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PROFESSOR REVIEWS ODDS BODKIN’S UNIVERSITY SHOW ON ZOOM

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Joseph Walsh is the current Chair of Classics and Co-Director of the Honors Program at Loyola University Maryland. On September 10, 2020, storyteller Odds Bodkin and Walsh tried an experiment: since the university went completely virtual for Fall, would Bodkin’s annual Classics performance of The Iliad or The Odyssey work on Zoom?

Here is Walsh’s review:

“Odds Bodkin has been thrilling our students every Fall for years now with his live performances, and this year’s zoom performance of Iliad Book 1 was every bit as successful. We have gotten a good deal of feedback from the attendees, and it indicates that they were mesmerized, as usual.  Indeed, several students who had seen Odds perform in the past – and he has fans who come back every year – considered it even better.  They loved the fact that they could see his face up close, watch his fingers dance across his guitar and harp, and they thought not a bit of the usual intensity and beauty of his performance was lost.  I agree.  It was just terrific.  Several students said they broke out into applause at the end, even though they knew Odds could not hear them, and a few even said they gave him a standing ovation, though they knew he could not see them.  They were just carried away, as was I.  We were a bit apprehensive about having a zoom performance, but our apprehensions were completely unfounded.  Great performance, as usual, and every bit as impactful.  And it transported our students, who are studying remotely and feeling confined and disappointed with the current circumstances, beyond their homes, beyond these times, and beyond this world.”

Bodkin’s next Zoom performance is yet another of his renowned tellings of Greek myths. Hercules in Hell comes online live on Sunday, Oct. 18 at 5 pm EST. Buy a ticket, get your Zoom invitation, and settle in for an epic imaginative experience.

An Endangered Tradition Makes the Leap to ZOOM

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It’s been thirteen years since Martha Taylor, Chair of Classics at Loyola University Maryland, first invited me to perform The Iliad or The Odyssey live before her audience of Classics and Honors students. Every September since then, I’ve journeyed to Baltimore, stayed with my sister Lindsay at her place outside the city, and then gone to campus for one of the two shows. Afterwards, Martha and Joe Walsh, another amazing Classics professor, would always take me out for some fine dining.

Then came Covid and the university went totally remote for the fall semester. No students on campus. Everybody on Zoom. As with so many traditions, here was another one endangered by the virus. I though for sure it was over.

But guess what? Last night, with my excellent Zoom producer Gavin Bodkin and event techs from Loyola co-coordinating, I performed The Iliad: Book I live at 7 pm. It worked! A hundred and twenty-nine students logged on and they all stayed at their screens for the entire telling. We followed with a live Q&A, and all but three stayed for that. They even typed in their questions, lots of them, about the music and character voices, and I answered onscreen, explaining how it was done. It was a solid hour and lots of fun.

No fine dining this year, but the show went on.

The art was made.

I am pleased as punch.

My next ZOOM concert is THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST sponsored by Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA.

Sunday Sept. 20th at 5 pm EST.

Tickets: $15 per screen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter from an Educator, a Young Man in an American School

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Mr. Bodkin,

Thank you so much for the consideration and time to send this to me. Like your impact on myself and many people who have heard your stories, this means more than you know.

This is my fifth year teaching The Odyssey in my curriculum, and at the end of class, when I play your stories, I can see the scenes flash across my students’ faces as they listen. Ironically, many of my students have had troubled pasts and special needs, but I rarely see them so at peace as when we hear your tales. They’ll work their tales (sic) off to ensure that we get a daily dose of storytelling at the end of each period.

The demand has been so high, that I’ve had to find a way to cram some passages from The Iliad into the curriculum after the break (a quality problem for an educator to have)…and I think we’ll just have to do a Beowulf unit with some of the Sophomores.

I’m humbled and thankful to have received this help from you during such a busy time. I know many of your fans will be eagerly awaiting the chance to read your book!

Merry Christmas, and thank you so much once again,

-Peter R. Best

AN ODDS BODKIN CLASSICS MONTH IN GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS

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The stars have aligned for Homer’s tales this coming January 2018 in Groton, Massachusetts. Two fine independent schools, Lawrence Academy and Groton School, have invited Odds Bodkin to perform his Homeric classics two weeks apart.

First, on January 12th at 6 p.m., Lawrence Academy hosts The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast, Odds’ 75-minute storytelling powerhouse tale, as a performance for students and open to the public. Haunting 12-string guitar music, grafted adroitly onto Bodkin’s characters, plus narrative and uncanny vocal effects, all combine to take listeners through the beginning of Odysseus’s wild journey. Longing for his wife and son after ten years of war, he’s homeward bound from Troy at last, but the Fates intervene. The tale includes the Fall of Troy, Death on the Beach, the Great Storm, Isle of the Lotus Eaters and lastly, the deadly Cave of the Cyclops.

But Homer’s other great work, The Iliad, goes back in time to before Troy falls. And so Groton School has invited Odds to perform The Iliad: Book I, his hour-long psychodrama with music that explores everything from insulted goddesses to furious men at loggerheads on the battlefield. The show is at 8 p.m. on January 26th, 2017. Characters for Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Achilles, Agamemnon and a host of others bring the tale to life, along with Olympian themes performed on 12-string guitar.

Two of the greatest tales of Western literature, performed in modern storytelling style along with background lore, are coming to Groton, MA.

If you can’t be in New England next month, you can still experience them as an audio and a video, here at Odds Bodkin’s Shop.

Odds Bodkin’s THE ILIAD:BOOK I Live Performance Video

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts is a fine private high school on a hill, and I was privileged to appear there recently before the entire student body one morning. Invited to perform one of my favorite pieces for high school and university audiences, The Iliad: Book I, I had a great time. Along with my long-form telling of The Odyssey (available at my download shop), it’s my homage to Homer. Loving his epics as I do, and wishing that many more young people read them for their timeless messages, I modernize these ancient tales as audios with character voices, music and accessible English.

Only this time, the show was captured on video. Jay Sharron, Cushing’s Media Production Coordinator, shot the performance before a live audience.

It’s now available in four parts as a 322 mb download, mobile quality video.

Find it here!