus as he was promised, he’s trapped in the Underworld with Hades and his reluctant queen, Persephone. She longs for news of the living and Hades demands that Hercules tell his life story in order to be freed. Forced to reflect on his murderous rages when young, the hero tells his own tale. Haunted by guilt after killing his wife and children, he’s given a path to redemption––a set of impossible labors. The Bull of Zeus. The Sacred Stag of Artemis. The Hydra. The Augean Stables. Twelve in all. But the tale doesn’t end there.
Odds Bodkin performs this award-winning story using vivid character voices, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar. He opens with an introduction to Hercules’ place in Greek mythology on Celtic harp.
Get Details »LIBRARIES ROCK: Sing-Along Tales with a Solid Beat
KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN
Kids and parents will blast it out when Odds Bodkin invites them to learn simple, catchy songs and really SING as part of these three great stories. Here’s a mix of pure imagination, fun and music for the whole family!
With a pulsing beat on African thumb piano, first Odds tells KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY, a Togo folktale from West Africa. Odds invites the audience to add in creative rhythms with claps, finger snapping and harmonies.
Next, THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS hits with fast rock ‘n roll. This is Odds’ much-beloved and irreverent version of this Old Mother Goose tale. Performed with some of his best riffs on 6-string guitar.
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN features the hilarious voices of a giant, a dog, Finn and his wife Oona, and their house guest, Big Gall. All with a fabulous driving rhythm on 12-string guitar and a refrain we all sing together: “Hoy that hurts!”
Kids leave motivated to use their imaginations even more. Odds reminds them that the best way to do that is summer reading, and staying away from the “summer slide.”
Get Details »LIBRARIES ROCK! Sing-Along Tales with a Solid Beat
LIBRARIES ROCK! Three great stories, three great sing-alongs!
KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY
THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN
Kids and parents will blast it out when Odds Bodkin invites them to learn simple, catchy songs and really SING as part of these three great stories. Here’s a mix of pure imagination, fun and music for the whole family!
With a pulsing beat on African thumb piano, first Odds tells KADDO, THE PEOPLE ARE HUNGRY, a Togo folktale from West Africa. Odds invites the audience to add in creative rhythms with claps, finger snapping and harmonies.
Next, THE ROCK N ROLL THREE LITTLE PIGS hits with fast rock ‘n roll. This is Odds’ much-beloved and irreverent version of this Old Mother Goose tale. Performed with some of his best riffs on 6-string guitar.
FINN MACCOOL AND THE BIG MAN features the hilarious voices of a giant, a dog, Finn and his wife Oona, and their house guest, Big Gall. All with a fabulous driving rhythm on 12-string guitar and a refrain we all sing together: “Hoy that hurts!”
Kids leave motivated to use their imaginations even more. Odds reminds them that the best way to do that is summer reading, and staying away from the “summer slide.”
Get Details »CAMP!
Odds Bodkin joins storytellers Simon Brooks and Karen Pillsworth for an evening of stories for special campers from across Vermont. CAMP! is a great organization that brings these kids together each year.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK I for Honors and Classics Students at Loyola University Maryland
Odds Bodkin’s THE ILIAD: BOOK I for Honors and Classics Students at Loyola University Maryland
Invited for the 9th year by Martha Taylor, Chair of Classics, Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland to perform THE ILIAD: BOOK I for Classics and Honors students and faculty. The 1-hour performance, accompanied with a score on 12-string guitar, explains the origins of the Trojan War in Bronze Age times and then recounts the fateful argument between Achilles and Agamemnon. Character voices include Kalkhas the Diviner, Kryses the Priest, Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Paris and others. The performance is held at the Student Union Building.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy (K-2 & 3-5 shows)
Odds Bodkin visits Israel Loring Elementary School in Sudbury, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. After each set of three tales, he asks K-2 and 3-5 students intriguing ethical questions about the tales they have just heard. An anti-bullying, empathy awareness presentation.
Get Details »
GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy (K-2 & 3-5)
Odds Bodkin visits Pleasant Street Elementary School in Laconia NH for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for grades K-2 and 3-5. Each distinct performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Generously underwritten by The Putnam Fund with the good offices of Charles Bradley.
Get Details »FALL OF THE TITANS/Adult Storytelling at Riverwalk Music Bar
Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin presents the epic tale of Gaia, first Titan of the ancient Greeks, her Titan children, Earth’s creation and the eventual overthrow of the Titans by Zeus and Gaia’s Olympian grandchildren. Based on Hesiod’s Theogony (Birth of the Gods) set down in 700 B.C., the tale is performed with a 12-string guitar score, character voices and vocal effects, interspersed with Greek mythological lore described during Celtic harp extemporizations.
A performance for adults. Contains violence and sexuality.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Holy Trinity School in Laconia NH for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Generously underwritten by The Putnam Fund with the good offices of Charles Bradley.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy (K-2 & 3-5)
Odds Bodkin visits Elm Street Elementary School in Laconia NH for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for grades K-2 and 3-5. Each distinct performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Generously underwritten by The Putnam Fund with the good offices of Charles Bradley.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy (K-2 and 3-5)
Odds Bodkin visits Woodland Heights School in Laconia NH for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for grades K-2 and 3-5. Each distinct performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Generously underwritten by The Putnam Fund with the good offices of Charles Bradley.
Get Details »DARK TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL: All New Horror Tales/Outdoors at the Sweet Beet Market
Storyteller Odds Bodkin returns to the Sweet Beet Market in Bradford, NH for an outdoor performance of 4 new tales of horror for adults. No children please.
RAIN DATE: Saturday, Sept. 20th at 8:00 pm.
The Demon Heads
Lost in the forest, a former samurai, now a Shinto priest, is taken in by men and women living in a hut. After protectively praying half the night, he discovers his five hosts’ headless bodies outside in the moonlight. Seeing no signs of a struggle and no blood, he realizes that out in the darkness, the ravenous, flying heads of the rokuro-kubi are gnawing at worms and squirrels, and that unless he fights back, they will soon fight over the best pieces of him. Told with characters, absolutely disgusting vocal effects and music on 12-string guitar.
The Infallible Doctor
In this old Latvian tale, a man meets Death on the road and to be spared strikes a deal: Death wants to be his first-born son’s godfather, and the terrified man agrees. Years later, the gifted boy, now a doctor, is famous because only he can see Death at the foot of the bed if the patient is to die. But then a beautiful girl enters the picture and the infallible doctor is torn between his fame and ordinariness. Told with numerous characters, vocal effects and a score on Celtic harp.
Sedna the Ocean Mother
One of Odds Bodkin’s most nightmarish primitive myths, especially for women, this Inuit tale of starvation, forced marriage and ultimate betrayal to supernatural powers is more than unsettling. Driven by relentless themes of winds, waves and seabirds, both vocally and on 12-string guitar, this Eskimo origin tale’s characters are truly horrifying. The tale won Odds an adjunct professorship at Antioch University New England years ago, after being told to an adult audience.
The Phantom Train of Marshall’s Pass
A train engineer, thinking his guilty past remains his secret alone, takes the Number 9 up out of Denver to cross the Great Divide on the night run. But the snow is flying and the Colorado is at flood stage tonight, and a strange twisting feeling invades his back. He remembers all those people he killed back in Pennsylvania, drunk on the job and not paying attention at his train switch. Now, on this night of snow squalls and trestle washouts, they’re finally coming for him. Told by Odds with characters, sounds, and virtuoso flat-picking on Taylor 6-string guitar.
HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror
HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror.
From man-eating werepanthers (think werewolves) who must kill their own father to a dark road wraith chased across New England by Nature’s vengeance, Odds Bodkin’s tales of horror build to climactic scenes in your imagination. Driven by virtuoso 12-string guitar playing, Celtic harp and other instruments along with riveting character voices and vocal effects, each of the evening’s tales are guaranteed to take you deep into your worst fears. And don’t forget the story of a greedy priest in Russia who bleeds everywhere he’s donned the skin of a dead goat.
Horrible, yes. Fun, yes. Plus ancient Celtic lore about the origins of All Hallow’s Eve.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror/Recording Event!
Be part of a live recording event with Odds Bodkin at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA on October 28, 2018 at 5 p.m. Stories include The Panther Boys, The Storm Breeder, The Goat-Horned Priest, The Phantom Train of Marshall’s Pass and The Girl Who Danced with the Devil. Instrumentation includes 12-string guitars, 6-string guitar, Celtic harp and alto recorder.
First, The Storm Breeder, performed on 12-string guitar. This American Colonial tale thunders to life in a fierce storm as a Boston Brahmin with a bad temper challenges the powers of heaven and hell. He loses and becomes a wraith of the roads, eternally chased by storms. Next, on Celtic harp, The Girl Who Danced with the Devil tells of how young Rose dances past midnight and Satan arrives to charm her as he sucks out her soul. After intermission, Odds picks up his alto recorder and plays Chinese motifs to underscore The Panther Boys, a terrifying tale of lycanthropy from Confucian China. Next, The Goat-Horned Priest, a Russian serf tale about a man’s frozen wife and a cruel priest who, to trick the old widower out of gold, dons the bloody skin and horns of a goat and rises at the old man’s window. The ruse works, but there’s a problem with the skin. Finally, on 6-string guitar, Odds tells the tale of a train engineer in the Rockies with a dark, murderous secret, and how the ghosts he left behind finally catch up with him one terrifying night.
Get Details »ALL-GRADES STORYTELLING MINI-CONCERTS/A 1-DAY RESIDENCY
Odds Bodkin returns to Page Hilltop School for a full day of storytelling mini-concerts for K, I, 2, 3, 4 and 5 grades over the course of the day.
Get Details »A STORYTELLING FAMILY CONCERT
Odds Bodkin presents an evening concert of stories for the kids and parents of Page Hilltop School in Ayer, MA.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST/Special 4th Grade Version
Odds Bodkin returns to Old Greenwich School in CT to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST in a special edition of the tale for 4th Graders.
Get Details »A CHRISTMAS CAROL In Dickens’ Words
With expressive character voices for Scrooge, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and many others, Odds Bodkin reads his one-hour version of Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. Drawn from Dickens’ novella, all the words in this performance are those of the great British author.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Shady Hill School in Cambridge MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY to students grades K-4. Odds follows up his three tales with intriguing ethical questions for the audience.
Get Details »THE WINTER CHERRIES: Holiday Tales from Around the World
Odds Bodkin tells THE WINTER CHERRIES: Holiday Tales from Around the World at J and F Farms in Derry, NH on December 8th at 1:00 p.m. Music-filled stories for the whole family come to life with characters, narration and music. Appropriate for all ages.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS/Adult Storytelling in Cambridge
Two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known lore (Thursday is Thor’s Day; Wednesday is Wotan’s Day) told by Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin. First, a tale of magic and illusion as Thor and Loki journey to Utgard, capital city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. Then, the Mead of Poetry, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his best friend who’s been murdered, his blood brewed into a wisdom-bestowing elixir. Told with 12-string guitar scores and Celtic harp musings, with character voices and vocal effects.
An adult storytelling performance.
Feast on Viking foodstuffs and strong spirits served by the staff at Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK ONE at Eaglebrook School
In past years, Odds Bodkin has performed The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for this audience of young men. This year, he’ll tell his companion tale from Homer, The Iliad: Book One. The war-shattering argument between Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior, and Agamemnon, the all-powerful Lord Marshall of the Greek armies besieging Troy, cleaves closely to Homer’s original. Odds prefaces the piece, however, with another episode from Greek mythology, The Apple of Discord. The 1-hour performance is scored with 12-string guitar and features voices for Achilles, Agamemnon, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Paris, and others.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST and Bronze Age Greek Lore
Odds Bodkin’s Odyssey in South Windsor CT January 2019
THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST and Bronze Age Greek Lore features Odds Bodkin’s 70-minute epic introduction to Homer’s The Odyssey, told in storyteller’s style with music on 12-string guitar. In addition, as he plays Celtic harp, Odds will explore Bronze Age Greek lore: Greek mythology and its origins plus how Singers of Tales like Homer were the cinema of the day.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE at The Riverwalk Music Bar
Odds Bodkin returns to the Riverwalk Music Bar in Nashua, NH for a Friday night performance of his blockbuster story, BEOWULF: The Only One. With an introduction to the 90-minute epic on Celtic harp, and the tale itself accompanied on 12-string guitar, Bodkin’s version of the oldest piece of literature in English tells the chilling, action-packed tale of the Viking hero, Beowulf. Humorous in places, grisly in others, the telling features character voices for Beowulf, Grendel the Beast, Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar of the Danes, Unferth the Doubter, Wyglaf the Thane, and others. Based on the original tale by an author lost to the mysteries of time.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Milford PA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Milford PA for a second performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Potter Road Elementary School in Framingham MA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grade 2. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Memorial Elementary School in Natick, MA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grade 2. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »WORLDS APART: TALES FOR LOVERS for Valentines’ Day/Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
For Valentine’s Day, master storyteller and musician Odds Bodkin tells two long love tales. First, The Crane Wife from ancient Japan, performed with Celtic harp. Adapted from Bodkin’s beloved picture book, this story explores love, trust and magic in a relationship. Next, on 12-string guitar, Bodkin performs The Dame Ragnell, a 14th century Arthurian tale centuries ahead of its time. The story asks the eternal question, “What does a woman desire most?”
Find a table, order up a special Valentine’s Day meal, and settle in for an evening of gorgeous storytelling.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Cove Elementary School in Beverly MA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Cove Elementary School in Beverly MA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades 3-5. The performance includes three stories with live music on Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS: A Performance and Workshop about Fairy Tales
A FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS performance of exemplary fairy tales told with music, characters and sounds, open to the public, begins at 10:00 a.m. Students chosen to participate in the follow-up FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS WORKSHOP convene at 11:00 a.m. with Odds to explore the elements of a classic fairy tale, and how to write their own. The workshop is for third – fifth grade children.
Get Details »STORYBLAST: A Storytelling Family Concert
With Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments Odds Bodkin tells his best family-friendly tales at this free concert. Bring the kids to Abbott Library in Sunapee, NH for a blast of imagination, laughter and amazement!
Get Details »STORYBLAST! A Family Storytelling Concert in Unity, New Hampshire
Sponsored by Unity Free Library, Odds Bodkin visits Unity Town Hall in Unity, NH to offer a 1-hour performance of his best, family friendly musical stories. All ages welcome, including babies! They’ll have a good time, too. Live music on Celtic harp, African thumb piano and 12-string guitar flavors these engaging, imagination-stimulating tales from around the world.
Get Details »BEOWULF: The Only One—Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin visits Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA to perform Beowulf: The Only One, his feature-length musical telling of Beowulf. Characters, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar animate this ancient tale of heroism and gratitude. Voices for Beowulf, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar and many others along with haunting motifs on guitar blend into a compelling and vivid imaginative experience. Bodkin’s telling is based closely on the original Beowulf manuscript, the earliest known piece of literature in English.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Bresnahan Elementary School in Newburyport MA for three performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-3 students. Each performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »FALL OF THE TITANS: Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
If you love Greek mythology, this is where it all starts—with the Titans. With Gaia, the first of them all, who, with her sky-lover, spawns a crew of perfect giants who build the earth. The happy family falls apart, however, when Gaia gives birth to hideous monsters who threaten them all. Soon betrayal, castration and the strange births of hated grandchildren drive this epic tale, grandchildren who, it turns out in the end, are the Titans’ most dangerous enemy–the Gods of Olympus.
Join Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin as he presents Fall of the Titans, the epic core of myths first set down by the poet Hesiod in 700 B.C. Bodkin uses character voices, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar to bring the tale to life. He introduces the tale while playing Celtic harp.
The performance contains violence and sexuality. No children please.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Hillsboro-Deering Elementary School in Hillsboro NH for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2 and 3-5. Each performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits Laconia Middle School in New Hampshire to perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for a middle school audience. With a full score on 12-string guitar and numerous character voices and vocal effects, Odds’ version recounts the Sack of Troy, the Battle at Ismaros, The Great Storm, The Lotus Eaters and lastly, The Cave of the Cyclops.
Generously underwritten by The Putnam Fund with the good offices of Charles Bradley.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits The Newton School in South Strafford, VT for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-4. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits James Faulkner Elementary School in Stoddard NH for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-5. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL for the New Hampshire Classical Association’s Classics Day
Odds Bodkin returns to the Dana Center at St. Anselm College to perform HERCULES IN HELL for the New Hampshire Classical Association’s Classics Day.
This compelling, rugged tale explores the genuine myth of Hercules, the ancient Greek hero, from his early murders and madness through his 12 Labors to his bizarre death. Odds Bodkin accompanies the tale with a full score on 12-string guitar and tells it using voices for Hercules, Hades, Persephone and a host of other gods and mortals. Ultimately, a tale about learning empathy and self-control. And a solid exploration of Greek mythology for young people.
Get Details »TALES OF THE SUN AND MOON at the Children and the Arts Festival
Odds Bodkin performs TALES OF THE SUN AND MOON in Bass Hall, Peterborough NH at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. with 12-string guitar, alto recorder and Celtic harp.
Get Details »StoryScience: An Ancient Earth Myth Meets Modern Earth Science
Odds Bodkin visits Walpole, NH to perform StoryScience for grades 5-8, a program that combines Fall of the Titans, an ancient Greek origin myth, with Buildup of Knowledge, a multi-media presentation that contrasts modern with ancient ways of thinking about the Earth.
Get Details »RIP ROARIN’ PAUL BUNYAN TALES: An American Storytelling
Odds Bodkin visits Auburn Public Library in Auburn ME for an evening performance of Paul Bunyan American Tall Tales. Introduced with 6-string guitar, Odds brings forth Sourdough Sam, the inimitable chronicler of Paul Bunyan’s astonishing feats. Sam tells the stories, leaving Odds behind somewhere. The stories are filled with character voices, vocal sound effects and long-lost linguistic malapropisms. And they are funny. A family performance.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL: A Performance for Teens
Odds Bodkin visits Auburn Public Library in Auburn ME to perform HERCULES IN HELL for a teen audience. This compelling, rugged tale explores the genuine myth of Hercules, the ancient Greek hero, from his early murders and madness through his 12 Labors to his bizarre death. Odds Bodkin accompanies the tale with a full score on 12-string guitar and tells it using voices for Hercules, Hades, Persephone and a host of other gods and mortals. Ultimately, a tale about learning empathy and self-control. And a solid exploration of Greek mythology for young people.
Get Details »FABLE, FAIRY TALE, MYTH: A Universe of Stories
Fable, Fairy Tale, Myth:
A Universe of Stories
Odds Bodkin
From the universe of stories come three different types of tales.
What’s a fable?
What’s a fairy tale?
What’s a myth?
Find out as Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin tells one of each with character voices, music and audience participation. The hour-long show is appropriate for all ages.
The Boys and the Frogs: An Aesop’s Fable on Celtic harp
The Little Shepherd: An Italian Fairy Tale on 12-string guitar
Finn MacCool and the Big Man: An Irish myth with a song on 12-string guitar
Join Odds Bodkin outdoors at the gazebo. Just bring a blanket or chair and settle in for some storytelling fun!
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast…adult storytelling in New Hampshire
Odds Bodkin returns to the Riverwalk Cafe and Music Bar to perform his renowned tour de force, THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST Saturday night, July 27, 2019, at 8 pm.
Get Details »CAMP! A Storytelling Benefit for Kids with Simon Brooks and Karen Pillsworth
Odds teams up with storytellers Simon Brooks and Karen Pillsworth to entertain a group of special campers from Vermont. A benefit performance for CAMP!
Get Details »THE OLD MAN SPEAKS
Commissioned by Robert White of the White Mountains Trail Crew Association of the AMC, THE OLD MAN SPEAKS is a new epic by Odds Bodkin that recounts two centuries of trail building in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The work is scored with 12-string guitar, 6-string guitar and Celtic harp.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST at Loyola University Maryland
Odds Bodkin returns for the tenth year to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for Classics and Honors students and faculty at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore. The 70-minute performance is scored throughout on 12-string guitar. Professor Martha Taylor, Chair of Classics at Loyola, writes, “students are clamoring for him to return.”
Get Details »DANIKA THE ROSE: Odds Bodkin’s Fable set to Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets/The Children’s Version
Mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil and soprano Sarah Shafer join Odds Bodkin for an outreach performance of DANIKA THE ROSE: The Children’s Version.
Along with writing symphonies, composer Antonin Dvorak also wrote a set of Moravian Duets for female voices. Odds Bodkin’s original fairy tale, Danika the Rose, is crafted around story episodes suggested by Dvorak’s songs.
Odds tells the tale of lovely young Danika, a girl trapped between an evil duke’s desires and a faithful huntsman’s love. Weaving through the magic-filled tale are Dvorak’s classical duets sung by Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, accompanied at the piano by Emely Phelps.
Produced by Electric Earth Concerts.
Get Details »DANIKA THE ROSE: Odds Bodkin’s Fable set to Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets/The Children’s Version
Mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil and soprano Sarah Shafer join Odds Bodkin for an outreach performance of DANIKA THE ROSE: The Children’s Version.
Along with writing symphonies, composer Antonin Dvorak also wrote a set of Moravian Duets for female voices. Odds Bodkin’s original fairy tale, Danika the Rose, is crafted around story episodes suggested by Dvorak’s songs.
Odds tells the tale of lovely young Danika, a girl trapped between an evil duke’s desires and a faithful huntsman’s love. Weaving through the magic-filled tale are Dvorak’s classical duets sung by Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, accompanied at the piano by Emely Phelps.
Produced by Electric Earth Concerts.
Get Details »DANIKA THE ROSE: Odds Bodkin’s Fable set to Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets/Premiere of The Adult Version
Mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil and soprano Sarah Shafer join Odds Bodkin for the premier of DANIKA THE ROSE: The Adult Version. Two angelic voices with a piano accompaniment interweave duets with Odds Bodkin’s powerful new tale, featuring voices for Danika, Dano the Arrow, Duke Maximilian, and many others.
Along with writing symphonies, composer Antonin Dvorak also wrote a set of Moravian Duets for female voices. Odds Bodkin’s original fairy tale, Danika the Rose, is crafted around story episodes suggested by Dvorak’s songs.
In this first of its kind performance, Odds tells the tale of lovely young Danika, a girl trapped between an evil duke’s desires and a faithful huntsman’s love. Weaving through the magic-filled tale are Dvorak’s classical duets, sung by Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, accompanied at the piano by Emely Phelps.
Produced by Electric Earth Concerts.
Get Details »HERCULES IN HELL: A Private Performance
HEARTPOUNDERS II: HALLOWEEN TALES OF HORROR in Warner NH/Benefit Concert
To benefit the New Hampshire Telephone Museum in Warner, NH Odds Bodkin performs HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN TALES OF HORROR II on Friday, October. 18th, 2019 at 7 p.m. in the Warner Town Hall. Recommended for teens and hearty adults, and no young children, please, this show features Mr. Bodkin’s most terrifying tales for Halloween, accompanied with live music on multiple acoustic instruments. Features The Demon Heads: A Tale from Japan, Sedna: The Ocean Mother (an Eskimo tale), The Phantom Train of Marshall’s Pass and The Infallible Doctor, a Latvian tale.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS I: Halloween Tales of Horror now OCT. 26TH!
Odds Bodkin returns to the Sweet Beet Market in Bradford NH for his third annual Halloween Horror Tales concert for adults. An outdoor performance. Bundle up and settle in with warm drinks and food. No children please. Features The Storm Breeder, a New England ghost legend, Treasure Trove, a Russian horror tale, The Panther Boys, a Chinese tale, and the debut of a NEW WORK of ghostly horror.
RAIN DATE: Oct. 26, 2019
Get Details »One-Day Storytelling Residency at Captain Samuel Douglas Academy
Odds Bodkin visits Captain Samuel Douglas Academy in Brookline, New Hampshire for a One-Day Storytelling Residency featuring one assembly performance and three in-class workshops.
Get Details »FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS 2-Day RESIDENCY: Write Your Own Fairy Tale
What makes a fairy tale? Well, for one thing, it has a happy ending. It’s also about leaving home and having adventures with animals who speak and magical people. In this residency, Odds Bodkin tells fairy tales in assemblies, and then teaches children how to write their own.
Get Details »FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS 2-DAY RESIDENCY: Write Your Own Fairy Tale
What makes a fairy tale? Well, for one thing, it has a happy ending. It’s also about leaving home and having adventures with animals who speak and magical people. In this residency, Odds Bodkin tells fairy tales in assemblies, and then teaches children how to write their own.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy for Grades 1-2 and 3-4
Odds Bodkin visits Bartlett Elementary School in Manchester, NH for two different performances of GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY. Each show features 3 stories with follow-up questions for the students.
Get Details »ODDS BODKIN’S MID-WINTER MIRACLES: Musical Tales for Christmas and Chanukah
Start off your Holiday Season with warm, exciting storytelling by Odds Bodkin. Your kids will love these musical tales, and you will, too. Told with 12-string guitars and Celtic harp, these folktales come from Old England, the Jewish Tradition and Old Germany. Told with character voices and song.
Get Details »MID-WINTER MIRACLES: Tales for Christmas and Chanukah
With 12-string guitars and Celtic harp Odds Bodkin tells warm, loving stories for Christmas and Chanukah. This performance is suitable for all ages. Grab the kids and come to Harvey-Mitchell Library in Epping, NH on December 6th at 6 pm!
Get Details »THE WINTER CHERRIES: Holiday Tales from Around the World
With Celtic harp and 12-string guitars, Odds Bodkin tells Holiday stories from around the world with rich, live music. Appropriate for all ages, this hour-long show is supported by the Mansfield Public Library. Bring the kids!
Get Details »MID-WINTER MIRACLES: Tales of Christmas and Chanukah
With music on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp, Odds Bodkin tells heartwarming tales of love and giving for the Holidays.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE
Odds Bodkin visits a private organization in Cambridge, MA for an adult performance of BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Back by popular demand, Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA to perform BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE, his feature-length musical telling of Beowulf. Characters, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar animate this ancient tale of heroism and gratitude. Voices for Beowulf, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar and many others along with haunting motifs on 12-string guitar blend into a compelling and vivid imaginative experience. Bodkin’s telling is based closely on the original Beowulf manuscript, the earliest known piece of literature in English.
Come feast on specially-prepared Viking foods and drinks, then settle in for lore on Celtic harp and then the long tale.
ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS Adult Storytelling at Zinger’s, Milford NH
With live music, characters and vocal effects, Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin tells two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known Viking lore (Did you know that Thursday is Thor’s Day and Wednesday is Wotan’s Day?).
First Odds offers background lore accompanied with Celtic harp. When did the Vikings travel and what was their mythic worldview? Why did they believe that Yggdrasil, the World Ash tree, held up the Nine Worlds of their cosmos? Learn how Viking travels during the Medieval Warm Period ended up naming Russia itself.
Then, accompanied by thunderous 12-string guitar, a tale of magic and illusion unfolds as Thor and Loki journey to Utgard, capital city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. At first they are confident, but all is not as it seems. A tale filled with both humor and adventure, with a stunning surprise ending.
After intermission, Odds offers more lore, and then performs The Mead of Poetry, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his murdered best friend. Evil dwarves have brewed Kvasir’s blood into a wisdom-bestowing elixir, but already it has changed hands. Told with a haunting 12-string guitar score and wild sound effects, not to mention the voices of numerous giants, this story is filled with intrigue, seduction, betrayal and murder.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Memorial Elementary School in Natick, MA for a performance of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. The performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy for 2nd Graders
Odds Bodkin returns to Potter Road Elementary School in Framingham MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY for an audience of 2nd graders. He follows up the 3 stories with intriguing ethical questions for the students.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square in Cambridge MA to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST. This feature-length evening of adult storytelling features ancient Greek lore explained as Odds plays Celtic harp, and then the tale itself accompanied with 12-string guitar. Told in modern English with character voices and vocal effects, this is one of Odds Bodkin’s most beloved performances, a favorite among university and adult audiences. From the Walls of Troy to the Cave of the Cyclops. Feast on traditional Greek cuisine, and then settle in for some high-end imagination entertainment.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy (K-2, 3-4)
Odds Bodkin visits Cove Elementary School in Beverly MA for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2 and 3-4. Each performance includes three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »MONSTERS AND MYTHS: A Performance at Brewster Academy
Odds Bodkin visits Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire for a MONSTERS AND MYTHS performance for High School students.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY at Old Greenwich School
Odds Bodkin returns to Old Greenwich School in Greenwich, CT to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST in a special 4th grade-appropriate version. Odds’ renowned telling from the Trojan Horse to the Cyclops’ Cave lasts an hour. Accompanied with 12-string guitar.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits Conant School in Acton MA to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for 4-6 graders.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square to perform ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS, his evening of Viking lore told with Celtic harp followed by two Viking myths, THOR’S JOURNEY TO UTGARD and THE MEAD OF POETRY. Each long tale is scored with a different 12-string guitar. Voices for Thor, Loki and Odin, along with a host of giants, dwarves and other curious characters bring these Norse myths to life. At times humorous, at times horrific, these stories are some of Odds’ best.
Come feast on Viking food and drink, and then settle in for a evening of the Mind’s Eye.
Get Details »CANCELLED: INDIA’S ANCIENTS: Tales from the Mahabharata/Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
The Mahabharata is one of the two “bibles” of Hinduism and is a treasure trove of wondrous tales. Shiva, Parvati, Ganesha, Indra–the Hindu gods are fascinating and compelling. As he plays his 12-string guitars in sitar fashion, Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den for his final 2020 Cambridge performance.
As always, Grendel’s Den will offer a specialty menu of delicious themed foods, this time from India.
CANCELLED DUE TO LOCKDOWN.
Get Details »POSTPONED: Three-Day Residency at St. Francis School, Goshen Kentucky/Day 1
Odds Bodkin visits St. Francis School in Kentucky to perform GOLDEN RULE shows and conduct follow-up storytelling workshops in this 3-day residency.
POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN.
Get Details »POSTPONED: Three-Day Residency at St. Francis School, Goshen Kentucky/Day 2
Odds Bodkin visits St. Francis School in Kentucky to perform GOLDEN RULE shows and conduct follow-up storytelling workshops in this 3-day residency.
POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN.
Get Details »POSTPONED: Evening Performance at St. Francis School, Goshen Kentucky
Odds Bodkin offers an evening of FAMILY STORYTELLING for the school community of St. Francis School in Goshen, Kentucky as part of his 3-day residency.
POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN.
Get Details »POSTPONED: Three-Day Residency at St. Francis School, Goshen Kentucky/Day 3
Odds Bodkin concludes his 3-Day Residency at St. Francis School in Goshen, Kentucky with Door to Imagination workshops for students.
POSTPONED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN.
Get Details »POSTPONED: HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY BULLY Middle School Performance w/ Q&A
Odds Bodkin visits Merrimack Middle School in Merrimack, NH to perform his hour-long tale of the legendary Greek hero, Hercules. Told with thunderous 12-string guitar and character voices, the tale explores the genuine myth of a troubled young Hercules and the violent adult he becomes, a hero who learns compassion only after completing his Twelve Labors.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE 1-DAY RESIDENCY/Performances and Workshops
Odds Bodkin visits Thorntons Ferry School in Merrimack, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 1-Day Residency. Students experience a music-filled performance of world stories about empathy, and then meet with Odds for fun, in-depth workshops that explore the ethics at work in the stories. A PreK-4th grade program.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE 1-DAY RESIDENCY/Performances and Workshops
Odds Bodkin visits Reeds Ferry School in Merrimack, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 1-Day Residency. Students experience a music-filled performance of world stories about empathy, and then meet with Odds for fun, in-depth workshops that explore the ethics at work in the stories. A PreK-4th grade program.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE 1-DAY RESIDENCY/Performances and Workshops
Odds Bodkin visits Mastricola Upper Elementary School in Merrimack, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 1-Day Residency. 5th-6th grade students experience a music-filled performance of world stories about empathy, and then meet with Odds for fun, in-depth workshops that explore the ethics at work in the stories. An upper grades GOLDEN RULE experience.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE 1-DAY RESIDENCY/Performances and Workshops
Odds Bodkin visits Mastricola Elementary School in Merrimack, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 1-Day Residency. Students experience a music-filled performance of world stories about empathy, and then meet with Odds for fun, in-depth workshops that explore the ethics at work in the stories. A PreK-4th grade program.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 and 3-4
Odds Bodkin visits Garrison Elementary School in Dover NH for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. The two different performances for K-2 and 3-4 each include three stories with live music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. After the three tales, he asks students intriguing ethical questions related to the tales they have just heard.
Get Details »ZOOM Performance for the Ayer MA Schools
Odds Bodkin performs a family storytelling concert on ZOOM for students and families of the Ayer, MA school district, courtesy of Page Hilltop Elementary School.
Get Details »POSTPONED: GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits the Albert Bridge School Fair held at Mt. Ascutney, Vermont, to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. Using African sanza, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar, Odds will tell three stories that focus on walking in the shoes of others.
Get Details »Introduction to The Odyssey: A ZOOM Performance for Grades 4-6
Odds Bodkin offers a Zoom performance of his INTRODUCTION TO THE ODYSSEY for the 4-6 graders of Torit Montessori School in Boston. Students receive an invitation and password to attend this virtual event at home.
Get Details »MAGICAL TALES with Odds Bodkin: A ZOOM School Performance for K-3
Odds Bodkin performs a MAGICAL TALES performance on ZOOM for the K-3 students of Torit Montessori School in Boston.
Get Details »ZOOM Concert: FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS for East Meadow Public Library
Odds Bodkin performs The Little Shepherd and The Tale of the Kittens, two wondrous Italian fairy tales, each scored on a different 12-string guitar. Voices, sound effects, fun adventure and lots of music. This ZOOM show is sponsored by East Meadow Public Library in East Meadow, New York.
Get Details »FALL OF THE TITANS: An Adult Storytelling on ZOOM
At first, she’s just a ball of molten glass 8,000 miles wide.
Gaia.
The primordial earth.
According to the ancient Greeks, she’s the first thing to emerge from the darkness of Chaos. Feeling lonely, she creates the mountains, the sea and the sky. Other children soon follow: streams, salt oceans, the sun and moon, death and memory–twelve titan children in all, perfect in every way. Sometimes they resemble humans, as Gaia can if she wishes. At other times, they are nature itself.
For eons, as her children sweep ecosystems across her surface, Gaia is a good mother to them all, until one day she gives birth to a threat–a Cyclops, and soon after, more monsters. Wisely, the Titans fear them. But Gaia loves her hideous giants.
Now the perfect family of Titans isn’t so lovely anymore, and prophecy drives her son Cronus to swallow his own newborn babies—Hera, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon, and others. Only the last baby escapes, helped by Gaia and the husband she castrated.
The baby’s name is Zeus.
She doesn’t know it, but by saving him, she has brought about the Fall of the Titans.
————–
In 700 B.C. the Greek poet Hesiod wrote his Theogony—or “birth of the gods”. This tale is Odds Bodkin’s storyteller’s version. A performance for adults. No young children please.
Sponsored by Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA. Special meal packages available in the Boston area.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK I for Loyola University Maryland on ZOOM
Odds Bodkin’s annual performance for the Classics and Honors students of Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore has moved to ZOOM for 2020. THE ILIAD: BOOK I is scored throughout with 12-string guitar and features character voices for Achilles, Agamemnon, Apollo, Khryses the Priest and a host of ancillary characters.
For over a decade, the Classics Department at Loyola has invited Odds each September to perform either THE ILIAD: BOOK I or THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST. This fall, Loyola has moved to remote learning, and has invited Odds to visit via ZOOM.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE 2-DAY ZOOM RESIDENCY Day 1
Odds Bodkin visits Simonds School in Warner, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 2-Day ZOOM Residency Program. After a 1-hour performance of musical tales about empathy, students attend workshops with the storyteller. We collectively recall each tale and then creatively rewrite it for better outcomes.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE 2-DAY ZOOM RESIDENCY Day 2
Odds Bodkin visits Simonds School in Warner, New Hampshire for a GOLDEN RULE 2-Day ZOOM Residency Program. After a 1-hour performance of musical tales about empathy, students attend workshops with the storyteller. We collectively recall each tale and then creatively rewrite it for better outcomes. Odds communicates with students from his HD video and sound studio.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits Kearsarge Gore Farm for a private performance of THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST. Before a socially distanced audience on the meadow, Odds will tell one of his most popular performance works of Greek mythology with Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. A private event.
Get Details »LIVE ZOOM PERFORMANCE: Hercules in Hell
After exploring ancient Greek lore as he plays Celtic harp, Odds Bodkin picks up his 12-string guitar to perform HERCULES IN HELL. Was the Hercules of myth a kind do-gooder? Hardly. He was prone to madness, which made his strength a terrifying presence for those around him. Odds tells this feature-length tale using vivid character voices and vocal effects with an ongoing score. Hercules’ murders. His enslavement to his weak cousin. His Twelve Labors. His years living as a woman. His final redemption. It’s all here in this magnificent tale originally commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Zoom performance features HD video and sound, and every screen is a front row seat. Bodkin has been called “a consummate storyteller” by The New York Times and “a modern-day Orpheus” by Billboard.
Tickets are $15.
This performance is sponsored by Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Horror for Syracuse University/A ZOOM Performance
Odds Bodkin returns to Syracuse University via Zoom for a performance of HEARTPOUNDERS: HALLOWEEN HORROR FOR ADULTS.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy for K-5 / A Zoom Concert for St. Francis School
Odds Bodkin visits St. Francis School in Goshen KY for a GOLDEN RULE performance on ZOOM. After the three stories, Odds opens a Q&A with students asking ethical questions based on the content of the tales they have just heard. GOLDEN RULE is a unique approach to issues of bullying versus kindness that one principal praised as “the best anti-bullying program we’ve ever had, hands down.”
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: A Zoom Virtual Concert
Odds Bodkin returns to ZOOM to perform ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2021 at 5 pm EST. Enjoy an introduction to Viking lore told with Celtic harp and then two Viking myths, THOR’S JOURNEY TO UTGARD and THE MEAD OF POETRY. Each long tale is scored with a different 12-string guitar. Voices for Thor, Loki and Odin, along with a host of giants, dwarves and other curious characters bring these Norse myths to life. At times humorous, at times horrific, these stories are some of Odds’ best.
Come settle in for a evening of the Mind’s Eye.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: TWO TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL for Eaglebrook School
Over Zoom Odds returns to Eaglebrook School to perform HEARTPOUNDERS: TWO TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL for boys in grades 6-8.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE: An Adult Storytelling on Zoom
Back by popular demand, Odds Bodkin returns with Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA to Zoom BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE, his feature-length musical telling of Beowulf. Characters, vocal effects and a full score on 12-string guitar animate this ancient tale of heroism and gratitude. Voices for Beowulf, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, King Hrothgar and many others along with haunting motifs on 12-string guitar blend into a compelling and vivid imaginative experience. Bodkin’s telling is based closely on the original Beowulf manuscript, the earliest known piece of literature in English.
Come settle in for lore on Celtic harp and then the long tale.
A listener’s review:
“This is the version that made me absolutely fall in love with the Beowulf story, and really understand why it has become such a classic piece of literature. There is such life and emotion in the way Bodkin tells it, that you just can’t get from reading it alone. He takes it from being a dry, unsentimental piece of curriculum and spins it into a deeply moving journey, I always find myself crying by the end of it.”
Get Details »SHE’S CLEVER, THAT ONE: Fairy Tales for Smart Girls. A Live ZOOM Show
In celebration of International Women’s Day, join Odds in this live online event as he tells his funniest, most clever fairy tales for and about girls.
Will Vasilisa outwit the all-powerful Tsar at his own riddles? Can Prezzemolina escape the wicked fairies and bring back Handsome Jack’s box? Will Kelsa spin a dungeon full of flax before she loses her head? And what is at the bottom of Marie’s ladder going down into the earth?
From around the world come his four classic stories. The Wise Little Girl, a tale from Russia. Prezzemolina, an astonishing yarn from Italy. The Three Spinning Fairies, a Grimm’s favorite with a refusal-to-be-bored message. And Tale of the Kittens, a sing-along story with a song you and your kids will never, ever forget.
From Odds Bodikin’s state-of-the-art Zoom studio he tells these tales with voices, sounds and lively music on 12-string guitars and Celtic harp.
Gather the whole family for the finest in live storytelling. Moms and dads will love it, too. Even little brothers will uncross their arms and sing along in the end!
Odds appears full-screen during the show. Your ticket buys your Zoom meeting invitation and password.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: A Private Adult Concert on ZOOM
Odds Bodkin performs ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS, an evening of Viking lore and two long mythic tales, for a private organization in Cambridge, MA. Music on two 12-string guitars and Celtic harp. The performance is delivered via ZOOM.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST on Zoom for Old Greenwich School
Odds Bodkin returns to Old Greenwich School on Zoom to perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for 3rd and 4th graders.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE / FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS RESIDENCY via ZOOM for Reeds Ferry School
Via Zoom, Odds Bodkin visits grades PreK-2 for a GOLDEN RULE performance and follow-up workshop and then grades 3-4 for a FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS performance and follow-up workshop at Reeds Ferry School in Merrimack New Hampshire. A full day of storytelling, music and conversation.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE RESIDENCY via ZOOM for Mastricola Elementary School
Odds Bodkin visits Mastricola Elementary School via ZOOM for 2 GOLDEN RULE performances with follow-up workshops for grades PreK-2 and 3-4. A full school day of exciting storytelling, music and conversation.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE RESIDENCY via ZOOM for Mastricola Upper Elementary School
Via Zoom, Odds Bodkin visits grades 5th and 6th graders at Mastricola Upper Elementary School in Merrimack New Hampshire, offering them two live storytelling performances, author discussions and follow-up workshops. A full day of storytelling, music and conversation.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE / FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS RESIDENCY via ZOOM for Thorntons Ferry School
Odds Bodkin visits Thorntons Ferry School via ZOOM for a GOLDEN RULE performances with a follow-up workshop for grades K-2 and a FAIRY FOLKS AND OLD OAKS performance and workshop for grades 3-4. A full school day of exciting storytelling, music and conversation.
Get Details »HERCULES: The Legendary Bully for Merrimack Middle School on ZOOM
From his ZOOM studio, Odds Bodkin performs an hour-long version of HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY BULLY, his version of the Greek myth of Hercules. Bodkin uses compelling character voices and a full score on 12-string guitar to bring this ancient myth to life.
Get Details »AN EVENING WITH ODDS BODKIN Adult Zoom Concert for East Meadow Public Library
Odds Bodkin visits East Meadow Public Library in East Meadow, New York via Zoom for an adult concert of music-filled stories.
Get Details »DANIKA THE ROSE with Jazimina MacNeil, Sarah Shafer and Jonathan Ware for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
With mezzo soprano Jazimina MacNeil, soprano Sarah Shafer, pianist Jonathan Ware and actor Brett Robinson, Odds Bodkin visits Philadelphia to perform DANIKA THE ROSE, his original adult fairy tale set to Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets. This hour and ten minute performance breathes with beautiful singing and music, live onstage. LiveStream tickets available at: https://www.pcmsconcerts.org/concerts/danika-the-rose/
Get Details »STORYBLAST for K-6 LIVE OUTDOOR PERFORMANCE
Odds Bodkin visits Mettawee Community School in Pawlet, Vermont to celebrate the end of school with a live, outdoor concert for students and staff.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert: A Live, In-Person Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Post Mills, Vermont to perform a STORYBLAST Family Concert before a live audience.
Get Details »Wedding as Officiant
As a Justice of the Peace, Odds Bodkin officiates a wedding.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert: A Live, In-Person Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Post Mills, Vermont to perform a STORYBLAST Family Concert before a live audience.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert: A Live, In-Person Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Post Mills, Vermont to perform a STORYBLAST Family Concert before a live audience.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert: A Live, In-Person Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Post Mills, Vermont to perform a STORYBLAST Family Concert before a live audience.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST at Loyola University Maryland for Classics and Honors Students
For the 11th year in a row, Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for an audience of Honors and Classics students plus faculty. 2020 necessitated a Zoom performance, but for 2021, the storyteller is live before his audience once again. The 70-minute show features characters, vocal effects, narration and a full score on 12-string guitar.
Get Details »Wedding Ceremony as a Justice of the Peace
As a New Hampshire Justice of the Peace, Odds Bodkin weds a couple on the summit of Mt. Sunapee.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert
Odds Bodkin inaugurates the Peterborough Town Library’s new performance space at 2 Concord Street, Peterborough NH with a STORYBLAST Family Concert. With music on two 12-string guitars, African thumb piano and Celtic harp, Odds tells his best family-friendly stories in a live show. The hour-long performance includes four tales, two of which invite the kids and adults to sing along.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror/Private Event
Odds Bodkin performs HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror at a bonfire event for the staff of Gunstock Mountain Resort in New Hampshire.
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror…A Live Concert on Zoom
Odds Bodkin Performs HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales of Horror on Friday, Oct. 29th at 7 pm EST on ZOOM
A Ticket @ $25 Buys Your Zoom Invitation and Password!
Over the years, countless listeners have requested Odds Bodkin’s classic recording of Dark Tales of the Supernatural, but it’s no longer available.
However you can see him LIVE on Zoom telling these bone-chilling tales with character voices, vocal effects and in-the-moment live acoustic music.
The Storm Breeder: An old New England legend of a cursed man eternally chased by thunderstorms, told with thundering 12-string guitar…The Girl Who Danced with the Devil, a French Canadian tale of a beautiful girl who dances a little too close to pure evil, told with Celtic harp…And a new horror tale from Samurai Japan, The Demon Heads, performed with modally tuned 12-string. Here’s the tale of a samurai turned Buddhist priest, who almost falls prey to forest demons who feed in a grotesque way. A chilling, utterly creepy tale, told with unnerving vocal sound effects.
Just log on, sit back, and watch the show on full screen! Includes a Q&A with the storyteller afterwards. Stay online and ask your questions in real time.
Definitely not recommended for young children. 10 and up are welcome.
Get Details »REAL FOLK: An Online Myths and Legends Concert with Charlotte Blake Alston, Simon Brooks and Odds Bodkin
Odds Bodkin joins renowned storytellers Charlotte Blake Alston and Simon Brooks for REAL FOLK: Legends, Myths, Folk and Fairy Tales. Produced by Six Feet Apart Productions. The online show starts at 8 pm EST and 5 pm PT. Tickets range from $5 to $25. Enjoy three master storytellers at work. As part of this family show, Odds will perform The Little Shepherd: The Wildest Fairy Tale Ever with 12-string guitar. The show is hosted by Claire Hennessy and will be available on YouTube Live.
Get Details »THE DOOR TO IMAGINATION: A Zoom Workshop for Choreographers in Geneva, Switzerland
Odds Bodkin conducts THE DOOR TO IMAGINATION: How to Awaken Your Inner Storyteller via Zoom for Ruth Childs, Dancer and Choreographer and her Creative Partners. The 4-hour workshop explores the Five Imaginations, mental imaging and how to craft music to accompany works of art. Learn more about Ruth Childs’ innovative work at https://ruthchilds.com/
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST on YouTube Live Jan. 30 at 7 pm EST–Rescheduled from Jan. 16
Dawn light shines dimly through the slats of the Trojan Horse as Odysseus reflects on his ten wasted years fighting at Troy. He misses his wife and son, not to mention the fallen heroes of The Iliad. If this trick works, however, the Trojans themselves will pull him and his squad of men into the walled city. The war will end, and he’ll be able to go home. Little does he know, the Fates won’t let him free so easily. He’s about to embark upon the ten-year journey that bears his name.
So begins Odds Bodkin’s 70-minute tour de force telling of Homer’s classic tale. The language is modern, the full score on 12-string guitar works like movie music, and characters come to life with dramatic voices. Odysseus, his men, the Lotus Eaters, and eventually, the deadly Cyclops roaring in his cave.
Odds Bodkin has performed this tale Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center, at Harvard, Dartmouth, yearly at Loyola, in Great Britain and before live adult audiences in Cambridge, MA. Join him for his special brand of cinematic storytelling during this YouTube Live broadcast, hosted by Six Feet Apart Productions.
“a consummate storyteller” – The New York Times
“a modern-day Orpheus” – Billboard
VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD: A World Premier Storytelling Event at Grendel’s Den
Odds Bodkin premiers his original epic fantasy tale in verse.
Meet Captain Phineas Krull, a murderous, poison-loving pirate sojourning through a high fantasy world. He’s just stolen a bejeweled sail ship—The Waistgold—that he discovers cannot be sunk. Stranger still, it is held together by the invisible power of its gem-studded wood.
As Krull is sailing to kill the Fell Beast–an entity that holds two seas apart in a wide straits–mysterious Queen Ood suddenly arrives to claim the ship she’s built, the one he’s stolen. Astoundingly, she arrives in boats without sails. Instead, her fast boats are powered by mysterious forces. The technology fascinates Phineas Krull, as well as how, in the middle of the trackless sea, she’s chased him down.
In the clash of wills that follows, a poetic adventure reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s ironic social commentaries unfolds.
Written and performed in pirate language, Voyage of the Waistgold is a 51-page epic poem told in Odds Bodkin’s pulsing verse. The poem contains violence, provocative ideas and sexual themes. Performed a cappella, this show is for adults only. If you’ve seen Odds Bodkin performances before, unlike his other tales, this one is performed without music. The music is carried by the verse. He will read from his original text.
Adult content. No children please.
The program lasts approximately 90 minutes with intermissions. Please do not plan to arrive after the performance has begun, as this is a live storytelling event that will be disrupted by late arrivals!
Venue will make an effort to seat parties together when possible. If you do not purchase all tickets for your party together, please email sayhi@grendelsden and inform us of all the names in the group that wish to sit together.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE–Live Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Join us at Grendel’s Den Restaurant & Bar for the most apropos selection in our series with Odds Bodkin. Master Storyteller and Musician, as he tells the Olde English epic that inspired our name!
Beowulf: The Only One, Odds Bodkin’s renowned epic tale, told with 12-string guitar music, is rugged, bloody and true to the original poem. Grateful to a Danish king for saving his father, a fearless Beowulf sails to Denmark to kill Grendel, a raiding demon. With Celtic harp extemporizations, Bodkin fills in the tale with some Viking history, including the Medieval Climate Optimum, even how Viking dragon ships were water-proofed.
The tale is told with an onging score on 12-string guitar, character voices, narration and sound effects.
Seating begins at 5pm for performance that begins at 5:30 PM.
The program lasts approximately 90 minutes with intermissions. Please do not plan to arrive after the performance has begun, as this is a live storytelling event that will be disrupted by late arrivals!
Venue will make an effort to seat parties together when possible. If you do not purchase all tickets for your party together, please email sayhi@grendelsden and inform us of all the names in the group that wish to sit together.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: Live Storytelling at Grendel’s Den
Join us at Grendel’s Den Restaurant & Bar to kick off the 2022 Boozing and Barding events with Master Story-Teller, Odds Bodkin.
Odin and Thor Battle the Frost Giants: Viking Adventure Myths. Two epic Viking myths wrapped in little-known lore told by Master Storyteller and Musician Odds Bodkin. First, a tale of magic and illusion as Thor and Loki journey to Utgard, capital city of their enemies, the Frost Giants. Then, the Mead of Poetry, the long tale of Odin’s search for the blood of his best friend who’s been murdered, his blood brewed into a wisdom-bestowing elixir. Told with 12-string guitar scores and Celtic harp musings, with character voices and vocal effects..
Tickets are for seating at community tables or the bar. Seating begins at 5pm for performance that begins at 5:30 PM. Themed food and drink menu will be offered for purchase, as well as Grendel’s Den’s regular offerings. The program lasts approximately 90 minutes with intermissions. Please do not plan to arrive after the performance has begun, as this is a live storytelling event that will be disrupted by late arrivals!
Venue will make an effort to seat parties together when possible. If you do not purchase all tickets for your party together, please email sayhi@grendelsden.com and inform us of all the names in the group that wish to sit together.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for K-2 and 3-5 Students/Two Performances
Odds Bodkin visits Cove School in Beverly MA for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY for K-2 and 3-5 students.
Get Details »Live Mini-Concerts for K-5 in a One Day Residency
Odds Bodkin returns to Page Hilltop Elementary School for 6 LIVE in-school shows for grades K-5. This 1-day residency features age-appropriate stories for each grade level.
Get Details »DANIKA THE ROSE at Groton School
Odds Bodkin joins mezzo soprano Jazimina MacNeil and other artists to perform DANIKA THE ROSE: Dvorak’s Moravian Duets Set to a Fairy Tale. This groundbreaking chamber music performance combines two sopranos, a pianist and Odds Bodkin’s characters and narrations to tell the tale of Danika, a girl torn between the affections of two men. One is a cruel duke, the other is his gamekeeper. The tale takes place in a magical duchy along the Danube. Created by Odds Bodkin and Jazimina MacNeil, DANIKA THE ROSE was most recently performed at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The performance is 70 minutes.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Kindergarteners
Odds Bodkin visits Memorial Elementary School in Natick, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy. With Celtic harp, African Kalimba and 12-string guitar, Odds performs three world tales and then leads a conversation about the kindness and empathy found in the stories.
Get Details »TALES OF THE GOLDEN RULE for K-2 Children and Families
Sponsored by Montshire Pediatric Dentistry, Odds Bodkin’s GOLDEN RULE performance for K-2 age children and parents features three vivid and funny tales from around the world about kindness. Performed with character voices and music on African thumb piano, Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. Come enjoy the show!
RAIN DATE: June 11, same time, same location
Get Details »TALES OF THE GOLDEN RULE for Children Grades 3-5 and Families
Sponsored by Montshire Pediatric Dentistry, Odds Bodkin’s GOLDEN RULE performance for children grades 3-5 and families features three stories from around the world about empathy. Performed with character voices and music on Celtic harp and 12-string guitar. Come enjoy the show!
RAIN DATE: June 11, same time, same location
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »Cave of the Cyclops on Zoom
Odds Bodkin performs Cave of the Cyclops from his legendary Odyssey epic for a private audience on Zoom.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »STORYBLAST Family Concert in Harrisville NH: Sesquicentennial Celebration!
In celebration of Harrisville’s Sesquicentennial, Odds Bodkin visits the classic Brick Church by the water to perform a STORYBLAST Family Concert at 5:15 pm on July 22, 2022. With 12-string guitars and African sanza, he’ll tell family-friendly tales with singalongs for the kids. This performance is free to the public and is sponsored by the Harrisville Public Library.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »STORYBLAST! Family Concert
Odds Bodkin visits Ohana Family Camp in Vermont for an after-dinner STORYBLAST! concert.
Get Details »THE ILIAD: BOOK I at Loyola University Maryland
Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland for the 13th year in a row to perform The Iliad: Book i for an audience of Classics and Honors students and faculty. Mr. Bodkin accompanies his tale with a full score on 12-string guitar.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS: Odds Bodkin Storytelling in Keene, NH
Catch some genuine, non-Hollywood Viking mythology and learn how our days of the week and Russia got their names. While playing harp, Odds delves into Norse lore, and then performs two long mythic adventures—Thor Against the Frost Giants and The Mead of Poetry—both performed on thunderous 12-string guitars.
Get Details »Spooky Tales for K-2 Students
Odds Bodkin visits East Gloucester Elementary School in Gloucester, MA to perform Spooky Tales for K-2 students.
Get Details »Dark Tales of the Supernatural for Grades 3-5
Odds Bodkin visits East Gloucester Elementary School to perform Dark Tales of the Supernatural for Grades 3-5.
Get Details »Spooky Tales for Families
Odds Bodkin visits Carlisle, MA to perform Spooky Tales for Families at a gathering.
Get Details »SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES
Odds Bodkin performs his best spooky tales for young families at Libby Cass Library in Springfield, New Hampshire. Music, fun and a few child-manageable thrills!
Get Details »HEARTPOUNDERS: Halloween Tales for Adults/Private Corporate Event
Odds Bodkin regales an adult audience with his best tales of the supernatural. A staff appreciation event.
Get Details »FOREST DEMONS, WRAITHS AND WERECATS: The Lore of Horror in Keene NH
All cultures tell tales of the undead, lycanthropes and monsters of the night. Playing multiple instruments, Odds Bodkin performs an evening of his best international terror tales. The Storm Breeder. The Panther Boys. The Demon Heads. And more.
Get Details »VOYAGE OF THE WAISTGOLD
A highly intelligent but murderous pirate steals a dark sloop to complete his mysterious life’s mission. That The Waistgold’s wheel is encrusted with gems and her decks are fine parquetry, well, that’s stunning enough. But when Phineas Krull learns that she cannot sink—even when upside down in the sea—he marvels at this ship’s magical construction. It’s a wonder. But who built this strange craft? It’s only after he discovers a blood-soaked journal and learns who built The Waistgold—and that she’s probably coming for him–that his wonder turns to worry.
Written in pirate patois, Voyage of the Waistgold is Odds Bodkin’s original story performed in pulsing doggerel verse. It’s told from the pirate’s first-person view. Somewhere between Jonathan Swift’s cutting social commentary and William Burroughs’ drugged-addled visions, this at times humorous, at times shocking high fantasy tale is for mature adults only. 90 minutes with intermission.
And at the end, there’s a stunning revelation.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: WORLD STORIES ABOUT EMPATHY for K-2
Odds Bodkin visits Bancroft Elementary School to perform GOLDEN RULE tales for K-2 students.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades 3-5
Odds Bodkin visits Bancroft Elementary School in Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE tales for grades 3-5.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits White River Valley School to perform GOLDEN RULE tales for elementary students.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
Odds Bodkin visits White River Valley School to perform THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast for high school students.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast in Keene, NH
With a haunting score on 12-string guitar, Odds takes you inside the Trojan Horse at the Gates of Troy. We’re hearing the thoughts of the hero Odysseus, who wants to get this war over with and go straight home. But instead, the Fates have decreed a terrifying sea journey for him and his crew, one where everything goes wrong.
Come enjoy Bodkin’s renowned retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, and experience sea storms, drugged Lotus Eaters and a roaring Cyclops along the way.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2
Odds Bodkin returns to Cove Elementary School in Beverly, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE tales for grades K-2. Music on Celtic harp, sanza and 12-string guitar.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades 3-4
Odds Bodkin returns to Cove Elementary School in Beverly MA to tell GOLDEN RULE tales to grades 3-4 using Celtic harp and 12-string guitar.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2
Odds Bodkin visits Clifford Granger Elementary School to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades K-2.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy for Grades 3-4
Odds Bodkin visits Clifford Granger Elementary School to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 3-4.
Get Details »12th Night Celebration in Cabot, Vermont: Family STORYBLAST! Concert
CABOT ARTS welcomes Odds Bodkin for a family STORYBLAST! concert onstage at Cabot, Vermont’s 12th Night Celebration Jan. 7, 2023. The show begins at 1:25 pm. Bring the whole family for musical storytelling!
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for Grades K-1 and 2-3 (Two Performances)
Odds Bodkin visits Warren Elementary School for two performances of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy for 2nd Graders
Odds Bodkin returns to Memorial School in Natick, MA to perform Golden Rule stories for 2nd graders.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for 5th and 6th Grade Students
Odds Bodkin visits Groton Dunstable Middle School in Groton, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades 5-6. Music on 12-string guitar and Celtic harp accompanies the three tales.
Get Details »A Day of Stories for K-5 Plus an Evening Concert for Families
Odds Bodkin returns to Page Hilltop School for a day of mini-shows for K-5 students, followed by a concert for families at 6:30 pm.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE All-School Assembly Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Thomson Elementary School in North Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 1-5.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE All-School Assembly Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Sargent Elementary School in North Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 1-5.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE All-School Assembly Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Franklin Elementary School in North Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 1-5.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE All-School Assembly Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Kittredge Elementary School in North Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 1-5.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 Students
Odds Bodkin visits Kearsarge Regional Elementary School in New London, NH to perform GOLDEN RULE for K-2 students.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE All-School Assembly Performance
Odds Bodkin visits Atkinson Elementary School in North Andover, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE stories for grades 1-5
Get Details »A Bards’ Farewell to a Bard
A private event.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST University Performance
Odds Bodkin returns to Loyola University Maryland for the 15th year in a row to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST for Classics and Honors students and faculty.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy/Two Performances K-2 and 3-4
Odds Bodkin returns to Cove Elementary School in Beverly, MA to perform GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 and 3-4 students.
Get Details »Spooky Tales for Young Families
Odds Bodkin performs SPOOKY TALES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES at a gathering in Carlisle, MA.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy–Public Library Performance in Vermont
With 12-string guitar, African thumb piano and Celtic harp, Odds Bodkin performs three tales about empathy from around the world at Kellogg- Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont. The event is free to the public.
Get Details »WONDER TALES for K-2 and 3-4 Students
After two GOLDEN RULE shows last year, Odds Bodkin returns to Granger Elementary School to perform new stories in shows for K-2 and 3-4 students.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS at Nova Arts, Keene NH
Odds Bodkin returns to Nova Arts in Keene, NH for an evening of Viking myths. The show begins at 7 pm. Two giant stories: THOR AGAINST THE FROST GIANTS and THE MEAD OF POETRY. Accompanied with 12-string guitars and Celtic harp. Amazing character voices, humor and narration. Tickets are $25.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for Grades K-2 and 3-4
THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast at Fay School
Odds Bodkin returns to Fay School to perform THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast for high school students.
Get Details »ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge
Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square to perform ODIN AND THOR BATTLE THE FROST GIANTS, his full evening of Viking tales and lore. Two 12-string guitars and Celtic harp infuse these tales with dynamic music. Stunning characters, vocal effects and elegant narrative combine for a cinematic adult storytelling experience. Tickets are limited. Reserve your seats today!
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for Grades K-2 and 3-5 (2 performances)
Odds Bodkin visits East Veterans Memorial School in Gloucester MA to perform two GOLDEN RULE storytelling shows for grades K-2 and 3-5.
Get Details »BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA
Called a “consummate storyteller” by the New York Times, Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square to perform his full evening of adult storytelling entertainment, BEOWULF: THE ONLY ONE. The Old English epic is transformed into an accessible and gripping adventure as Bodkin plays virtuoso music on 12-string guitar while he tells this timeless adventure story. Character voices for Beowulf, Grendel the Beast, Hrothgar the Danish King, Unferth and many others bring this intense adult tale to life. No children under 12, please.
Odds Bodkin has returned to Grendel’s Den, an intimate venue, for 12 years in a row. Cambridge audiences enjoy his one-of-a-kind shows, so buy your tickets early. Drink mead and order Viking-inspired cuisine before the show, and then sit back for a wild evening of imagination entertainment.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE for Kindergarteners
Odds Bodkin returns to Memorial School in Natick MA to perform GOLDEN RULE for kindergarteners.
Get Details »THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA on March 10
Odds Bodkin returns to Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square to perform THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST, his full evening of adult storytelling entertainment. Homer’s epic comes to life with acted voices, vocal effects and a moving live score on 12-string guitar. Journey with Odysseus of Ithaca from the Plain of Troy deep into his decade-long journey home. The New York Times calls Odds Bodkin “a consummate storyteller.” Tickets are $35.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 and 3-4
Odds Bodkin returns to Garrison Elementary School to perform two shows of GOLDEN RULE: World Stories About Empathy for K-2 and 3-4 audiences.
Get Details »GOLDEN RULE: World Stories about Empathy
Odds Bodkin visits Cole School to perform GOLDEN RULE for PreK-2nd graders.,
Get Details »